On the night of Halloween 2020, 36-year-old John Pacheaco Jr. was found unresponsive behind the wheel of a stolen Dodge pickup stopped in a lane of northbound Colorado Boulevard near Alameda Avenue in Denver. Glendale officers who had gone to conduct a wellness check positioned their vehicles to block the truck. When they tried to wake Pacheaco, the vehicle lurched forward and then backward and struck a police vehicle.

Two Glendale officers, Neal McCormick and Chandler Phillips, then fired multiple shots into the truck, fatally wounding Pacheaco, who was unarmed. An autopsy detected methamphetamine in his system. The Denver District Attorney’s Office investigated and declined to file criminal charges, concluding the officers reasonably believed they or fellow officers faced imminent danger. Pacheaco’s family disputed that finding and later filed a civil lawsuit against the officers under Colorado’s new police accountability law; the family reached a confidential settlement in August 2022.

Are there witnesses or nearby residents who remember the scene on Colorado Boulevard that night and can add details about what happened before the shooting?