Lies and Tragedy: The Johnny Hurley Case.

An ever shifting story of omitted details, police coverups, and the death of a local hero who stopped a mass shooting.

Johnny Hurley, shot and killed by police June 21st, 2021

A small sleepy suburb of Denver, an average day by all accounts, but the scene for an event that highlights the reality of policing and the 2nd Amendment in the United States. A moment where the “good guy with a gun” narrative was challenged and proven true, yet crushed by another factor: Law Enforcement. In the shadow of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the investigation of the Arvada PD quietly concluded. The decision? The police have no reasonable expectation for intelligent use of force when firearms are involved, and that they will intentionally hide facts and details about a case to protect their own over the average citizen.

Or so it would appear, honestly we don’t know, but this is because of another important detail of this case. To get there we must go back to the beginning, examine that day, the details we know now, the footage that was withheld, and the contradictory statements from Arvada Police. Let us start with what we did know in the immediate days following the shooting.

Johnny Hurley, pictured at a police brutality protest in Denver, CO

The Clear Details:

The event took place early in the day in Olde Town Arvada. Officer Gordon Beesley receives a call about a suspicious person, and arrives at the Olde Town Square. Little did he know just down the alley sitting in his vehicle was Ronald Troyke, who had spotted him. Troyke retrieved a shotgun from his truck, walked towards Beesley, opening fire and killing him. Troyke then begins firing indiscriminately at parked police cruisers and the occupied OldetownNutrition juice shop to his north. Troyke returned to his vehicle, grabbed an AR-15 rifle, and walked back to Beesley’s corpse.

Troyke approaching Beesley. Little is know about Troyke and his motives. He had threatened police on social media before, but no clear motivation for his actions this day has been discovered.

During this time Johnny Hurley was shopping at the Army Surplus store across the street from the Olde Town Square when the first shots rang out. Hurley pulled his personal sidearm, crossed the public square, and took position behind a brick wall. Hurley begins firing on Troyke as he walks back to the scene of the initial shooting, killing him.

At this point things become blurry. What we do know for a fact is that several other Arvada police officers arrived at the scene. Mistaking Hurley for the active shooter, they opened fire striking Hurley. He was pronounced dead later at the hospital. This is where the facts that we knew at the time stop, and the confusing and suspicious details of the case begin to emerge.

Satellite images of the Olde Town Square and a break down of the positions of all actors in the event.

News reporting in the days following were sporadic and mixed as is the usual during events like this. First claims that there was two shooters, then one, then Hurley being killed by Troyke, then finally the reports that Hurley was shot and killed by police.

What followed was the first official statement by Arvada PD. Police at the time had claimed that they arrived on scene to see Hurley holding Trokye’s AR-15 and standing over his body. Unaware of the situation or the shooter, police opened fire. However things begin to become odd with the selective information released by Arvada PD.

The cropped footage released by Arvada PD after the shooting.

The full uncropped footage released to News2Share after the investigation.

Edits and Coverups

This will begin the segment where I argue that the Arvada Police has intentionally withheld, edited, lied and covered up details of this case both before and after the conclusion of the formal investigation. Doing this to protect their own officers, and hide possible damning details of the case.

First we begin with Arvada PD’s released evidence in comparison to what we know now. As you can see in the pictures above, the first public statement only included this one piece of video. The video (here) shows Troyke leave his vehicle, run to the edge of the screen where he is alleged to engage Beesley, then return to his truck. The footage ends there.

Many, myself included, believed there was more footage and that this image was cropped. That the full video may have been withheld to avoid showing the death of Officer Beesley, but likely also contained footage of what happened to Hurley.

Just this week the investigation concluded, and more footage was released in a thread by Ford Fischer of New2Share (here). This time the footage is full screen. It shows the full shooting of Beesley, and of Hurley killing Trokye. But once again, the released footage stops early. It does not show any interaction between the police and Hurley.

If this was an open and shut case, that Hurley had been positioned over Troyke armed with a rifle and thus easily misidentified as the shooter, that he had the rifle up and pointed at someone, or was standing in a way that could categorized as aggressive, one could believe the police would release it to defend their actions that day. But they have not. To me that begs the question: Why?

Johnny Hurley in red. Last footage of his location before the available footage ends.

The Curious Case of Body Cameras

Missing from the released evidence is any bodycam footage. Arguably the most important evidence in most police use of force situations. Several articles written immediately after the shooting claim that Arvada police officers do not possess body worn cameras, including statements from the PD themselves.

