AURORA | Denver prosecutors Thursday, April 21, cleared two Aurora officers of wrongdoing in the fatal December 2015 shooting of a suspected car thief in a 7-Eleven parking lot.
District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said in a latter to Aurora police Chief Nick Metz that Officer Josh Stuteville and Officer Teresa Fields were justified when they shot and killed Chan Duol Lieth, 25, on Dec. 21.
“The evidence shows that both officers were legally justified to use deadly physical force,” Morrissey wrote.
In the letter, Morrissey said the driver of a stolen silver Jeep Cherokee had been goading officers to chase him in the days leading up to the shooting.
The night of the shooting, Aurora officers spotted the Jeep in a 7-Eleven parking lot just across the city limits in Denver, the letter said. When officers tried to block the Jeep from leaving, the driver slammed into a police car and the building in an effort to escape.
Stuteville, who was standing in the parking lot, told investigators he was worried about the Jeep hitting Fields, customers in the store, or a family in a car next to him.
“And, it’s got this little kid and these parents sitting inside of it,” he said he thought before he fired at the Jeep. “I’m like, it’s got to stop now.”
Fields was near the building when the Jeep back toward her and she fired.
“Once he backs up, I feel like I have no avenue of escape. I feel like he’s going to run me over … so, I fire my weapon,” she told investigators.
Lieth, who was alone in the car, was shot multiple times and pronounced dead that night.
Morrissey said there were several warrants for Lieth’s arrest at the time of the shooting.