Denver Police Officer Fatally Shoots Man After Mistaking A Marker For A Knife [Video]

Another Black man has died at the hands of a police officer. A Denver, Colorado, police officer fatally shot Brandon Cole, 36, after the officer mistook a random object for a weapon.

The incident occurred on August 5 after a neighbor called the police over a domestic dispute between Cole, his wife, and his teenage son.

According to The Denver Post, the caller claimed the woman was possibly pushed out of a wheelchair, and Cole was trying to attack his son.

Body camera footage released Monday captured the events leading up to the shooting. Upon police arrival, a woman was seen sitting on the curb next to a wheelchair. She then told one of the officers, “Don’t, don’t pull your gun out on my husband, please,” before she asked for an ambulance.

Around the same time, according to the publication, Cole interrupted her screaming, “Let’s go,” as he moved into the middle of the street.

At some point, he also went to a car and retrieved a black marker, a marker that one officer thought was a knife. Authorities say Cole then took an “aggressive stance” in a “threatening manner” toward an officer, who fired his Taser.

Cole then motioned toward the other officer, who shot him twice, as his wife was heard screaming. The woman and the child were standing directly behind Cole when the officer fired the shots that killed him, but no one else was injured.

“This is a tremendous tragedy,” Chief Ron Thomas said of the incident, adding that the officer believed Cole would stab her. “You can see in the video that when she finally deploys her duty weapon, the person is so close to her that the view of the young child and other person is not even clear to her.”

“Certainly, that was a consideration, but there was not much time to act before she was overrun by that individual.”

After the investigation, the Denver District Attorney’s Office will decide whether the officer should face charges in the killing. In the meantime, the officer involved has been with the department since 2019 and has not been involved in any other shootings.

“We did interview the caller and a number of other witnesses on the scene and are unable to determine whether a domestic violence incident did occur,” Thomas said.