Detective seemed bent on suicide, sources say

El Paso County sheriff's detective Jerald Day had no intention of being captured alive the night he drew fellow officers into a tense roadside standoff near Castle Rock in Douglas County, authorities said.

After a car chase with Douglas County sheriff's deputies, he suddenly pulled into the parking lot of the Franktown Animal Clinic on Colorado Highway 83.

Then, as officers from the jurisdiction to the north began to surround him with their guns drawn, Day sat in his tan Toyota pickup with a pistol and a pint of vodka, intent on killing himself and anyone who tried to stop him, police said.

By turns, he pointed the weapon at deputies and put it against his head and in his mouth.

That's how authorities described their Feb. 28 standoff with Day in court documents obtained by The Gazette.

Douglas County sheriff's deputies say they managed to arrest the suicidal detective without resorting to gunfire by hitting Day with several nonlethal rounds from a shotgun and releasing a police dog, who dragged him to the ground long enough for officers to handcuff him.

He was placed in a mental health hold after his arrest and was later transferred to the Douglas County jail, where he remained in custody Tuesday on a $300,000 bond.

Day faces two counts of felony menacing, obstruction, resisting arrest, driving under the influence of alcohol and vehicular eluding.

As a major crimes detective, Day handled some of the department's biggest investigations, including Jennifer Warren's recent slaying, on which he worked as the lead investigator.

But according to an ex-girlfriend, Day had been growing increasingly erratic in the months leading up to the arrest.

In an application for a restraining order she filed Monday in El Paso County, the woman said Day threatened to kill her and himself during a phone call on the night of the standoff.

"I heard the weapon ‘rack' in the background,'" she wrote.

She also accused Day of following her from her house to her job a day earlier, and she said that he refused her requests to leave her alone.

Day, who has been separated from his wife for at least two years, also threatened a colleague in the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, a prosecutor from the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office said in court documents.

Day was placed on paid suspension while the charges against him are pending, sheriff's spokeswoman Lt. Lari Sevene said. An Internal Affairs investigation has also been opened, but up to this point none of Day's colleagues have reported seeing warning signs before the standoff.

"By all accounts, we had no indication there was a concern to this level," she said.

Sevene said that it was too early to tell whether any ongoing investigations would be affected, but that it was doubtful because detectives collaborate on investigations.