A 17-year-old boy who was shot and injured by a Denver Police Department officer in late February is accused of attempted homicide in a prior incident earlier last month.

He was one of two boys arrested in connection with shots fired alerts in the area near Paco Sanchez Park, 1290 Knox Court, Denver Police Department Commander Matt Clark said in a press conference Monday.

The incident began around 10:40 p.m. on Feb. 24, when officers got two separate shot spotter alerts and a 911 call about shots fired near West 13th Avenue and Lowell Boulevard, Clark said. The caller told police they saw five people on scooters and bicycles leaving the area.

Officers responded and found three shell casings. They searched the nearby area and found four boys on scooters and followed them into Paco Sanchez Park, Clark said.

An officer recognized one of the boys as a suspect in a recent shooting incident in southwest Denver earlier in February, according to Clark, and the officer chased him down on foot. The boy was armed with a hand gun.

The officer described seeing the boy turn toward him during the pursuit, with a gun in hand, and the officer shot ten rounds, at least one of which hit the boy’s leg, Clark said.

He ran a short distance and fell, where officers took him into custody and applied two tourniquets to his leg to stop the bleeding. He was taken to the hospital and is expected to recover, Clark said.

In body camera footage released by the department Monday, the boy is seen running from the officer while the officer yells a command to “drop the (expletive) gun.”

Approximately one second later, the officer’s shots at the boy are seen in the footage. The officer appears to chase after him, then find him again on the ground, telling him to “drop the (expletive) gun.”

The boy is heard saying “I don’t have a gun.” Police later found the hand gun in the path he ran, Clark said.

He is being held on suspected attempted homicide from an incident in early February, during which he allegedly fired into an occupied home, according to police. As he is a juvenile, he is not being identified. If prosecutors charge him as an adult, that could change.

A second boy was also taken into custody in the park, where officers found him with a hand gun that had an illegal modification that made the gun function as a fully automatic weapon, according to Clark. He is being held on weapons-related charges.

Police did not identify the officer who shot the boy, but said he has been with the department since 2021 and has not been involved in any prior police shooting incidents.

Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said he can’t make an official call on the shooting, since it is under investigation, but said he is “comfortable with the actions of the officer.”

“I really believe that he received a significant threat … and responded appropriately to the threat,” Thomas said, adding that the officer’s knowledge that the suspect had fired weapons in a previous situation heightened the risk.

The park was one of the five “hot spots” that Denver Mayor Mike Johnston planned to target to improve public safety in his 2024 priorities. Johnston’s goal was to reduce gun violence by 20% by the end of the year.