December 5, 2006
DUI cop shot multiple times during traffic stop
A photo of Marco Lee from his
MySpace website.
A Colorado Springs patrol officer died of multiple gunshot wounds early Tuesday after a suspected drunken driver opened fire during a traffic stop on the city’s southeast side.
Officer Ken Jordan, 32, a member of the force since 2000, was pronounced dead at 12:18 a.m. Tuesday at Memorial Hospital. An autopsy today showed he died of multiple gunshot wounds. He is the second city police officer killed this year in the line of duty — something that has not occurred since 1975.
The alleged gunman, identified by police as Marco Lee, 25, of Colorado Springs, also was shot during the gun battle about 11:30 p.m. Monday on Fountain Boulevard between Murray Boulevard and Jet Wing Drive. He was taken to Memorial Hospital in critical condition, but his condition was upgraded to good by mid-day today, a hospital spokesman said.
A second officer who was approaching the suspect’s car with Jordan was not wounded. He and another officer, who was in a patrol car at the scene, have been put on leave with pay until the investigation is completed, a standard practice in such situations.
DeAndre Barnes told The Gazette that Lee, his stepbrother, called his best friend on a cell phone immediately after he was stopped by police and told him he loved his family but was “tired of all this drama.” Lee was arrested in May by a Colorado State Patrol trooper on suspicion of drunken driving and was scheduled to be sentenced in January.
“I’m sorry, but this is it,” Lee allegedly told his friend moments before the shooting, Barnes said.
Jordan was killed while providing backup for the officer who pulled the car over at 11:14 p.m. on the bridge that crosses Sand Creek. The driver was believed to be driving under the influence of alcohol.
When two of the officers approached the car to the side of the westbound lanes, the driver opened fire on them, said Sgt. Mark Stevens, a spokesman for the Colorado Springs Police Department. Jordan was near the driver’s door when he was fatally wounded.
Jordan was a patrol officer with the Sand Creek Division from 2000 until 2004, when he was selected to be one of eight DUI officers on the force, meaning his primary job was targeting drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He helped patrol officers make DUI arrests and conducted roadside sobriety tests.
Interim Police Chief Dave Felice said in an afternoon news conference that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the traffic stop and that department policies for such stops were followed.
Felice declined to say what type of gun was used in the shooting or where Jordan was struck, saying the investigation was ongoing. He said Jordan was wearing an armored vest.
Felice called Jordan a “consummate professional” who was one of the top DUI officers on the force, making 584 DUI arrests. He was honored in 2004 by Mothers Against Drunk Drivers for his efforts to curb drunken driving.
“He’s a pretty intense, serious guy when it comes to work. He was no-nonsense and just got the job done,” said Sgt. Larry Morgan, who oversees the DUI program.
“DUI officers can complete DUI arrests in less than half the time of patrol officers,” Morgan said. “Ken was one of the best at that, statistically. He’s been near the top in performance for the past few years.”
Jordan wasn’t always serious, often bursting into laughter as he shared funny stories with other cops.
“He loved to laugh and he loved to make people laugh with him. It was like this upward spiral of laughter,” traffic detective Craig Simpson said.
“He was so warm and friendly — he made you feel like you’d known him forever after having just met him,” Simpson said. “Ken was the kind of guy that you truly wish there was more of in the world.”
Simpson remembered Jordan as an enthusiastic officer always willing to help.
“He was always very business-like, but underneath the rough exterior he was just a super nice guy,” traffic Sgt. Colin Low said. “He liked to cut up and have a good time too.”
Jordan was born Sept. 12, 1974, in Chicago and is survived by his mother, father and sister, all of whom were en route to Colorado Springs today. Felice said Jordan was single and had a girlfriend.
“This is just a real tragic time for us,” he said. “We are all in mourning.”
Felice said he would not speculate on what may have motivated the driver to open fire.
“I never second-guess the mind of a suspect,” he said, adding police may never know what prompted the shooting.
Dozens of police went to Memorial Hospital after the shooting to be near Jordan, including more than 30 officers who graduated with him from the police academy in 2000, said Sgt. Otto Knollhoff. Other officers were there from the department’s Sand Creek division, an area covering the city’s southeast side where Jordan was based.
“Everybody was hugging one another and talking about the incident,” said Knollhoff, president of the Colorado Springs Police Protective Association union, which represents about 875 sworn officers, civilian staff and retirees. “We are a giant family, and we take care of each other as best as we can.”
Knollhoff said officers were struggling to cope with the shooting, particularly as it came so soon after the February death of officer Jared Jensen.
“Obviously this is a difficult time. No department should have to lose an officer let alone lose two within a short period of time. This is devastating for our department, and it’s been a long year for everyone,” he said.
A memorial fund has been established in Jordan’s name at Colorado Springs Credit Union. Donations can be made at any branch, but mail-in donations should be sent to the main office, 426 S. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs 80903.
Investigators spent hours swarming the scene collecting evidence and placing it into a mobile crime lab. Late this morning, the suspect’s blue Kia and a police car with a bullet hole in its windshield were towed away. Firefighters hosed down the road, then several police officers stood and saluted the scene. Fountain was then reopened to traffic.
Earlier, police attached a small American flag to the bridge, and it was flying at half-staff.
