A man was shot by an officer Thursday night in a standoff during which he detonated an explosive device that “created a fireball” in his room at a Longmont extended-stay hotel, police announced early Friday morning.
The man, who police identified as 40-year-old Leon Gladwell, sustained at least one gunshot wound according to police, was transported to an area hospital. No guests or staff at the Residence Inn, 1450 Dry Creek Road, were hurt in the explosion, but the third-floor room sustained heavy damage including two blown-out windows, according to a Longmont Police Department news release issued at 3:26 a.m. Friday.
Investigators with the Boulder County Regional Bomb Squad were on scene throughout the night.
Chris Fegenbush and his wife, Deb, were evacuated from their room at the Residence Inn Thursday night and were moved to the neighboring Courtyard by Marriott hotel.
From the parking lot Fegenbush saw the SWAT team move in and heard gunshots. "Pow, pow. pow … it was loud and it came fast," said Fegenbush, who is part of a wedding party from Iowa. "There was tear gas in the air, it was thick."
Police also used a robot to get into a portion of the hotel, he said.
"The whole thing was crazy," Fegenbush said. "When I heard the gunshot I and a lot of other people ducked behind a bush."
The events that led up to the explosion and shooting began shortly before 1 p.m. Thursday, when members of the Longmont Police Department CORE unit and the Colorado State Patrol attempted to contact Gladwell, who was living in the hotel, according to police. CORE units, which stands for Crisis Outreach Response and Engagement, are specialized teams “comprised of a behavioral health clinician, a paramedic and a specially trained police officer who respond to 911 calls for service that indicate a mental illness or substance use issue.”
Gladwell is a parolee who served a 1998 prison sentence for the murder of his grandmother in Boulder, according to the release.
Gladwell was 17 when was arrested in 1998 for beating his grandmother to death with a bicycle fork, according to the Daily Camera. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 48 years in prison, according to Colorado court records.
“Officers had information that Gladwell was afraid he was going to hurt someone. They also had information that he had knives and propane tanks in this room,” police stated.
When Gladwell was contacted outside of his room on Thursday afternoon, he was “angry, uncooperative and armed with several knives,” police stated. A parole officer collected the knives and Gladwell returned to his room and refused to cooperate further, according to the release.
In what the news release described as an effort to deescalate the situation, officers broke off contact with Gladwell to obtain a felony arrest warrant.
After verifying Gladwell was still in the room, officers returned to the hotel Thursday night to arrest him.
“At approximately 7:21 p.m., Gladwell detonated an unknown explosive device, which created a fireball in the room, activated the fire sprinklers and blew out two windows of the third-floor room,” police stated in the release. “This explosion caused extensive damage to the hotel, the room (and) endangered the lives of guests, hotel employees and officers.”
Officers continued to negotiate with Gladwell, but he refused to exit the room, according to the release.
About 8:45 p.m., Gladwell approached a blown-out window and was shot by an officer but still did not exit the room, according to police. After determining he was incapacitated, officers entered the room at 11:45 p.m. and arrested Gladwell, according to the release.
The officer who shot Gladwell has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation, according to the release.
The 20th Judicial District Critical Incident Team is investigating the shooting. The multi-agency Critical Incident Team investigates incidents in which law enforcement uses physical or deadly force in the course of official duties. Per protocol, the Longmont Police Department will not participate in the investigation.
— Staff writer Monte Whaley contributed to this story.
