In the late summer of 1899, an evening of drunken revelry in lower downtown Denver turned deadly for a dedicated police officer. Thomas Clifford, a 46-year-old male of White/Caucasian descent, was a respected officer with the Denver Police Department. On the night of August 13th, he responded to a disturbance involving three disruptive and intoxicated U.S. Army soldiers who had been ejected from a saloon.
What should have been a routine intervention to disarm the men quickly escalated into a fatal confrontation that would leave a lasting scar on the city and its police force.
As Officer Clifford confronted the soldiers and demanded they surrender their weapons, one of the men, identified by his companions as a soldier named Llewellyn, brazenly drew his firearm. Without warning, he fired at Clifford at close range, striking him in the chest. The force of the bullet knocked the officer to the dirt street. As he lay wounded, Llewellyn stood over him and fired at least once more before fleeing into the night. A fellow officer, William Griffiths, who was nearby, heroically attempted to pursue the fleeing soldier but was also shot and killed by the suspect under the 16th Street Bridge.
In the chaotic aftermath, a patrol wagon was summoned to transport Officer Clifford to the hospital, but his injuries were too severe, and he succumbed to them before he could receive medical attention. His body was taken to the county morgue, where an autopsy later revealed two gunshot wounds to his chest. Despite an extensive search of the city and the local army post where Llewellyn was believed to be hiding, the suspect was never captured. The two soldiers who were with Llewellyn at the time of the shooting were taken into custody for questioning, but the man who pulled the trigger and ended the lives of two of Denver's finest vanished, leaving behind a grieving community and a case that would remain officially unsolved.
