A police officer in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, Colorado, was killed and three of his colleagues were wounded on Thursday evening when a gunman opened fire as officers boarded a city bus.
Lakewood police identified the dead officer on Friday as Nic Graham, 33, who had served with the department since 2019 and had become a decorated member and trainer. One of the three wounded officers remained in hospital on Friday; the others had been discharged. A bystander was also injured in the shooting.
The shooting happened at about 6.30pm local time near West Colfax Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard, about five miles west of downtown Denver, after officers responded to a report of a suspicious person who may have been involved in an earlier hit-and-run crash. The man was trying to board a Regional Transportation District (RTD) bus on Route 76 when officers moved in. Police surrounded the bus, and as an officer boarded, the suspect opened fire. Officers returned fire, killing him at the scene.
Teddy O’Brien, a driver stopped at a red light nearby, told the Associated Press that around 20 shots were fired. He said the bus’s interior lights were on and only one or two people could be seen on board besides the officer who had boarded. “It was just scary, I didn’t know what to do besides that,” he said. “I didn’t want like a stray bullet to hit me. It sounded at that point that bullets were flying everywhere.”
Graham came from a police family. His father recently retired after police work, and his mother worked in a crime lab, Lakewood Police Chief Philip Smith said at a news conference on Friday. Over his career Graham was involved in 322 cases, the biggest caseload of the department’s major crimes team, and in 2023 he received a department award for gang intelligence work and investigative support. “His accomplishments tell us what he did. The gratitude of those he helped tells us how much his service mattered,” Smith said. The department described Graham as “a loving husband and father to his 1-year-old child” and a “trusted colleague, a dedicated mentor”.
Dozens of area police officers assembled outside a hospital after the shooting, and a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace” in tribute to the slain officer before a procession of police vehicles proceeded to the coroner’s office. People placed flowers on the hood of a police SUV as a memorial outside the Lakewood Police Department. Colorado Governor Jared Polis said in a statement: “Law enforcement put their lives on the line for our safety every day.”
The Jefferson County Critical Incident Response Team is leading the investigation into the shooting, with assistance from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Police have not released the gunman’s identity or given a motive, and the name of the injured bystander has also not been released. Lakewood’s officers are known as agents because the department was initially modelled after the FBI.
Sources: Associated Press, “Lakewood Officer Nic Graham killed, 3 others wounded in RTD bus shootout” (6 November 2026), https://www.police1.com/officer-down/1-colo-officer-killed-3-others-wounded-in-a-shootout-with-suspect — this report is based on the Associated Press account and Lakewood police statements; the gunman’s identity and motive had not been released at the time of publication.
