{"id":29936,"date":"2024-01-03T00:34:47","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T07:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/officers-wont-face-charges-after-killing-suspect-in-slaying-of-cortez-police-sgt-moran\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:06:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:06:50","slug":"officers-wont-face-charges-after-killing-suspect-in-slaying-of-cortez-police-sgt-moran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/officers-wont-face-charges-after-killing-suspect-in-slaying-of-cortez-police-sgt-moran\/","title":{"rendered":"Officers won\u2019t face charges after killing suspect in slaying of Cortez police Sgt. Moran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Police
Police tape marks off the crime scene where Cortez Police Department Sgt. Michael Moran was shot and killed during a traffic stop Wednesday in southwest Cortez, near the Handy Mart, at 806 South Broadway. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Montezuma County District Attorney Christian Hatfield on Friday announced that law enforcement officers will not face charges after fatally shooting the man suspected of killing Cortez Police Sgt. Michael Moran.<\/p>\n

Police and sheriff\u2019s officials on Tuesday identified the officers involved in the shooting as Cortez Police Department Detective Stephon Lobato and Montezuma County Sheriff Sgt. Alexander Kennedy.<\/p>\n

Cortez Police Department public information officer Kelly Codner and Sheriff Steve Nowlin provided the names of the involved officers to The Journal<\/em> on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

Sgt. Moran, 46, was gunned down during a routine traffic stop Nov. 29<\/a> in the 800 block of South Broadway Street in southwest Cortez.<\/p>\n

The shooter, Jason Campbell, 44, of Ogden, Utah, was located \u201cwithin minutes\u201d about 1\u00bd miles south of the traffic stop at Aces Storage off U.S. Highway 160\/491, where he was shot and killed by law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\"District
District Attorney Christian Hatfield said charges will not be filed for officers who shot and killed Jason Campbell, the suspect the shooting death of Cortez Police Sgt. Michael Moran, above, on Nov. 29.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The body of Cortez Police Sgt. Michael Moran is escorted on Dec. 6 in a procession of hundreds of law enforcement vehicles down Main Street to the Cortez Recreation Center for his funeral. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sgt. Moran was laid to rest <\/a>in Cortez on Wednesday, Dec. 6.<\/p>\n

Montezuma County Sheriff Steven Nowlin said at the time that sheriff\u2019s deputies and police officers were involved in the shootout that killed Campbell just outside city limits.<\/p>\n

Hatfield, of the 22nd Judicial District, said the shooting was \u201clegally justified\u201d and officers could return to duty.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter reviewing the investigation done by CBI, the 22nd Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office has determined that there will be no criminal charges filed in the officer-involved shooting that took place on Nov. 29, 2023 in Cortez, Colorado,\u201d Hatfield said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaw Enforcement\u2019s actions during this incident were legally justified, and all officers involved are free to return to duty. This incident represents a tragedy for all involved and the community as a whole,\u201d he said. \u201cThe District Attorney\u2019s Office appreciates the extremely thorough investigation conducted by CBI and the cooperation of the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office and Cortez Police Department.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a phone call with The Journal<\/em>, Hatfield said that he was not in possession of the investigation documents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation but had met with CBI investigators.<\/p>\n

The investigators gave a presentation outlining their investigation, and Hatfield said he based his decision on that presentation.<\/p>\n

He also added that he wouldn\u2019t wish for anyone in the public to view the video of the shooting, and that videos posted online by witnesses had been taken down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s in anyone\u2019s best interest to see that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The CBI has released few details about the shooting.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 8,<\/a> the CBI said in a news release that Campbell began firing shots \u201calmost immediately\u201d after being pulled over on suspicion of reckless driving. Moran returned fire, but it didn\u2019t stop the suspect from fleeing the scene, according to the release.<\/p>\n

The CBI did not release a possible motive for the shooting. It also declined to say how many shots were fired, how many times Moran was shot or whether the suspect was hit by Moran\u2019s return fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officers identified; district attorney says they were \u2018legally justified\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,60,29,51,390],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-police","tag-shooting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80915,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29936\/revisions\/80915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29936"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}