Police Kill Man with Large Knife on Univ. of Colorado Campus

The man allegedly threatened students with the knife and refused to drop the weapon.

A man wielding a sword-like knife was shot and killed by police on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus Oct. 5.

The man, who has been tentatively identified as a recently-discharged marine, refused to drop the knife when he was commanded to do so by police in an athletic department building, according to 9news.com.

“Given the weapon the suspect was armed with, given the statements made by our victim and given the nature of how he was maneuvering through the Champions Center, we believed it was a deadly force situation,” Campus Police Chief Melissa Zak says.

The incident began after a man and a woman got into a confrontation in the Champions Center parking lot around 9:15 a.m. It is not known if the two people knew each other, but a source close to the investigation says the suspect was seen writing religious messages on several vehicles moments before the altercation.

Police say the suspect was menacing and threatening people with the knife, which was originally reported as a machete, during the confrontation and at some point moved inside the building. University police sent an emergency alert to students warning them of the threat and asking them to avoid the Champions Center.

RELATED: N.J. College Students Charged in Campus Knife Fight

Campus and local police officers, responding to several 911 calls, located the man and told him to drop the weapon.

“He was not following commands,” Boulder police spokesman Scott Pribble says. “At some point, we had to limit the situation so the threat was no longer there.”

Eventually two police officers, one from the local police force and the other from the campus police force, fatally shot the man inside a stairwell of the building. The identities of the officers involved have not been released.

Campus police notified students that the threat had been mitigated at 9:40 a.m. No one else was injured in the incident.

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