A still image from the body-worn camera footage of Aurora police officer Alex Vaughan; a red circle was added by the Sentinel to highlight the item that Luis Enrique Parra-Ramirez took out of his pocket immediately before he was shot to death, which investigators later said was a pistol. 
A still image from the body-worn camera footage of Aurora police officer Alex Vaughan shows Luis Enrique Parra-Ramirez being told to show his hands shortly before he was shot and killed by police.
AURORA | Aurora police have released footage showing the moment officers shot and killed a man who drew a gun when confronted outside an East Colfax apartment complex.
Early in the morning of Feb. 11, 2022, residents of LaFontaine Apartments on Idalia Court in north Aurora called police to report an armed man knocking on apartment doors.
When police arrived, they encountered Luis Enrique Parra-Ramirez walking around the side of a building and pointed the flashlights mounted on their rifles at him.
Officers Garrett Strode and Alex Vaughan yelled at Parra-Ramirez in English and Spanish to show them his hands, which Parra-Ramirez did briefly before reaching into the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt.
Body-worn camera footage filmed from the perspective of Vaughan shows Parra-Ramirez taking a reflective object out of the pocket, which a report by the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office later identified as a handgun.
Strode and Vaughan told investigators from the DA’s office and the Arapahoe County Sheriff that Parra-Ramirez raised the gun and pointed it at one or both of them.
Police blurred the part of the video frame including Parra-Ramirez shortly before the moment of the shooting in the footage shared with the Sentinel, so it is unclear from the video footage whether he aimed the gun before Strode and Vaughan opened fire.
Police said they blurred part of the crucial frames of the video because not doing so would have been “contrary to public interest” and because releasing the unblurred images would have required a release from Parra-Ramirez’ family under state law.
Parra-Ramirez was shot multiple times in the torso and head, and fell to the ground. As officers approached his body, a pistol could be seen laying on the ground next to him. Officers began trying to resuscitate him, but Parra-Ramirez died from his injuries.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Jason Siers wrote in the DA report from July of last year that he believed the shooting was justified because Parra-Ramirez ignored the officers’ orders to display his hands and instead pulled a firearm.
“Both Officers had to make split second decisions in response to Mr. Parra-Ramirez’s threatening actions toward them,” Siers wrote. “Mr. Parra-Ramirez would be alive today had he complied with the officers’ orders and not threatened them with a firearm.”
A roommate of Parra-Ramirez at LaFontaine Apartments later told investigators that he believed Parra-Ramirez may have been high on methamphetamine at the time because he had caught Parra-Ramirez smoking meth in their apartment before and saw the suspect acting “spaced out” earlier that evening.
He said Parra-Ramirez had become upset and depressed after he was fired from a job.
looks to have been handled correctly….that split second between when he showed the gun and was shot might have been the difference between a officer being shot. Too bad but people need to learn to put their damned hands in the air!!!!
After the suspect refuses to comply with officers’ orders, if an officer waits for the suspecto aim his gun, the officer may be shot.
Sorry that Parra-Remirez died, but he caused the officers’ quick and correct response to his action.
Was the suspect drunk or on drugs?