A Jefferson County jury convicted an Arvada man of first-degree murder on Thursday for the 2022 shooting death of an Arvada police officer.

Sonny Almanza, 32, faces life in prison without parole at his sentencing on Dec. 14 for the murder of Arvada Police Officer Dillon Vakoff.

Jurors also convicted Almanza of seven other counts, including first-degree murder of a peace officer, first-degree murder with extreme indifference, two counts of criminal attempt of second-degree murder, second-degree assault, possession of a large-capacity magazine and first-degree trespassing.

Almanza showed no emotion as First Judicial District Court Judge Russell Klein read the verdicts.

Some of his relatives cried; others were visibly angry.

One of them stood up in the gallery and addressed the rows of law enforcement who were in the courtroom in support of Vakoff’s family.

“You guys are all crooked,” he said. “My brother’s still alive. He’s dead.”

None of the officers responded to the unnamed man’s words, their gaze straight ahead.

Vakoff’s girlfriend, Megan Esslinger, dressed in uniform, nodded her head as each count was read. Vakoff’s uniform, which had been brought out as part of the evidence, was placed near a wall by the prosecutors where everyone could see it.

“Dillon did everything right,” said Arvada Police Chief Ed Brady.

A strong wind blew as he addressed reporters outside of the courthouse after the verdict was announced.

“He was the victim of an evil act,” Brady said. “Dillon was there that night to keep the peace.”

First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King thanked the jury, saying the latter had been “privy to the horrendous details” of Vakoff’s death.

Images and sound from police body-worn video cameras played for the jury showed that Almanza shot Vakoff with an AR-15 rifle during a family dispute on Sept. 11, 2022.

Vakoff and his partner were assigned to respond to a family dispute at 1:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2022. They arrived at 6753 W. 51st Ave. at 1:50 a.m., Senior Deputy District Attorney Tracy Schroeder noted in her closing statements.

By 1:56 a.m., Vakoff was dead — shot in the mouth and in the left leg and grazed in the head by gunfire.

Schroeder said during closing statements that Almanza fired eight shots in Vakoff’s direction. A single, earlier, shot from the AR-15 hit the sister of Almanza’s ex-girlfriend in the leg.

Almanza’s attorney, Nancy Holton, said during her closing statements that the case was “overcharged” and asked for the jury to consider finding him guilty of lesser counts, including third-degree assault.

“He knows he made a mistake,” she said. “He believed that he was acting in self defense. He believed his ex-girlfriend’s brother had shot him.”

Jurors deliberated for nearly eight hours. They had two questions for Klein, both of them asking for explanations regarding the lesser charges, which were offered for Vakoff’s murder, and for the attempted murder of Mercedes Lopez, the sister of Almanza’s ex-girlfriend, whom he shot in the leg.

The jury saw the chaotic minutes leading up to Vakoff’s death from three angles of body worn camera footage, including the one from the slain officer’s own vantage point. On it is a front view of him walking toward a brewing street fight, his voice asking Almanza’s ex-girlfriend, Lexus Lopez, to explain what was going on. He then attempted to break up a scuffle. A burst of booms came next — the gunshots that ended his life.

At that point, the images on Vakoff’s body worn camera went dark, but the sound of screaming and fighting carried on.

The images on body-worn camera footage of Vakoff’s partner, Arvada Police Officer Daniel Garibay’s were clear for six minutes as he searched for him.

“Skirly! Where you at?” he yelled.

“Are you the shooter?” Garibay asked Almanza on the video footage.

“Yes I am,” Almanza shouted. “We didn’t know he was a cop. We called the cops!”

As other responding officers arrived on scene, Garibay rode to the hospital with Vakoff, he testified. In a poignant moment during his testimony, he explained that the nickname “Skirly” was a “3 o’clock in the morning name” that he and Vakoff came up with while working the overnight shift.

In what was for many a surprise development, Almanza took the stand Wednesday dressed in a black suit and tie. In a calm voice he told the jury that he brought an AR-15 and two magazines to the street because he was afraid members of his ex-wife’s family were going to kill him.

He and the mother of his two daughters had broken up a week before and the family was in flux as the two of them worked out child care with no official custody agreement.

He choked back tears when he described the moment he told his daughters goodbye and got into the police car.

Vakoff, 27, was an Air Force veteran who had been with the Arvada police for three years with an eye on being a SWAT officer. He was a 2012 graduate of Ralston Valley High School, was dating a fellow Arvada police officer, and was a fiend in the weight room.

King, the district attorney, told reporters Thursday the kind of family brawl that Vakoff and Garibay encountered are some of the “most risky calls” because “issues get out of control.”