The gunman who shot and killed a woman working at the front desk of a Lakewood hotel last year — along with four other people during a pre-meditated, two-city shooting spree — targeted the hotel simply because its staff previously had refused to let him use a gift card to pay for a room, documents released Monday show.

The woman, 28-year-old Sarah Steck, wasn’t even supposed to work that night. She was covering the Dec. 27 shift for a sick co-worker when Lyndon McLeod, 47, walked in and shot her. He was inside the Hyatt House hotel in the Belmar shopping district for less than 30 seconds.

The gunman’s motive for killing Steck was one of several new details made public Monday after First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King announced she would not charge Lakewood police Agent Ashley Ferris for shooting and killing him moments after he wounded her.

King found Ferris’ actions were reasonable and heroic.

The DA also cleared a second Lakewood police agent, Brianna Hagan, who fired at the gunman after he shot at her during a traffic stop as police searched for him the night of Dec. 27.

“Agents Hagan and Ferris and their fellow officers from multiple agencies responded swiftly and bravely to end this spree of senseless violence in our community,” King said in a news release. “Agent Ferris demonstrated particular heroism in returning fire while gravely wounded herself, and our community owes her and all of our law enforcement partners a debt of gratitude for their service during this tragic event.”

King’s announcement included the release of hundreds of pages of police reports and interview transcripts detailing the investigation of the Lakewood Police Department’s use of force that night, along with video footage of the shooting.

Ferris killing the gunman ended his series of attacks, some of which targeted people he knew or worked with previously.

He first shot Alicia Cardenas and Alyssa Gunn Maldonado at the Denver tattoo shop Cardenas owned on Broadway before killing Michael Swinyard in his apartment near Cheesman Park. The gunman then drove to Lakewood and killed Danny Scofield in the tattoo parlor where he worked before eluding Lakewood officers and walking into a restaurant in the Belmar shopping area and threatening a bartender. After leaving the restaurant, he walked into the Hyatt hotel and killed Steck moments before Ferris killed him.

The gunman was an angry, vengeful person who failed to keep friendships and relationships, according to descriptions of interviews with his former girlfriends included in the documents. One former girlfriend told investigators that he abused her and stole from her. He had not had a job in at least seven years, she said, and instead mooched off of others. He repeatedly made comments about hurting or killing people he thought had wronged him.

The gunman approached Ferris while she set up a perimeter in the Belmar shopping area. He wore a black vest with “POLICE” written across it and Ferris at first thought he was security from a nearby business.

Surveillance video of the shooting released Monday shows Ferris standing outside her police car, which is blocking the intersection at Vance Street and Alaska Drive, when the gunman approaches. The two stand face-to-face in the intersection for about 10 seconds. Ferris appears to reach for something in the gunman’s hands and then draws her gun and starts to back away.

The gunman pauses for four seconds and then turns and fires, striking Ferris. She falls and fires multiple shots. The gunman turns to run, stumbles and collapses behind her patrol car.

Ferris writhes in the street for 40 seconds before another officer drags her to safety, leaving a trail of her blood in the street, the video shows.

Three officers later arrive with guns drawn and surround the gunman, using Ferris’s patrol car for cover. The gunman is lying on his side but rolls onto his back and stops moving. Officers then approach his body.

The gunman shot Ferris in the abdomen and the bullet fractured before exiting her back, damaging her sciatic nerve and leaving her temporarily paralyzed in her right leg. Ferris returned to work in May after two surgeries and hundreds of hours of physical therapy.

Investigators found two sets of handcuffs, multiple weapons and at least 400 rounds of ammunition in the gunman’s van.

Investigators later learned the gunman was the author of three racist and misogynistic books that described similar killings and named some of his eventual victims. A German man warned the FBI and Denver police a year before the shootings that the gunman posed a violent threat, but Denver police were not able to contact the gunman at the time or substantiate the threat.

After the Dec. 27 shootings, a former girlfriend described the books as “revenge fantasies” to investigators, documents show.