A private security guard working for a Denver TV station is behind bars and accused in the deadly shooting of another man during dueling right- and left-wing protests, police said Sunday.
Matthew Dolloff, 30, was booked into jail for investigation of first-degree murder following the clash Saturday afternoon in Civic Center Park.
Authorities have not identified the man killed, but his son told the Denver Post it was his father, Lee Keltner, a 49-year-old U.S. Navy veteran who operated a hat-making business in the Denver area.
A man — appearing to be Keltner — participating in what was billed a “Patriot Rally” slapped and sprayed Mace at a man who appeared to be Dolloff, the Post reported, based on its photographs from the scene. The man identified by the newspaper as Dolloff drew a gun from his waistband and shot the other person, according to the Denver Post journalist who witnessed the episode.
“He wasn’t a part of any group,” Johnathon Keltner told the newspaper. “He was there to rally for the police department and he’d been down there before rallying for the police department.”
A woman who said she was Keltner’s mother, Carol Keltner, wrote in a social media post that her son was killed after being shot in the head.