The 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office determined the actions of multiple Broomfield SWAT officers who shot and injured a man during a hostage standoff were justified as reasonable use of force.

District Attorney Brian Mason wrote a decision letter to the chiefs of the Broomfield and Lafayette police departments and to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office on Friday, stating that no criminal charges are warranted against the 10 officers involved with the hostage shootout on Sept. 12, 2024.

The decision comes after an investigation by the district attorney’s office’s Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT).

Officers responded to the Arista Flats apartments on Central Court — near the 1stBank Center between U.S. Highway 36 and Wadsworth Parkway — around 6:30 a.m. on Sept. 12 for the report of shots fired, according to the letter.

When officers arrived, they heard a woman crying within the apartment and someone moving furniture around. The resident of the apartment, Gregory Miles, did not respond to calls from the officers.

When the officers attempted to breach the apartment, Miles allegedly yelled that he had an “AR15 with one hundred rounds.” The officers also heard the
woman — later identified as 32-year-old Aisha Yvonne Quest — scream, “Let me out,” according to the district attorney’s letter.

The suspect allegedly fired shots into the parking lot and surrounding units, damaging some nearby apartments and vehicles. 

The Boulder Regional SWAT team attempted to communicate with Miles for around four hours, but he fired shots at the police from the apartment sporadically throughout. 

SWAT officers eventually breached the apartment with explosives and fired multiple rounds at Miles, sending him to the hospital, where he was treated for his injuries.

Quest was found dead inside of the apartment with a gunshot wound to the head.

Miles was eventually charged with first-degree murder for allegedly killing his girlfriend and 22 counts of attempted first-degree murder for shooting at police officers and civilians in the area. Miles is due in court on Dec. 11.

Ultimately, Mason found that the officers were justified in the shooting of Miles due to the suspect putting multiple lives at risk, including the death of the victim.

“Based upon a review of the entirety of this investigation, the evidence does not support a finding that any of the ten involved officers acted unreasonably or were unjustified in their use of physical force,” Mason said. “On the contrary, I find that their use of physical force was justified, not only to effect Mr. Miles’s arrest, but also to prevent the imminent threat of injury to innocent
civilians as well as the imminent threat of injury to the responding officers themselves.”