Officers Daily Put Their Lives on the Line
Denver Post Editorial
We are truly thankful that Officer Kevin Kreuzer wasn’t more seriously injured when a traffic suspect shot and wounded him in the arm on Wednesday in west Denver.
It’s also good news that Robert Zamora, the suspect believed to have shot Kreuzer during a traffic stop, was captured alive.
Police said Kreuzer, a 17-year veteran, spotted Zamora speeding on West Colfax Avenue at Winona Street at 8:25 a.m. and gave chase. The car, which belongs to Zamora’s girlfriend, crashed into another car at Xavier Street. When the officer told Zamora to raise his hands, police said, the suspect turned and fired several shots, hitting Kreuzer once in the left arm before fleeing on foot and abandoning his 2-year-old son in the Mustang.
After an intensive manhunt, Zamora, who apparently had thrown away his handgun, was found hiding in an outbuilding on the 1300 block of Raleigh Street. He surrendered without incident.
He may not realize how lucky he is.
Although the Denver police have been criticized for excessive use of force - including by The Post’s editorial board - Chief Gerry Whitman’s department has trained large numbers of cops in the use of non-lethal or less-lethal means of subduing armed suspects, and this is a welcome change.
Only a few months after the fatal shooting of Paul Childs, a mentally disabled 15-year-old in July, Denver officers increasingly have been using Tasers, electronic weapons that momentarily can incapacitate an armed suspect. About 840 of the department’s patrol officers have trained in the use of the 200 Tasers the department has acquired, according to Deputy Chief Mike Battista.
Also, SWAT officers have been trained and equipped with so-called “bean-bag” shotguns that can bring down an opponent without killing him. A lack of money has prevented training patrol officers in the use of the special shotguns, he said.
Last year, there were eight fatal shootings by Denver police, compared with five in 2002. But the use of Tasers is becoming more common - in fact, so common that the department hasn’t tallied up all the incidents in which the non-lethal devices were used.
Just last week, according to Battista, officers used Tasers at least twice in one police district.
Kreuzer’s being shot is a sober reminder to us all that police officers daily put their lives on the line to keep us safe: Even a routine traffic stop can turn deadly in a heartbeat. Every cop on the street thinks about that at the start of every shift.
In this case, Kreuzer’s wound wasn’t as serious as it could have been, according to police. And neither the suspect nor his toddler son were injured. No question, though, that Zamora is in serious trouble with the law.
But that beats being in the morgue.