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Rapid Response: 5 learning points from the Colorado shootout

In what may have been a planned ambush attack, a gunman shot several deputies, fatally injuring Deputy Zackari Parrish

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Deputy Zackari Parrish, age 29, leaves behind a wife and two children.

Photo/Douglas County Sheriff’s Office

In the early morning hours of December 31, 2017, deputies from the Douglas County (Colo.) Sheriff’s Office were called to the Copper Canyon Apartments in Highlands Ranch, about 10 miles south of Denver. The original report was of a disturbance inside one of the apartments.

Shortly after deputies were admitted to the apartment of Matthew Riehl, Riehl opened fire on the deputies with a rifle, killing Deputy Zackari Parrish III, 29, and wounding three deputies, plus an officer from the Castle Rock Police Department.

Riehl was killed in the exchange of gunfire after firing over 100 rounds at officers.

It appears that Deputy Parrish has the sad distinction of being the last U.S. law enforcement officer killed in 2017.

Matthew Riehl, 37, an honorably discharged Army veteran who served in Iraq, was a graduate of the law school at the University of Wyoming. The law school had been investigating several derogatory social media posts Riehl had made about the school.

Second call that night

The first call to the apartment was received by DCSO Communications at approximately 0300 hours. Riehl’s roommate called to complain that his roommate was acting in a bizarre fashion and might be having a mental breakdown. Deputies responded and cleared about 45 minutes later, reporting that no crime had taken place.

A second call came in at 0514 hours, and responding deputies were met outside the apartment by the roommate. He gave the deputies a key to the apartment and permission to enter, but then left the scene himself. Twenty-one minutes after the last deputy had arrived at the apartment, Riehl began shooting at them from inside his bedroom.

Three deputies were able to retreat, but Deputy Parrish was not. Between the intensity of Riehl’s gunfire and their own injuries, they were not able to rescue Parrish.

A SWAT team entered the apartment at 0730 hours and exchanged fire with Riehl, killing him. This is when the Castle Rock officer was shot.

Why This Is Significant

This may have been a planned ambush. Matthew Riehl had a long-standing animosity toward local law enforcement. He had engaged in “Twitter wars” with the DCSO, and posted several videos on YouTube where he narrates the body-worn camera video from a traffic stop the Lone Tree (Colo.) Police had made on him. Although the traffic stop appears unremarkable, Riehl repeatedly refers to the officer as a “Nazi,” a “coward” and a “bitch,” and insists the officer will be fired for various acts of misconduct.

Riehl’s Facebook page was full of alt-right memes and slogans, and he had expressed his intention to run for the office of Douglas County Sheriff, opposing the incumbent Sheriff Tony Spurlock.

Riehl has more than 10 YouTube videos posted that aren’t specifically about law enforcement (although he works in some choice comments here and there), but most of them are live streams of video games from his Sony PlayStation. His screen name was “Cow_Poke_Ulysses.” His speech patterns, vocabulary and demeanor are more like a gaming-obsessed teenager than a trained attorney.

Top Takeaways

At this writing, less than 24 hours after the shooting, there are many details that will be revealed as the investigation plays out. Of the information that’s known, there are some issues for consideration.

  1. Share and analyze your observations in real time:
    During the incident, deputies reported they could hear their own radio traffic coming from Riehl’s bedroom. He had a radio scanner set up and tuned to the DCSO channels. In the age of trunked digital radios, “scanner buffs” aren’t as common as they used to be. If the primary person of interest is listening to police radio transmissions, he may not be your friend.
  2. Don’t allow eagerness to override experience:
    Deputy Parrish had been with the DCSO only seven months, after serving with the Castle Rock PD for 2.5 years. By all accounts, he was an excellent law enforcement officer and it would be unfair to speculate on or criticize his tactics. This is not directed at him. That said, most of us were considerably more eager to rush into the fray when we were new than after we had been on the street for a few years. If you’re a relatively new officer, take a breath before you charge into a tactical situation. If you’re a veteran, rein back the rookies now and then.
  3. Use social media to gather intel:
    Every community has its cop-haters. Most of them are blowing smoke, exploiting that awesome courage that comes from being a semi-anonymous keyboard warrior. A few are mentally ill, and/or more determined. If you become aware of people like this in your community, and your records policies and laws permit it, it’s worth entering a note about these folks in your CAD/RMS system, keying the data to their names, known addresses and license plate numbers. When you’re going up against someone who might want to kill you, there is no such thing as too much information.
  4. Have a contingency for fallen officers:
    Deputy Parrish leaves behind a wife and two children, and there has been an understandable rush to aid his family. At least one account has been set up for Deputy Parrish’s family on GoFundMe.com, but the DCSO sheriff has urged potential donors to use caution, as he cannot verify its legitimacy. DCSO has a standing Fallen Officer Fund with a link to contribute on its official website. If your agency doesn’t already have a similar mechanism set up, get ahead of the potential need and make some arrangements. If that terrible day arrives at your agency, it will be one less detail to manage.
  5. Consider whether mental health intervention is appropriate:
    Riehl’s roommate was concerned about his mental status. With hindsight, it’s clear that Riehl was sufficiently disturbed to warrant involuntary hospitalization. It’s not known whether any of the deputies who responded the first time had any crisis intervention training for handling emotionally disturbed persons (EDPs), or whether there were any resources like this available to them. Mental health resources can be hard to come by, but they can obviously save lives and grief for all concerned. If you don’t have a way to bring this kind of expertise into a situation, see about securing it.

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Tim Dees is a writer, editor, trainer and former law enforcement officer. After 15 years as a police officer with the Reno Police Department and elsewhere in northern Nevada, Tim taught criminal justice as a full-time professor and instructor at colleges in Wisconsin, West Virginia, Georgia and Oregon. He was also a regional training coordinator for the Oregon Dept. of Public Safety Standards & Training, providing in-service training to 65 criminal justice agencies in central and eastern Oregon.
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