Aurora officials release new details about the deadly police shooting

The new chief of the Aurora Police Department confirmed Monday that the man fatally shot by police last week was carrying an airsoft gun, claiming the man was there “to intimidate, terrorize and threaten the community” .

The man’s sister-in-law, Kelly Davis, said Chief Todd Chamberlain making statements about the man’s intentions during the shooting without releasing the footage is “very telling.”

“Making these kinds of statements without body camera footage is insane,” she said.

Aurora police officers responded around 2 p.m. Thursday to multiple calls about a fight in a parking lot in the 11900 block of East 16th Avenue and a man with a gun, Chamberlain said at a news conference Monday afternoon.

Witnesses reported the man tried to grab another man’s car, starting the fight, and later walked across the street to a van parked near an apartment complex and retrieved what appeared to be a gun.

He then “began waving it in a very hostile and threatening manner,” Chamberlain said.

Two Aurora police officers arrived on the scene and told the man to drop the gun, which he raised at the officers, Chamberlain said. One officer fired two shots, hitting the man.

Police arrested him and provided medical treatment, but he later died in hospital.

The man also allegedly threatened to kill a woman who passed by with a shopping cart, Chamberlain said.

The Adams County Coroner’s Office has not released the man’s identity, but family members identified him as Kory Dillard.

Chamberlain described the officers’ actions as “the least amount of force necessary” to control the situation and speculated about what might have happened if the man had “made a different decision,” such as dropping the weapon and raising his hands.

“I’m sure the officers wished they had another alternative. I’m sure they wish this suspect had made a different decision,” he said.

During an initial briefing on Thursday Chamberlain described the shooting as a shootout by the officers towards the man. Police officials later clarified that there was no gunfire and investigators do not believe the man fired any shots from the airsoft gun.

“Kory is a wonderful person and it’s hard for us to understand that this happened for a number of reasons,” Davis said.

In a statement, Dillard’s family described the airsoft gun as a toy.

“Kory was a free citizen who dealt with toys and was not under arrest when this happened,” the family said.

Chamberlain said Monday he didn’t know if the airsoft gun could be considered a toy, adding that it looked exactly like an AR-15.