The mother of a 22-year-old Cheyenne man who was training to be an electrician got the call around 6:30 a.m. Sunday that her son had died.
Dani Hall soon learned that her firstborn son Aiden had shot himself while handcuffed and sitting alone in the back of a police car, she told Cowboy State Daily onFriday.
For her, the hours that followed were a blur.
Her husband scrambled to inform their other son.
Dani Hall drove from her home in Wellington, Colorado, to her son’s home in Cheyenne to take care of his dogs.
Meanwhile, the couple made plans to meet a deputy coroner with the Laramie County Coroner’s Office at Aiden’s house, said Dani.
“At this point, we didn’t know what happened, where it happened or anything,” she said.
She told the deputy coroner and another investigator who arrived at the home that she didn’t want to go into her son’s home if something horrible had happened there, Dani recalled.
“They said no (that’s not where it happened), so we went in,” she added.
The Arrest
She soon learned what had happened.
The night of Jan. 17-18, Aiden Hall was about 8 miles from home after spending the night out.
He was in his third year of training to become an electrician, and was based in Cheyenne for a Colorado electrical company, said Dani, adding that he was working to buy his home.
Aiden was facing the potential end of a long-term relationship, and “he was sad about the uncertainty,” his mother said.
Near the intersection of West 9th Street and Deming Drive in south Cheyenne, Aiden missed a turn and hit a guardrail.
He got out of his truck and rushed away on foot, while a nearby homeowner called police, according to Dani’s account.
A statement about the incident the Cheyenne Police Department released Friday says officers were called to the scene at 1:17 a.m.
Officers arrived to find a maroon pickup parked on the sidewalk, looking like it had struck a guardrail then come to rest on the roadside grass, the statement says.
They found a man running along Deming Drive and spoke to him long enough to determine he was the owner of the truck.
He “showed signs of intoxication and admitted to consuming alcohol,” the statement says.
Officers removed a pocketknife from the man's front pocket, handcuffed him, then put him in a police car and took him back to the crash scene, says the statement.
“Officers briefly stepped away to assess the crash scene and prepared to begin a Driving Under the Influence (DUI) investigation,” the agency added.
The statement says the man was able to move his handcuffed hands from behind his back to the front of his body, then retrieved a concealed firearm from inside his pants.
When officers returned to the car, they found the man had shot himself to death, the statement says, adding that officers administered first aid until medical personnel arrived, and the man was pronounced dead on scene.
Tell Me …
Dani told Cowboy State Daily she doesn’t want to see the in-car video.
But said she is meeting with an attorney about possible litigation, and she believes her attorney will review the video for her at some point.
Still, she said she questioned the deputy coroner about it.
“Did he say anything before he did it?” Dani asked the deputy, according to her recollection.
She said the deputy coroner’s answer was, “No, he was just crying.”
Dani said she learned that the gun was a 9 mm pistol, and she can’t understand how officers could have missed that when they detained him.
“How did they find a pocket knife and not a full-sized pistol?” asked Dani. “I don’t want this to happen to anybody else’s family. So avoidable.”
The Video
Aiden’s autopsy was set for Tuesday, but the forensic pathologist wanted to watch the in-car camera and body camera as part of that, said Dani.
In her telling, “the police department refused to release the videos to the pathologist, and (he) didn’t want to continue with the autopsy until they were able to see those videos.”
Dani said she believes the police department — at the urging of Laramie County Coroner Rebecca Reid — “decided to escort the videos down for them to watch,” and the autopsy happened Thursday.
Confirm
The Cheyenne Police Department declined Friday to confirm the elements of Dani’s account that aren’t in its statement citing the ongoing investigation.
Dani Hall also alleged that Aiden was in the police car for around a minute before he fired the gun, and that it was about three minutes before officers rendered aid.
Confronted with the portions of Dani’s account relevant to her office, Reid declined to confirm those, also citing the ongoing investigation.
Laramie County Attorney Mark Voss confirmed Friday to Cowboy State Daily that Reid, whose office he represents, copied him on a Jan. 20 email to the Cheyenne police chief.
Reid had asked for a meeting with the chief “about the issue with the video,” said Voss.
The Larimer County Coroner’s Office in Colorado where the forensic pathologist works declined to comment, referring Cowboy State Daily back to Reid.
Now, Remember
When contemplating what she’d like the public to remember about Aiden, Dani burst into tears.
“I want them to remember that he was a kind, kind kid who would lend a hand to anybody even if they have differing opinions,” she said. “He would be the first kid to jump in and help when needed.”
He was resourceful from a young age, she said. He turned the family barbecue grill into a metal forge so he could craft knives at age 13.
Dani said her son loved to learn new skills.
“He’d just set his mind to it and he did it,” she said. “He was a great young man.”
If You Or Someone You Know …
The Cheyenne Police Department’s statement quotes Chief Mark Francisco.
It says the agency is “thoroughly evaluating” the incident “and will take appropriate steps based on that review.”
“This is a tremendous loss for the decedent’s family and loved ones,” said Francisco. “Any in-custody death is a matter of deep concern for our department — this is never the intended outcome when officers respond to moments of crisis.
"Our officers approached this situation with patience and compassion, with the intent of helping the individual.”
The statement concludes by urging people struggling with thoughts of suicide to call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or chat online at 988lifeline.org.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
