Jamie Ceballos, 31

Thornton, Colorado
August 30, 2013

Agencies: Thornton Police Department Colorado

Cause of death: Not Yet Known

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Last updated: almost 6 years ago

Overview

Officers responded to the 2600 block of East 98th Place about 7:30 p.m. to a report of an intoxicated man threatening people with a weapon, according to the Thornton Police Department. They arrived to confront a man brandishing a bat and a knife in the front yard of a home.

Officers made “multiple commands” that the suspect drop the weapons, but he refused, police said. One officer shot him with a Taser, but this did not stop the man. It was not immediately clear whether the “less-lethal” weapon failed to make good contact, or the suspect simply resisted the shock.

As the suspect kept coming, another police officer shot him. The suspect was taken to the hospital but died of his injuries, police reported. The officer has been placed on paid leave, per procedure.

Vigil called police on Aug. 30, 2013, to get her husband, Jaime Ceballos, to leave the couple's house.

Vigil, the mother of two small children, said 31-year-old Ceballos was off his psychiatric medications, was possibly intoxicated and was pacing in front of their home with a baseball bat while acting "highly agitated."

"Rather than calming the situation down and offering professional help to this woman dealing with her mentally ill husband, these ... officers escalated the situation, shooting and killing him instead," the complaint said.

The officers knew they were not responding to a crime, the lawsuit said, but "within under one minute," an officer shot Ceballos dead.

One officer had fired a Taser at Ceballos, but only one of the probes hit him, rather than the two needed to incapacitate a person, a later investigation showed.

Husk then shot Ceballos three times, with one bullet hitting him in the leg and two striking him in the chest.

Prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against the officers after an outside review of the case concluded that the shooting was a justifiable use of deadly force.

Legal Action

August 2015 Lawsuit filed