AURORA | An Aurora police officer was justified when he shot and wounded a gun-toting man in June, Adams County prosecutors said today.
In a letter to Aurora police Chief Nick Metz last week, District Attorney Dave Young said Officer Josh Stuteville acted appropriately when he shot Bennie Aaron Jones, 41, near the Del Norte Bar at East Montview Boulevard and Dayton Street.
“When looking at the totality of the circumstances surrounding this incident, the prosecution is unable to prove that a reasonable police officer in Officer Stuteville’s situation would have acted differently,” Young wrote.
In the letter, Young said Stuteville and other officers responded to the scene that night on a report of a man who appeared drunk brandishing a gun.
When the officers arrived with lights and sirens blaring, they spotted Jones near the bar with a pistol in his hand.
The officers repeatedly told Jones to drop the weapon, witnesses told police, but Jones didn’t respond.
As Jones walked closer to the bar’s entrance, Stuteville fired three shots from his shotgun. Jones ran south from the bar and police eventually arrested him a short distance later. He was rushed to a nearby hospital and survived his injuries.
Stuteville was the only officer who fired, but other officers said they too were worried that Jones was going to walk into the bar with the gun.
At the hospital, Jones, who was on parole for a 1995 manslaughter conviction, told police he had been drinking beer and vodka that night and was “out of it.” His blood-alcohol content at the hospital was .235, almost three times the legal limit.
He denied having a gun on him that night and refused to give police a DNA sample or allow them to search his cell phone.
Because he was on parole, Jones was not allowed to possess a weapon.
According to Adams County Jail records, he was later charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon, parole violation, menacing and reckless endangerment. He is being held in the county jail without bond.
Was Bennie African American? Does anyone know? I’m just curious. He may have been a former student of mine. If so, it breaks my heart.