Man arrested in Denver-area shooting and taken to a hospital along with a female victim, police say

BROOMFIELD, Colo. (AP) — A suspect in a shooting at an apartment complex near Denver was arrested Thursday and taken to a hospital along with a female victim after a four-hour standoff during which gunfire hit cars, other buildings and apartment units, police said.

After officers negotiated with the suspect, they forced their way into the apartment at the Arista Flats complex in Broomfield where he was holding a woman hostage and arrested him, said Rachel Haslett, a spokeswoman for the Broomfield police department.

Haslett said an officer fired his weapon inside the apartment, but she didn’t say whether it struck anyone. She said she didn’t know how many shots were fired during the standoff.

“He was threatening to hurt people,” said Haslett, who didn’t release the suspect’s name or age and didn’t know what weapons he might have used.

The nature of injuries to the suspect and victim weren’t immediately known.

The standoff took place at the apartment complex as people were getting ready for work in Broomfield, a mostly middle-class city of about 75,000 people roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of Denver.

Authorities sent out a phone alert warning residents to shelter in place or evacuate from the area.

Heather Tallant said she was walking her dog outside her room when a bullet or projectile flew over her head and smashed into her bedroom window.

“I saw it hit my window, and that was me just gone,” said Tallant, who ran barefoot from the building past the police line after the shooting ended. “I got shot at,” she said, dropping to sit on the ground.

Nate Schamel, who lives across the street from the Arista Flats, said he heard sirens and saw police with rifles cocked across the street who told him to stay inside. An officer later told him to evacuate. As he did, he heard gunfire, he said.

Amy Johnson Kemner, who lives on the floor above the suspect’s, said she was lying in bed when she heard loud banging that sounded like nails being hammered into floorboards.

Kemner, 46, said that while going down the stairs, she was met with screams from a SWAT team telling her to go back and barricade herself inside her apartment.

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This story was updated to correct the spelling of Rachel Haslett’s name, which had been misspelled “Hazlett” in once instance.

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Hanson reported from Helena, Montana.

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