Five Colorado officers shot, one fatally, in ‘ambush-style attack,’ sheriff says

Five sheriff's deputies were shot responding to a domestic disturbance call on Dec. 31 in Highlands Ranch, Colo. One deputy was killed. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
A sheriff’s deputy from Colorado was killed when he and fellow officers faced a barrage of gunfire after responding to a call about a disturbance in an apartment complex in a Denver suburb.

Zackari Parrish, a 29-year-old deputy, died Sunday morning, while four other officers were injured. Authorities have released few details about what transpired inside an apartment unit in Highlands Ranch, Colo., a few miles south of Denver, where Parrish and the others responded after receiving a noise complaint. But Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock described the shooting as “an ambush-type attack on our officers.”

“I do know that all of them were shot very, very quickly,” Spurlock said at a news conference. “And they all went down almost within seconds of each other . . . He knew we were coming. We obviously let him know that we were there to investigate a disturbance.”

The officers arrived at the apartment just after 5 a.m. They went inside after one of the residents allowed them in, Spurlock said, and were shot at “almost immediately” as the gunman barricaded himself inside a bedroom.

Parrish was shot multiple times. Officers were able to crawl to safety as bullets continued to rain on them, but they were unable to pull Parrish out because of their injuries, Spurlock said. The suspect was later killed in a shootout with other deputies.