AURORA, Colo. — The 18th Judicial District Attorney’s office has filed charges against a former Greenwood Village police officer in the deadly Nov. 24 shooting of a 17-year-old.
Adam Holen, 36, has been charged with one count of second-degree murder, one count of felony menacing, and one count of prohibited use of a weapon. He is also facing two violent crime sentence enhancers.
The Aurora Police Department says Holen turned himself in at 3:04 p.m. He was arrested and booked into the Aurora Detention Center, where he was being held on a $50,000 bond before bonding out at approximately 8:10 p.m.
Holen allegedly exchanged gunfire with Peyton Blitstein, 17, around 10:30 p.m. in the 4900 block of S. Addison Way in Aurora on Nov. 24. Blitstein died in the shooting, and Holen was also shot but survived, Aurora police announced. Detectives said Holen and a group of teenagers had started arguing about careless driving in the neighborhood before the shooting.
Aurora police submitted a second-degree murder warrant to the district attorney's office Dec. 16.
Following news of the warrant, Todd Blitstein, Petyon Blitstein's father, held a press conference saying, "I was hoping for a first-degree [charge], but if it's a second-degree that we gotta go with, let's do it."
The father said he couldn't discuss details of how or why his son was carrying a gun on the night of Nov. 24. However, he did elaborate on how the situation has affected him and his loved ones.
"Extremely chaotic, extremely hard on a daily basis not knowing where Peyton's fate or our fate was gonna go... we were worried about a lesser charge," he said. "It's been a up and down roller coaster for everybody."
This is a developing story.
