Colorado Sheriff Releases Footage of Fatal Shooting of Homicide Suspect

A county sheriff has released footage of the moment he and another officer fired on a double homicide suspect who emerged from a car with a knife in his hands.

31-year-old Dustin Montano died the following day, after police fired eight bullets at him in a parking lot in Fort Morgan, Colorado, on May 24, 2018.

Montano was suspected of murdering his aunt and her daughter just hours earlier when law enforcement tracked him to the Walmart store in Fort Morgan.

Morgan County Sheriff’s office said they released the footage in the interests of full disclosure.

The shooting is under investigation by the Morgan County Major Crimes Task Force.

The footage released is taken from the dash cam of Sheriff Jim Crone, who fired the shots along with Undersheriff Dave Martin.

Sheriff Jim Crone said in a statement, “Prior to May 24th (and since), Undersheriff Martin and myself, in our fifty years of combined law enforcement experience, have been involved in many armed confrontations, and only one of those resulted in deadly force being used (I shot a man who stabbed me in 1987).”

“However, when confronting a man who was a suspect in a homicide, was presumably armed and dangerous, and in a conscious effort to disregard commands and come out of the car aggressively with a knife (which we initially saw as a handgun), the suspect left us with little choice.”

The first of the eight bullets fired missed Montano, but the others hit him in the arms, torso, and the leg, causing massive blood loss.

Officers believed Montano to be suicidal at the time and also bent on murdering further relatives in the area.

Montano’s car had been spotted in the Walmart parking lot, and plainclothes officers identified him in the store.

Crone, Martin, two Colorado State Patrol trooper and a deputy drove up and surrounded the car, intending to pin his car in and to avoid a high-speed chase.

Photos of Bodies Via Text Message

The officers got out of their cars, aimed their weapons at Montano, who was still inside the car, and loudly ordered him not to move, according to the video.

At the time, Montano opened the front driver’s side door of the Jetta.

“The suspect slammed the door and at that point Sheriff Crone felt the suspect would start the car and ram his patrol vehicle in an attempt to get out,” the police report (pdf) says.

But the door “suddenly flew open,” Crone said, at which point officers opened fire.

“Albuquerque Police investigators determined hours before Montano was shot, he stabbed to death his aunt, Debra Martinez age 53, and her daughter, 17-year-old Irisa Montano,” said the police report.

Montano informed sent photos of their bodies via text message to someone, saying had killed them, said police.

“Montano then arrived at the home of another relative in New Mexico after he had made threats to kill her as well. He was unable to gain entry and left, driving to Colorado.”

“He also apparently sent text messages to other relatives in the Sterling area, threatening to kill them as well. Investigators speculate Montano was headed there to do just that.”