It was spring of 2022. Wilford Deweese had stopped in Colorado while driving back to Cape Canaveral, Florida, from his brother’s funeral in California.
The 67-year-old certified public accountant had recently lost his job and divorced for the second time; he hoped to rekindle an old love interest in western Colorado. DeWeese was rejected, so he pursued online dating that led him to Colorado Springs.
On the evening of April 11, Deweese stopped at the Royal Tavern, 924 Manitou Ave., in Manitou Springs. A couple hours later, Deweese was dead. Shot 22 times by four officers from Manitou Springs Police Department and the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.
A few feet away, the corpse of police dog Jinx. The Colorado Springs Police Department reported that Deweese had shot the dog and police, prompting officers to return fire.
The next day, a funeral procession for Jinx took place in downtown Colorado Springs. This was the first police shooting in Manitou Springs in 10 years.
Deweese’s ex-wife Christine described him as a Christian who would never “even kill bugs.” She had recently divorced Deweese after his second bankruptcy in their 18 years of marriage.
His first marriage had also been marked by financial struggles. He had worked for a Christian pro-Israel nonprofit for many years, but had been laid off.
He held conservative views but was not a party-line Republican. He was a legal gun owner involved in a local gun organization and supported the police.
Deweese’s brother Sam, a retired physician in Minnesota, questioned what happened that night. He believed Jinx scared his brother. He believed his brother shot the dog out of self-defense and only fired on police because they first shot at him.
Sam believed his brother was depressed that evening and that police should have treated his intoxication as a mental health crisis instead of releasing a dog on him. He believed his brother could not hear the police over the barking dog.
Deweese’s actions did him no favors, Sam conceded, but he did not deserve to die.
In the fall of 2023, when Sam Deweese first spoke to the writer about the case, he said his lawyer requested public records after the incident, but the definitive civilian video, mentioned in police reports as showing Deweese firing at Jinx and at police, was not included.
Interview transcripts of two officers involved in the shooting were also missing. Between the missing information and the limited media coverage that centered primarily on the dog, he was concerned there was a cover-up.
During interviews with police and Anna Bibulowicz, the Denver-based private investigator Sam Deweese hired, several people at the Royal Tavern that night said that Deweese was drunk and belligerent.
One eyewitness recalled, “he was trying to join the line for pool but he was pretty intoxicated so, no matter how much we described to him how it worked, he would still try to hop in and break the line.”
According to another eyewitness the PI interviewed, Deweese got into a physical altercation with another patron who was known to be a “hothead.”
The bartender on duty that night, who had worked there for 17 years, told police she heard Deweese say several things, including that he had been out with “three lesbians” who drank his wine, leaving her with the impression he was unhappy with the outcome of a date.
He was pretty intoxicated. – Eyewitness
She recalled Deweese leaving the bar after losing a game of pool and paying for the winner’s drinks.
Deweese wasn’t a big drinker but, according to what childhood friend Steve Anderson told police, when he did, “he was a different person.” Anderson, who lives in Minneapolis, spoke with Deweese that night by phone and told police he sounded off, “paranoid,” fearing someone was surveilling all his moves.
Anderson also told Bibulowicz he felt Deweese was out to pick a fight because he was in a bad place in life and mad at the world.
Deweese told him that night that “you might read about three dead people tomorrow” along with other statements suggesting suicidal thoughts and ideation, which Anderson had known him to make in the past during difficult times.
Manitou Springs Police were told that, later that evening, Deweese returned to the Royal Tavern to pick up some personal items. When he tried to reorder at the bar, the bartender refused him service because of the trouble he made earlier and kicked him out of the bar.
According to one eyewitness, Deweese gave her the middle finger, and she returned the favor.
The bartender told police that, with his hand, Deweese made gun-cocking motions toward her. Then, as she went out to close the door after him, he confronted her, pointing a 9-mm Sig Sauer pistol at her.
As Deweese withdrew the gun, appearing to put it back into his pocket, a patron wrestled him to the ground. He left the premises and walked down the street, and 911 was called.
The call was reported to police as menacing, a crime in which, through threat or physical action, a suspect knowingly places or attempts to place another person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury by use of a deadly weapon.
Another patron reflected on his interactions with Deweese, telling police that “he was just hammered, he was drunk, and honestly he was a pretty decent dude, and it was really (expletive) what the (expletive) he did …but honestly, I wish it didn’t go down the way it did.”
Manitou Springs Police Officers Levi Hoover and Jeff Schuelke found Deweese alone more than 300 feet down the street, outside The Vault gift shop. According to police body camera footage, the officers stood behind their vehicles, pointed their guns and lights at Deweese and commanded him to put his hands up and walk toward them.
Deweese told officers that he had his attorney on the phone, had been assaulted, had money stolen and did not trust them. They told him they wanted to hear his side of his story, but needed him to comply with their commands. They informed him a call had come in, saying that he had pulled a gun on somebody.
Throughout this exchange, Deweese talked over officer commands, his words often unclear on police body cameras. Hoover told investigators the wind that night made it difficult to hear him.
“Sir, are you going to follow our orders or not?” Hoover repeatedly asked Deweese.
The Manitou officers repeatedly asked Deweese to surrender to no avail, telling him that they could not help him unless he let them.
“Sir, you are doing a lot of talking and very little listening, OK. I highly doubt your attorney is telling you not to follow police commands and if he is, he’s not a real attorney,” Schuelke told Deweese, also adding that he could guarantee his safety if he followed their commands.
Deweese continued to stand in front of police leaning with one arm on the railing staring straight ahead. One eyewitness described Deweese as calm.
