Three Denver police officers were found justified for a fatal August shooting of a man who carried a pellet gun loaded with live ammunition.

In a Monday letter to Denver Police Department Chief Ron Thomas, Denver District Attorney John Walsh exonerated Ofc. Whaylen Phares, who shot and killed Javier Nava-Carbajal, 48, in the 4900 block of East Donald Avenue around 4:15 a.m. on Aug. 22 after the man ran from police and tried to grab an officer’s gun while pointing a firearm of his own in their direction.

The gun appeared to be a functional revolver but was, in fact, a CO2-operated pellet gun loaded with six live 9mm rounds, even though the gun could not fire them, Walsh said in the letter.

During a struggle with police, Nava-Carbajal could be heard on body-worn camera saying that the gun was not real, though he held onto it tight as officers tried to take it away.

“I must determine what a reasonable person, hypothetically in the shoes of Officer Phares, would believe,” Walsh said. “The gun appeared to be deadly, and all three officers reasonably believed it was a deadly weapon.”

Phares and two other officers — Christopher Palmisano and Carly Gutshall — were dispatched to the area after a 911 caller heard eight gunshots from inside an apartment building, according to the letter. After police arrived, dispatch told them that another caller had reported an active domestic assault, and had heard a woman screaming, crying and running through a hallway.

While outside one of the buildings, Gutshall heard what sounded like screaming and saw through a window a woman on the stairs being chased by a man, later identified as Nava-Carbajal, according to the letter. The man then ran out of the building. Officers yelled at him to stop but he continued moving westbound through the parking lot.

The woman was not found by police at the time and a spokesperson for the Denver District Attorney’s Office did not confirm whether she had yet been found when asked Tuesday morning.

After about 20 seconds, the three officers caught up with Nava-Carbajal, the letter says, but he initially evaded them. After a little while longer, they were able to detain the man by grabbing his arms but could not get him on the ground.

As officers kept trying to bring down Nava-Carbajal, Gutshall noticed that he had a gun in his right hand, according to the letter. Palmisano was then able to take the man down and grabbed the gun with both his bare hands, trying to point it away from himself and wrestle it out of Nava-Carbajal’s grip.

While Palmisano was pulling him to the ground, Nava-Carbajal said, “no, it’s not a real one,” according to the letter.

The two struggled for a few more seconds until Nava-Carbajal began grabbing at Palmisano’s holster with his free left hand, the letter says. Nava-Carbajal then began to stand up and, at that moment, Phares backed up, aimed his gun and fired a shot.

The bullet hit Nava-Carbajal on the left side of his upper torso and he was pronounced dead at the hospital about a half hour after the shooting, according to the letter. Phares later told investigators that he thought Palmisano was losing his grip on the gun and that Nava-Carbajal was going to shoot the officer.

Walsh noted that despite Nava-Carbajal saying the gun was not real, his attempt to maintain control of the gun and his reach for Palmisano’s firearm “strongly suggested” he intended to use deadly force against the responding officers.

Based on the findings, Walsh determined the officer justified in using deadly force.