A man shot in the ankle by an Aurora police officer filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Tuesday — even as the now-former officer faces criminal charges in the 2022 police shooting.
Former Aurora police officer Douglas Harroun, 34, was charged with two counts of assault after he shot 37-year-old Duvan Jamir Fernandez Zuluaga while responding to a domestic violence call at a home on North Chambers Road on Dec. 31, 2022.
Harroun was criminally charged in the shooting in June 2023 and is scheduled to stand trial on the charges in October.
He resigned from the Aurora Police Department in January 2023 after a separate off-duty incident on Jan. 11, 2023, in which he was accused of attacking a disabled woman as she was walking her dog. Harroun was arrested after that incident and charged with three counts of assault and a single count of attempting to influence a public servant. That case is set for trial in September.
On Tuesday, Zuluaga sued Harroun and the city of Aurora over the December 2022 on-duty shooting, claiming the officer should never have fired.
A spokesman for the city declined to comment Wednesday.
Harroun and another Aurora police officer responded to Zuluaga’s home around 11:30 p.m. that night after one of his housemates called 911 to report that her husband was drunk and harassing her. Zuluaga, the husband and another man were hanging out in the home’s basement apartment when officers arrived, while the wife was in a separate unit upstairs.
She told officers that her husband was not being violent and did not have any weapons.
Harroun and another officer came to the basement door and ordered the husband to come out of the basement, according to an affidavit filed against Harroun. When the husband refused, the two officers drew their guns and entered the basement. They ordered the three men to put their hands up, and each of them did so.
Harroun then grabbed the husband and handcuffed him after a brief struggle. Harroun began to pull the man up the basement stairs as his wife screamed in protest and the man used his body weight to lean against the officer, pulling him down the stairs.
As Harroun struggled to pull the husband up the stairs, Zuluaga started to follow the pair. Harroun yelled at him to stop and back up, according to the affidavit. Zuluaga, who speaks very little English, took an additional step or two forward. Harroun then shot him in the ankle.
An investigator who reviewed the body-worn camera footage from that night found Zuluaga made no “aggressive posturing, mannerisms or movements that would justify” the shooting, according to the affidavit.
Harroun told investigators he intentionally shot Zuluaga in the leg because he could not get a good shot at the man’s torso.
“I shot him in the leg just to stop his forward movement up the stairs,” Harroun said, according to an affidavit filed against him.
Right after the gunshot, Harroun is heard on body-worn camera footage claiming that Zuluaga had “rushed” up the stairs at him. Investigators later found that claim to be false.
Zuluaga’s lawsuit said he could not put weight on his foot for a month after the shooting and had to go through weeks of physical therapy to try to regain function in his ankle. He now struggles to run or participate in sports, and part of his ankle is permanently numb, the lawsuit says.
Harroun was hired as an Aurora police officer in 2020, but should have been screened out as an unsuitable candidate, Zuluaga’s attorneys claim in the lawsuit.
Harroun remains a certified police officer in Colorado, according to state records, but is not currently employed with a law enforcement agency.
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Originally Published: June 26, 2024 at 1:21 p.m.