As heard on an officer’s body camera, at nearly four minutes in, Hoover requested backup assistance from the county sheriff’s office.
Six minutes in, Hoover approached Deweese from the side of The Vault and then retreated. He later told detectives that he was trying to get close enough to use a Taser but the building’s wall obstructed his view.
“You have no right to stop me,” Deweese told officers.
Nine minutes in, Hoover asked about the gun. Deweese told him that the only gun he had on him was “this,” making multiple gun-cocking gestures toward officers.
“I was like ‘that is not funny, that’s not funny at all, you know, this is a serious matter,’” Hoover told police detectives.
Deweese wasn’t following orders, he explained, and was simply arguing.
Officers asked Deweese to put down what he was holding, show his waistline and walk toward the officers with his hands up. Deweese put down his bag, retaining his hold on a book and his phone. He showed his empty waistline.
With the suspect’s hands full, Hoover and Schuelke moved closer to talk with him. As they advanced, Deweese moved his right hand toward his pocket.
“Put your hand back up! You can’t be doing things like that … that is unsafe for you and us,” Hoover shouted at Deweese as he and Schuelke retreated.
Although Deweese told the officers that he was on the phone with his lawyer, the only person confirmed to be in contact with him that night was Anderson, who was on the phone with Deweese when he was leaving the bar and when he encountered police.
At about 13 minutes into the encounter, Deputy Daniel Lebaron and Deputy Ronnie Hancock from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office arrived on scene, along with K9 Jinx.
Lebaron had already gone to the Royal Tavern, speaking briefly to the bartender about what happened.
“He’s just crazy,” she told him. “It’s like he wanted to come in and I was like no, I don’t want you in here and he pulls the gun and pointed it at me.”
Hancock and Lebaron confirmed with Hoover and Schuelke that Deweese pointed a small black gun while in the tavern. Hancock then assumed primary conversation with Deweese. With Jinx barking, he repeatedly commanded Deweese to walk toward them with his hands up or he would release the dog and it would bite him.
Deweese stood still, on his phone, facing the police and making no attempt to flee nor draw his weapon — but not complying with their commands to surrender. One eyewitness said Deweese “was standing there and ignoring them” and not appearing aggressive in any way.
Anderson, on the phone with Deweese at that time, heard him say, “If you release the dog, I will shoot it” and “I am not perfect with the gun, but I am pretty good.” Whether police heard Deweese say this is not mentioned in investigation records nor clearly heard on police body camera footage.
What is heard is that, at multiple times while the dog barked, officers including Hancock told Deweese they couldn’t hear him.
“I cannot hear you with this dog barking. You need to walk this way,” Hancock yelled at Deweese. He repeatedly commanded him to walk out and warned that he could be bitten.
At least two eyewitnesses that night, one the PI interviewed and one police detectives interviewed, felt Hancock did not want to release the dog. One said that Hancock seemed to be practically begging Deweese to drop everything and come toward him.
“If you walk towards me, I can guarantee your safety. If you do not, I will release the dog and cannot guarantee your safety!” Hancock yelled.
Behind the officers that night was the Barker House, an apartment complex where residents and onlookers were gathering. As Hancock spoke with Deweese, other officers were heard telling civilians to avoid the area and pass quickly.
“Sir, final warning, come out now or you’re going to get bit,” Hancock shouted.
In his testimony to police detectives, Hancock said he typically would give three warnings, but that night he gave more than 10, including three final warnings before releasing the dog.
After seven minutes of this exchange, Deweese had not surrendered. Hancock released Jinx as officers followed behind the dog. A single shot was heard, followed by a barrage of fire as law enforcement advanced towards Deweese.
Hoover told detectives he saw Deweese reach into his right pocket and shoot Jinx.
“Once he did that,” he recalled, “someone else fired and then the suspect I believe fired three or four times (in) our direction, making me fear for my life and everything so I returned fire along with other officers on scene.”
Sir are you going to gollow our orders? – Levi Hoover
On Schuelke’s body camera, Deweese was seen at least once standing and exchanging fire with the officers as they advanced.
Civilian eyewitness accounts of the shooting vary, but both police and civilian accounts report that Deweese drew his gun to shoot the dog.
A civilian video shot from above and behind police showed Deweese backing around the corner of the ramp leading down into the courtyard behind him, turning perpendicular to police and shooting the dog as it approached. Trailing the dog, police were seen moving toward Deweese.
It was unclear who fired at whom first, but within a second of shooting Jinx, Deweese was seen — on police and civilian footage — standing and exchanging fire with police.
As this was occurring, three officers from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office with non-lethal 40-mm projectile launchers had arrived. By then, the shooting was over.
With Deweese on the ground, officers handcuffed him and then examined him for wounds to seal them. On camera, Deweese initially was breathing. Five minutes into aid efforts, paramedics arrived and were unable to obtain a pulse.
Additional resuscitation efforts, including CPR, were not pursued, and he was pronounced dead.
Eyewitness reactions varied. One local told the PI he did not agree with how the police handled the situation.
“They could have come up to him with their ballistic shields and tased him, they could have tear-gassed him, there is just no way it needed to be handled like that.”
Another resident told police detectives that he felt Deweese needed to be taken into custody because he was walking around pointing guns at people, and that there was no doubt that this man needed to be off the street for at least that night. The witness said that the night’s events were “the most necessary thing I’ve seen.”
Next week: The 4th Judicial District Attorney Office’s ruling and two consultants’ views about the use of force in Deweese’s death.
