CU Student Shot And Killed By Police May Have Been High
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) - A man police say was acting erratically and may have been high on drugs before he was shot and killed by an officer Monday night was a CU student in his junior year.
Samuel Forgy, 22, died at approximately 10:30 p.m. Monday after a police officer shot him in a stairway inside an apartment building.
"He kind of had a crazy look in his eyes and you could tell there was something going on in his head that wasn't right," said Forgy's neighbor Zach Nadiak.
The apartment is located near the intersection of 19th Street and Canyon Boulevard.
Sam's next door neighbors told CBS4 two people ran into their apartment and were concerned their friend was on drugs and had a hammer. That's when they say the suspect also tried to get in the apartment but they slammed the door and called for help.
"And they're kind of freaking out and they're like, 'Our friend is on drugs and has a knife,' " said Nadiak.
Police say the 911 caller reported someone high on LSD. They said he had stabbed someone and was outside screaming.
Nadiak and his two roommates said they heard a struggle just before and saw another man with a bite mark to his hand and a cut to his head.
"He just had some sort of cut that was bleeding from his face all the way down." said Forgy's neighbor Curtis.
He said police confronted Forgy in the stairwell just outside his apartment, "They definitely were pleading with him, trying to reason with him, and I couldn't hear anything he was saying but it didn't sound like he was cooperating at all."
Officers say when they arrived the suspect was naked on a stairwell. They tried to tase him but that apparently did not calm him so an officer fired his weapon.
"They were yelling at him to come out with his hands up, and then we think they were saying 'Drop the hammer' so apparently he had picked up a hammer. And they said it repeatedly," Nadiak said. "And then there was some commotion outside and that's when we heard the shots."
"We heard a Taser or stun gun go off followed by three or four shots just back to back," said Curtis.
Forgy was pronounced dead at the scene.
A spokeswoman for the city of Boulder told CBS4 the officer who fired his weapon has been with the Boulder Police Department since 2013 and is now on paid administrative leave while officials investigate, which is standard procedure.