Update Dec. 11, 2023:
Two Lafayette police officers who shot a man while he was trying to stab his father were justified in using potentially deadly force in the Oct. 22 incident, according to a decision issued by 20th Judicial District Attorney Michael Dougherty on Thursday.
Lafayette Police Department Cpl. Leonard Fazio and Officer Houston Lair responded to a home in the 2400 block of Waneka Lake Trail in the early hours of Oct. 22 to find a man trying to stab his father with two kitchen knives in the driveway, according to the DA’s report.
Home surveillance video obtained during the investigation shows the 22-year-old man arrived at his father’s house at 2:30 a.m. because he wanted to access the gun safe in the garage.
When the man’s father wouldn’t give him access to the safe, he pushed his father down the stairs.
While the man’s father called 911 to report his son was having a psychotic episode, the man retrieved two kitchen knives from a butcher block, told his father he needed to kill himself and began stabbing himself in the leg, according to the report.
The man’s father was injured while trying to stop him from stabbing himself. The father ran outside, and the man ran after him.
Fazio and Lair arrived at the scene and told the man to drop the knives, at which point he looked toward the patrol vehicle and then charged at his father and tried to slash him, according to the decision letter.
Fazio and Lair fired five shots at the man nine seconds after arriving at the scene. After he was shot by the officers, the man started stabbing himself and telling officers to shoot him in the head. The officers shocked him with a stun gun to get him to stop stabbing himself, according to the report.
Both the man and his father were seriously injured in the incident.
Fazio and Lair were justified in using potentially deadly force under Colorado law because they had a reasonable belief the man was an imminent danger to his father and to the officers, according to the decision letter.
Two Lafayette police officers were placed on administrative leave Sunday after shooting a suspect allegedly involved in an attempted murder earlier that morning.
Around 2:45 a.m. Sunday, officers responded to reports of a disturbance involving a father and a son in the 2400 block of Waneka Lake Trail in Lafayette.
When officers arrived on the scene, they found the adult, male son actively stabbing his father with a knife, according to a Sunday news release from the Lafayette Police Department.
Lafayette officers attempted to stop the suspect but, when they were unable to, two officers shot the man, the release stated.
Paramedics transported both the father and son to the hospital. The police officers were not injured in the incident.
The two officers who fired their weapons were placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into their use of force, following protocol, Sunday’s release stated.
The Boulder County Investigation Team will investigate the officers’ use of force. The multi-agency team is designed to investigate incidents where officers use deadly, or potentially deadly, force against a person while on-duty.
No names have been released at this time.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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