De'Von Bailey

De'Von Bailey, 19, was shot and killed by Colorado Springs Police Officers Blake Evenson and Sgt. Alan Van't Land on August 3, 2019, while running away from officers investigating a report of an armed robbery. Body camera video, later released publicly, showed officers firing eight shots total, striking Bailey three times in the back and once in the arm as he fled; officers said he had reached for a firearm, but the released footage does not clearly show him pulling a weapon from his pocket before the shooting began. A gun was recovered at the scene. Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May referred the case to a grand jury rather than deciding himself, and in November 2019 the grand jury found the officers' use of force justified, declining to indict either of them. The city later paid Bailey's family nearly $3 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging racial profiling, without admitting wrongdoing. No one has ever been charged in Bailey's death.

Colorado Springs, CO · El Paso County

• 2019: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The robbery investigation, the foot pursuit, and the shooting, per Colorado Springs Police Department body camera footage released to the public in August 2019.
• Officers fired eight shots total, striking Bailey three times in the back and once in the arm as he ran; a firearm was recovered at the scene.
• District Attorney Dan May referred the case to a grand jury rather than making a charging decision himself, a choice Bailey family attorney Mari Newman publicly said was designed to avoid a prosecutorial indictment.
• The grand jury, whose members' identities were not disclosed, heard from the two officers and a use-of-force expert before declining to indict either officer in November 2019, releasing a public report stating Bailey's own actions led the officers to use deadly force.
• Bailey's parents filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging officers racially profiled their son and assumed, partly because of his race, that he presented an enhanced threat.
• The City of Colorado Springs settled that lawsuit for nearly $3 million in 2022, explicitly stating the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing and noting the grand jury's earlier finding.

• Whether Bailey in fact reached for or pulled the recovered firearm before officers opened fire, as they maintained, has been disputed by the family's attorneys, who say the released video does not clearly show that action occurring before the shots were fired, and was never resolved at any criminal trial.
• The specific reasoning behind the grand jury's finding, beyond its public report's general conclusion, has not been made available given Colorado's grand jury secrecy rules.
• The extent to which race played a role in officers' split-second assessment of Bailey as an enhanced threat, as the family's federal complaint alleged, was never adjudicated on the merits since the case settled before trial.

• NBC News — “Fatal shooting of black man by Colorado police was justified, grand jury finds”
• Colorado Public Radio — “El Paso County Grand Jury Heard From Officers, Expert, Before Calling De'Von Bailey Shooting Justified”
• 9NEWS (Denver) — “City of Colorado Springs settles lawsuit in fatal 2019 shooting for nearly $3M”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs