Wheat Ridge Police Officer Relinquishes Certification After Putting Gun Against Unarmed Man’s Head
Former officer Carlos Bowdre was terminated for cause for his actions with the body camera footage obtained by Blue Surveillance after legal struggles with the city.
"I'll put a bullet in your fucking head,” is what former Wheat Ridge Police Officer Carlos Bowdre said to an unarmed man, on the ground, while holding a pistol flat against his head in May 2025.
Bowdre later stated in the internal affairs investigation looking into his actions that the public perspective of this would look “terrible,” and if the public saw the video of him "putting a gun to the guy's head, it looks horrifying. It looks like the cops are just gonna, are bullies, they look like they're a bunch of gang members.”
Blue Surveillance eventually acquired the below body camera footage of Bowdre’s actions, which were later consider misconduct that he was terminated for a few months later, after a three month long legal struggle with the Wheat Ridge Police Department.
The sustained misconduct found in the investigation stemmed from a call to Wheat Ridge Police Department about a stolen laptop tracked to a Valero gas station on Wadsworth Blvd in Wheat Ridge. Bowdre and three other officers were dispatched to the station, and according to Bowdre's discipline memorandum – seen below – a man by the car tracked to have the laptop immediately ran.
Bowdre took out his gun and chased the man, with the memorandum stating that throughout the short chase he pointed the gun at his fellow officer, climbed a four foot fence with the gun in his hand, and when he caught up to the man and the other officers he pushed the gun to the man’s head and yelled “I’ll put a bullet in your fucking head.” It states that the man’s hands were visible and behind his back at this point.
Bowdre then removes and points the gun back at the man twice, saying “why would you start running? Huh? If you didn't do nothing, why would you start running? Oh, ok then," before holstering it. The memorandum continues that Bowdre stated in his use of force memorandum that he put the gun against the man’s head because he wasn’t complying with orders to show his hands, yet the man’s hands were already visible.
The internal affairs investigation – the full file of which is below – reiterates multiple times that Bowdre was never trained to put a gun directly against the head of anyone.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, Bowdre agreed to a voluntary certification suspension of five years from the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board under C.R.S. 24-31-904(2)(a)(III) which states: “Notwithstanding any provision of law, the P.O.S.T. board shall suspend a peace officer’s certification for at least a year if…an administrative law judge, hearing officer, or internal investigation finds that a peace officer used or threatened to use unlawful physical force, failed to intervene, or violated section 18-1-707, and the incident did not result in serious bodily injury or death to another person.”
