Denver police shot and injured a man who they worried was reaching for a gun from his waistband

Officers shot and injured a man who they worried was reaching for a gun they’d seen in his waistband late last month, according to a Denver Police briefing Thursday afternoon.

DPD officers were conducting extra patrol of the Cedar Run Apartment complex in the 800 block of Oneida Street in the Washington Virginia Vale neighborhood on November 27 when they spotted a man in the northeast corner of the parking lot next to a pickup truck.

The officers said the man, 32-year-old Zachary Yates, was moving boxes outside of the vehicles. When one of the officers approached, he noticed an unholstered handgun between his belt and pants on the back side of his waistband. Commander Matt Clark said the person refused to comply with officers who told him he was unlawfully carrying a weapon.

“Officers worked to deescalate the situation through ongoing communication efforts. One specific officer worked for just over four minutes to engage the subject in conversation in an effort to gain his compliance,” Clark said.

While officers were speaking to him, Yates appeared to reach back to his waistband area, police said. Two officers fired their weapons five times out of concern that he might retrieve the weapon. Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas says the officers’ actions were in line with their training, and DPD shared links to videos of the incident in a press release about it earlier in the day.

“I think you hear an officer asking about military service. So I think they’re really trying to connect with him and get him to comply, get him to understand that they are not a threat to him,” Thomas said. “They just need him to safely comply with their directions, and then he all of a sudden makes that sudden movement that puts everybody at risk.”

Yates was treated for two gunshot wounds and has since been released from the hospital. It is unknown why he was at the complex. He was charged with unlawfully carrying a firearm – a 9 mm Glock 17 handgun – in Denver and possessing a high capacity magazine of more than 15 rounds. No officers were injured during the shooting.