A mass shooting took place in Colorado on New Year’s Eve, leaving the shooter dead, an office dead, and 6 victims critically injured and fighting for their lives.
As the story broke, it became clear that the shooter – a 37 year old named Matthew Riehl – had an alarming history of past violence that was well known to local Colorado police.
Police had visited the vicinity earlier the same day because of some noise disturbance but had left as the complaint was apparently resolved.
Police visited the same apartments for a second time, later, as they intended to resolve a complaint about domestic disturbance. Upon arrival, the Police encountered the shooter who had hidden in the apartment and had opened fire on the deputies visiting without any provocation as they had approached the apartment.
The incident had caused two civilians and five deputies to get shot in the exchange of gunshots. Among these, one deputy could not survive his wounds, which proved to be fatal. The deputy was identified as a Zackari Parrish – 29 years old, and a father of two children – the shooter was too shot and killed in the exchange of fire.
Though the police have still not confirmed if all the injuries caused were inflicted by Riehl’s gunfire or were some accidental injuries caused by Police too, as they tried to control the shooter and minimize the damage. In an estimate provided by the Police, approximately 100 of rounds were fired in the incident.
As per various television and media reports, the Wyoming National Guard has come forward with a confirmation of the shooter – Riehl – who was a former national guardsman and also an Army reservist who was deployed in Iraq in 2009 for a time period of a year. Riehl was also honorably discharged from Army as E-4 back in 2012.
As per reports from Associated Press, Reihl, on 13th of December had uploaded an indecent video on YouTube. He had used the video to demand that Douglas County Sheriff – Tony Spurlock should be fired. The video showed extremely personal attacks, however, the video never offered much explanation for the sudden hostility.
As per another report, Riehl had several Facebook and YouTube uploads that had been explicitly declaring the hatred towards Tony, and Riehl had called him several things like ‘scumbag, dirt bag, and liar, in a similar video Riehl had shown his intention to run for Sherriff opposing Tony and had said that he would “fire all those bums come early next year.”
As per the Sherriff Spurlock, Riehl had “previous contacts” with the Douglas County deputies, and had never been arrested nor did he have any criminal record.