Aurora Police Department says officer who shot Kilyn Lewis didn’t violate agency policy

The Aurora Police Department says the SWAT officer who shot Kilyn Lewis in May did not violate agency policy.

Lewis, 37, was wanted by police in connection to a shooting that took place outside a strip mall off 48th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard earlier that month. Officers were attempting to arrest the Denver resident in Aurora when they shot him.

Police body cam footage shows Lewis did not comply with the officer's commands during the attempted arrest and later pulled a black object from behind his back. Officer Michael Dieck fired one shot, striking Lewis. He died two days later. The object he’d produced turned out to be a cell phone. 

The family of Lewis released a statement following APD’s findings Friday saying in part: “The Aurora Police Department has chosen not to hold Officer Dieck accountable for the life he took. Instead, they have invited him back into the very community he betrayed. With this decision, our pain, already unbearable, has been compounded.”

Standard policies determine the level of force used by police in the field. If an officer fears for their life, they are permitted to use deadly force. In Colorado, law allows police officers to use deadly force “if the peace officer has an objectively reasonable belief that a lesser degree of force is inadequate and the peace officer has objectively reasonable grounds to believe, and does believe, that he or another person is in imminent danger of being killed or of receiving serious bodily injury,” according to state statutes.

In this case, APD’s internal investigation determined that Lewis stepping forward toward the police and producing the object were in line with behavior that warranted the use of deadly force.

Other factors are also taken into account when officers choose to fire their weapons, including the crime the suspect is accused of. In this case, Lewis was accused of firing shots in a gunfight that injured a bystander.

APD’s findings are in line with those of the 18th Judicial Critical Incident Response Team who determined in October that Officer Dieck’s use of force was not in violation of state law. The case was also presented to the Arapahoe County Grand Jury, which found insufficient evidence to charge Officer Dieck with a crime. 

The independent monitor of the Aurora consent decree, however, found critical issues in the shooting. The progress report released last month questioned whether the involvement of Aurora’s SWAT team in executing a Denver warrant was appropriate or necessary. It also questioned the tactical approach that officers advanced without options for non-lethal force during the “high-risk stop.”

Officer Dieck is a 13-year member of the Aurora Police Department and is presently assigned to the Electronic Support Section.