James Ashby, a former Rocky Ford police officer charged with murder in the fatal shooting in October of a 27-year-old man, pleaded not guilty during his arraignment Thursday.
Ashby has been charged with three counts in the slaying of Jack Jacquez, including second-degree murder, criminally negligent homicide and a violent crime resulting in death or injury. A three-week trial for Ashby is scheduled to begin July 27.
“What I see in Ashby is a shell of a man,” Jacquez’s father, Jack Jacquez Sr., told The Denver Post after the arraignment. “I don’t see a man in him. I don’t see any compassion, charity, love, remorse. No nothing. He’s just hollow inside. He’s just a shell of a man.”
Ashby killed Jacquez on Oct. 12 after following him into the home of Jacquez’s mother. Ashby told investigators he thought Jacquez was a burglar, court records show.
Ashby never identified himself as a police officer and had no reason to believe Jacquez was committing a crime before the shooting, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation found.
Ashby told investigators he believed Jacquez was going to attack him with a wooden baseball bat when he fired two bullets at him, striking him once in the back. Investigators found that Jacquez was not a threat when he was shot.
Ashby was arrested and charged in the shooting in November and is free on $150,000 bail. He was fired from the Rocky Ford Police Department the day of his arrest.
The shooting sparked an outcry in Rocky Ford, a town of about 4,000 roughly 50 miles east of Pueblo. Protesters cited parallels to the police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York.
A judge ruled during a preliminary hearing last month that there was sufficient evidence to move forward to trial.
“I expected him to say what he said,” Viola Jacquez, the slain man’s mother, who witnessed the fatal shooting, said of the plea. “I didn’t think it was going to be any different.”
Viola Jacquez said after the arraignment that she has been preparing mentally and physically for the court proceedings.
“I am going to get up there on that stand — if I have to get up there on that stand — and tell the truth,” she said. “That’s all I have, the truth.”
Michael Lowe, Ashby’s attorney, told The Associated Press he plans to discuss a possible plea deal with prosecutors.
Ashby is the first Colorado law enforcement officer to be charged with murder in an on-duty killing in more than two decades.
Ashby had been accused of professional misconduct several times at his previous policing job in Walsenburg and was the subject of an excessive-force investigation in Rocky Ford filed days before the October shooting.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JesseAPaul