Shortly after Fountain Boulevard reopened, a makeshift memorial to the police officer sprung up on a sidewalk next to the flag.
The first person to leave flowers at the scene was a crime victim Jordan had helped.
The woman, who asked that her name not be used, placed white carnations in a paper cone by the roadside and then knelt to pray.
Her prayer: “That he’s in safe hands now,” she said.
The woman said she met the police officer a couple years ago when he helped her cope with a crime against her.
“He showed a lot of moral support when I needed it,” she said. “He kept checking on me to see if I was all right.”
She said Jordan would call her or stop by at least once a month for more than a year. She ran into him two weeks ago in a restaurant, and he came over to say hello.
“He was a very loved man.”
Linda Huscher brought a small Christmas tree to the scene of the killing.
“It’s so close to Christmas. That’s one thing that makes it sad,” she said. “But it’s the second policeman killed in less than a year. It was just a crazy, senseless crime. I respect our police officers because they give their lives to make us safer.”
Barnes, the suspect’s stepbrother, said Lee lived with his mother in the Green Valley Apartments on Chelton Road but commuted to Denver, where he made $20 an hour at a Denver glass company. He also had worked part-time on weekends at Fargo’s Pizza Co. on Platte Avenue for four or five years.
Fargo’s General Manager Barry Manis said Lee was a reliable, outgoing and polite worker.
Manis said detectives questioned him about Lee Tuesday morning.
“When I heard about it, I was completely shocked,” he said. “Right now we’re trying to hold everything together with the employees. Everyone is upset about the whole situation.”
Police spent the morning searching Lee’s apartment in the complex on the 1900 block of South Chelton Road, not far from the shooting scene.
Officers around noon removed more than a dozen brown paper bags filled with evidence and also lugged a home computer from the third-floor apartment.
“As you can see, we collected quite a bit of evidence,” said detective Pete Quick. “I can’t go into what we have.”
Lee was arrested in March on suspicion of felony eluding, possessing a concealed handgun, carrying drug paraphernalia, leaving the scene of an accident, reckless driving and speeding. He later pleaded guilty to the eluding charge and received a three-year deferred sentence, with the other charges being dismissed as part of a plea agreement.
Barnes said Lee liked to hang out at the Happy Hour Bar and Grill, less than a quarter-mile from the shooting scene.
Barnes said Lee moved to Colorado Springs as a child with several siblings from North Carolina. Lee’s older brother committed suicide three years ago after breaking up with a girlfriend.
“She’s just spent,” Barnes said of Lee’s mother, who was at the hospital today with her son. “She already lost one son over something stupid and now something happened to her second.”
Barnes said his stepbrother loved to hunt, camp and fish and had five guns that were legally registered.
“I didn’t think he could hurt a fly,” Barnes said of his stepbrother. “I didn’t think he would do something like that, kill a police officer.”
But he acknowledged: “He just thinks different. He thinks like the world is all against him.”
Incoming police chief Richard Myers, the Appleton, Wis., chief who last week was named as Lou Velez’ replacement, said he received a call at 2 a.m.
“This is just unthinkable, that tragedy can strike twice this year,” Myers said. “My heart is heavy.”
As chief of Appleton’s 105-officer department, he said he’s never had an officer die in the line of duty. “That’s about the only thing I haven’t had to deal with. But I’ve participated in more police funerals than I care to recount.”
Myers said he hopes the community will be supportive of police and mindful of the dangers officers constantly face. “Perhaps by having two of these, the community will resolve to be supporters of the police, to understand why it’s necessary to use certain tactics,” Myers said. “Sometimes those things they have to do are misinterpreted as being overly aggressive.”
Myers, who plans to attend the slain officer’s funeral, said he will be mindful of officers’ emotional state when he starts work Jan. 15.
“Certainly I’m going to be extremely sensitive to the pain and anguish they’ll feel,” he said.
He said he doesn’t know the details of the situation but doesn’t foresee any changes in police tactics.
“Every police officer across the country knows when they start their shift, there’s potential for them to encounter deadly force,” he said. “We train and prepare and equip for this potential. In that respect, nothing changes.”
Shootings are the most common cause of law enforcement deaths nationwide, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. The fund tracked 1,635 deaths from 1996 to last year, including 589 officers who were shot.
The fund has identified more than 17,500 officers killed nationwide since 1792, including 231 in Colorado. According to Bruce Mendelsohn, a spokesperson for the Memorial Fund, 154 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty last year, with 144 officers killed so far this year.
Colorado Springs Police Officer Officer Jared Jensen, 30, was killed Feb. 22 near Memorial Park while trying to arrest a fugitive. He was shot once in the face from less than an inch away at a bus bench at Costilla Street and Hancock Avenue. His gun wasn’t drawn.
Jensen’s alleged killer, 31-year-old Jereme Lamberth, was charged with first-degree murder. Lamberth was wanted at the time for allegedly stabbing his sister about a dozen times.
Lamberth was expected last month to enter his plea in Jensen’s killing, but it was postponed until Jan. 25. Prosecutors will have 60 days from the arraignment to announce whether they’ll seek the death penalty.
Staff Writers DeeDee Correll, Bill Hethcock, Dennis Huspeni, Bill McKeown, Tom Roeder, Perry Swanson, Bill Vogrin, Anslee Willett and Pam Zubeck contributed to this report.
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