Denver Post: https://www.denverpost.com/2021/06/27/arvada-police-body-cameras/
Fox 31: https://kdvr.com/news/local/golden-police-using-body-cams-that-turn-on-automatically/
Arvada Press: https://arvadapress.com/stories/arvada-pd-aims-to-build-trust,311871

However once again after the investigation had been concluded, two separate body cameras footage was released. One from an officer responding much later after the shooting is shown in full. The other however is from a county sheriff who is pictured taking Trokye’s rifle off of Hurley’s corpse. This footage once again is oddly cropped.

The body camera footage from responding officer arriving on scene as Hurley is loaded into the back of a car.

Cropped body camera footage of officer immediately after taking possession of Troyke’s rifle from the corpse of Hurley.

Again we have a case of cropped footage. There is a possibility that the camera worn by this officer shoots in this aspect ratio, but I have never personally seen this before. This also falls well outside of the standards for bodycam footage found across the US of a 90 to 170 degree field of view (Source).

This raises suspicions, because once again the only footage edited or cropped exclusively happens to be the footage that would show any details on Hurley’s position or situation. This once again begs the question: Why?

Let us use what has been released to show without a shadow of a doubt that the Arvada PD possesses footage of the exact moment Johnny Hurley was shot and killed, yet refuse to release it.

Image from Google Streetview of Olde Town Square. Labelled confirmed locations of the security camera used in footage released and Troyke’s corpse. Speculated location of Hurley’s corpse based off of the footage.

Google Streetview of the alleyway from the street and the camera that filmed the shooting. White square being the rough location of Johnny Hurley’s corpse.

Footage taken from a news helicopter shortly after the shooting.

Shellshock

Hurley was shot from behind, this is shown by his wound being to the buttocks. We also have the sworn statement from the officer who killed Hurley, Officer Kraig Brownlow. In his statement there is several important details to be gleamed from this exchange. Brownlow claims to have been in a nearby office directly across from Hurley’s last known location. After hearing several shots, Brownlow peers through the door window and sees Troyke firing his weapon.

Door Brownlow fires from is beneath this green awning behind the white truck pictured.

Brownlow claims to have seen Troyke both enter the alleyway in front of the office and leave. He remains holding the door. He then sees Hurley run past. Brownlow opens the door to the office and allegedly sees Hurley crouched across from him. Describing him as one hand holding his pistol and the other manipulating the rifle. Brownlow then states that he cracked open the door and lined up on Hurley. When asked why he didn’t call out, tell Hurley to drop the gun, or issue any other commands, Brownlow states he didn’t feel like he could win the gun fight and feared for his fellow officers lives. When asked why he mixed the two men up, Brownlow states that in the 10 seconds he lost sight of Troyke he thought the shooter possibly removed his hoodie. Full statement here.

There’s just one issue, the men both look and were dressed functionally nothing alike. Brownlow several times describes both Troyke’s and Hurley’s dress and appearance incorrectly during his sworn statement.

Troyke: Black hoodie, tan boonie hat, black shorts, black facemask and boots.

Hurley: Green cap, red shirt, jeans and skate shoes.

Conclusion

It is my belief that what happened may not be far off from what was described. However the omission of key evidence, the cropping and editing of footage, the contradictory statements by Arvada PD, and the strange testimony of Brownlow lead me to believe there is still details of this case being withheld.

It could be that Hurley was not doing anything that was described, that Brownlow did call out and Hurley responded, that Brownlow did not fire from the position he described, or many other possibilities. We may never know unless the full unedited footage is released.

Or, it could be a cut and dry case of a scared, under prepared police officer missing key details of the situation. With a fear for his life causing him to fire on an innocent person with no warning. Even if this is the case, in any other circumstance punishment would be dealt out to an average citizen.

If a civilian ran into a mall during an active shooting, saw an off duty or out of uniform officer with a gun, and fired upon them without warning, they would be in jail.

If Hurley was not a random concerned citizen but a detective or off duty officer, there would be more than just a paid vacation.

If the person who shot Hurley wasn’t a cop, but another concerned citizen, they’d likely face trial.

Unfortunately, that is not how the thin blue line works. One must ask: If the only thing stopping a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun… How does the modern US police officer factor into that? If in an active shooter situation you find yourself armed and attempting to defend yourself, do you have a reasonable expectation that the police will not fire on you without warning for merely being armed? Will the police edit, crop, cover up and lie about your death till after your killer is deemed justified?

These are the questions this story brings up.

RIP Johnny Hurley.

Activist, caregiver, anarchist, hero.

- Magnus Panvidya