Border Ruffian
Registered
Couldn't decide what the cop was by looking at him. "Ranjan" seems to be East Indian name.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,3...2268726,00.html
Frank Lobato had a long history of trouble with police before a Denver officer shot him to death Sunday night.
As a young man, he had been sentenced to prison on burglary charges. He had been accused and acquitted of rape. In Colorado and California, he had faced charges ranging from urinating in public and driving with a defective taillight to disturbing the peace, assault, using illegal drugs and failing on v
rious occasions to appear in court, according to state records.
Just two weeks ago, a Denver judge sentenced him to three years intensive supervised probation at a Salvation Army rehabilitation cente
r.
Lobato was not, however, the man police were hunting when an officer fir
ed a fatal bullet into his chest in a west Denver apartment.
Instead he was the uncle of the man suspected of imprisoning and beating his wife, according to that woman.
The man police killed was 63, and sometimes went by the name "Sluggo," according to court records. He stood 5 feet, 3 inches tall and hobbled around with a pair of canes. When he was shot to death, he was holding a beverage can that an officer who had climbed through a second-story window apparently mistook for a gun.
"He could barely walk," said Cathy Sandoval, his nephew's wife. "He was very sick. We were trying to get him into a nursing home. It was a mistake that the cops shot him."
Sandoval said
she told police that Lobato was in the apartment with her husband when she complained that Martinez beat her. According to neighbors, police who rushed in after the shooting brought Lobato out of the a
partment naked and bleeding on a gurney.
It was the second time in five years that Denver police seeking one suspect killed
someone else. In 1999, Ismael Mena, a 45- year-old Mexican immigrant, was shot and killed after SWAT team members executing a search warrant broke into the wrong house.
According to Denver court records, Lobato was not supposed to be living in his nephew's apartment.
He was arrested last year for buying a small amount of heroin, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of possessing cocaine and was sentenced to a treatment program. But after he violated probation, a judge sentenced him on June 29 to three years of intensive supervised probation at a Salvation Army adult rehabilitation center.
"We had asked for community corrections," Denver district atto
rney Bill Ritter said. Instead of a locked facility, Lobato was sent to "the Salvation Army in an inpatient program. It would appear that he should be there."
Salvation Army officia
ls said they could not comment on Lobato's departure from the program because of confidentiality laws.
Maj. Michael Dossey, an official with the Salvation Army's
adult rehabilitation center headquarters in California, described the Denver facility as a 24-hour residential program.
But "it's not a lockdown-type program," he said. Physically, residents can leave at any time. According to court and Colorado Bureau of Investigation records, Lobato had not been in state prison since the 1960s but had been arrested often and sometimes described himself as a transient. He once listed a day program for homeless adults in Denver as his home address.
Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman said Monday that officers searching for Cathy Sandoval's assailant came to a closed bedroom door
on the second floor.
When the door was opened, "the man in bed inside the room moved suddenly while displaying what the officer believed was a firearm in his hand," Whitman sai
d.
"The party who was shot was not involved in the kidnapping, the assault or the domestic violence involving the victim," he said.
And Lobato was unarmed. According to Whitman, the officer who fired the
fatal shot "heard an object fall to the floor on the other side of the bed."
It was a soda can.
old photo of Frank Lobato
Ranjan Ford, Jr.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,3...2268726,00.html
Frank Lobato had a long history of trouble with police before a Denver officer shot him to death Sunday night.
As a young man, he had been sentenced to prison on burglary charges. He had been accused and acquitted of rape. In Colorado and California, he had faced charges ranging from urinating in public and driving with a defective taillight to disturbing the peace, assault, using illegal drugs and failing on v
rious occasions to appear in court, according to state records.
Just two weeks ago, a Denver judge sentenced him to three years intensive supervised probation at a Salvation Army rehabilitation cente
r.
Lobato was not, however, the man police were hunting when an officer fir
ed a fatal bullet into his chest in a west Denver apartment.
Instead he was the uncle of the man suspected of imprisoning and beating his wife, according to that woman.
The man police killed was 63, and sometimes went by the name "Sluggo," according to court records. He stood 5 feet, 3 inches tall and hobbled around with a pair of canes. When he was shot to death, he was holding a beverage can that an officer who had climbed through a second-story window apparently mistook for a gun.
"He could barely walk," said Cathy Sandoval, his nephew's wife. "He was very sick. We were trying to get him into a nursing home. It was a mistake that the cops shot him."
Sandoval said
she told police that Lobato was in the apartment with her husband when she complained that Martinez beat her. According to neighbors, police who rushed in after the shooting brought Lobato out of the a
partment naked and bleeding on a gurney.
It was the second time in five years that Denver police seeking one suspect killed
someone else. In 1999, Ismael Mena, a 45- year-old Mexican immigrant, was shot and killed after SWAT team members executing a search warrant broke into the wrong house.
According to Denver court records, Lobato was not supposed to be living in his nephew's apartment.
He was arrested last year for buying a small amount of heroin, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of possessing cocaine and was sentenced to a treatment program. But after he violated probation, a judge sentenced him on June 29 to three years of intensive supervised probation at a Salvation Army adult rehabilitation center.
"We had asked for community corrections," Denver district atto
rney Bill Ritter said. Instead of a locked facility, Lobato was sent to "the Salvation Army in an inpatient program. It would appear that he should be there."
Salvation Army officia
ls said they could not comment on Lobato's departure from the program because of confidentiality laws.
Maj. Michael Dossey, an official with the Salvation Army's
adult rehabilitation center headquarters in California, described the Denver facility as a 24-hour residential program.
But "it's not a lockdown-type program," he said. Physically, residents can leave at any time. According to court and Colorado Bureau of Investigation records, Lobato had not been in state prison since the 1960s but had been arrested often and sometimes described himself as a transient. He once listed a day program for homeless adults in Denver as his home address.
Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman said Monday that officers searching for Cathy Sandoval's assailant came to a closed bedroom door
on the second floor.
When the door was opened, "the man in bed inside the room moved suddenly while displaying what the officer believed was a firearm in his hand," Whitman sai
d.
"The party who was shot was not involved in the kidnapping, the assault or the domestic violence involving the victim," he said.
And Lobato was unarmed. According to Whitman, the officer who fired the
fatal shot "heard an object fall to the floor on the other side of the bed."
It was a soda can.
