AURORA | An Aurora police officer was justified last year when he gunned down a man who was stabbing a woman in the middle of a north Aurora street, prosecutors said Thursday.
Officer Dale Leonard shot and killed Efrain Villanueva, 51, on Dec. 13, 2015, while Villanueva was stabbing Mireya Ramirez-Muniz on Kenton Street, police and prosecutors said. Ramirez-Muniz died from the stab wounds.
In a letter to Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz, Deputy District Attorney Cori Alcock said Leonard had no choice but to shoot Villanueva when he refused to stop stabbing Ramirez-Muniz that night.
“It was clear that Villanueva was intent on harming Ramirez-Muniz and that he would not stop until someone stopped him,” Alcock wrote.
Police said last year that the attack started inside a home, where Villanueva also stabbed Ramirez-Muniz’s mother, before she fled the home and Villanueva continued the attack on the street.
Leonard was credited in 2014 with saving another officer’s life by quickly using a tourniquet when that officer was shot in the leg.