The Prisoner Of Denver

A police officer is shot dead by a crazed criminal – so why blame a woman who was handcuffed at the time?

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It was 12 November 1997 when armed police swarmed around the Monaco Place apartments in Denver, Colorado. Volley after volley of shots were being fired at officers from an automatic weapon.

Was this yet another battle in the long line of clashes between police and local neo-Nazi skinheads? The gangs had been terrorising the city for months.

Within minutes, 21-year-old Lisl Auman – an unarmed female suspect – was arrested, handcuffed and bundled into the back of a police car. Her male companion – the shooter – ran… but police lost sight of him in the twists and turns of the apartment buildings.

Moments later, officer Bruce VanderJagt, 47, decorated veteran and father of a three-year-old daughter, came face to face with the armed man.

A hail of gunfire followed. There were frenzied calls of ‘Officer down, officer down!’ as it became clear VanderJagt had been hit.

Abruptly, the shooting stopped, and SWAT teams rushed in to assess the scene. The shooter was found dead, having killed himself with a single shot from the fallen man’s service revolver. Bruce VanderJagt was transferred to hospital, but it was clear to every officer that their colleague had already passed.