Denver TV crew’s guard suspected in fatal protest shooting acted in self-defense: attorney

An attorney representing the private security guard who shot and killed a protester in Denver on Saturday said Monday that Matthew Dolloff, 30, feared for his life after being sprayed with pepper spray by the shooting victim, 49-year-old Lee Keltner.

The Denver Post reported Monday that family attorney Doug Richards said in an interview that Dolloff did “everything he was trained to do” when confronted by Keltner, who he said struck Dolloff before spraying him with mace. Dolloff was working as a private security guard for local station 9 News at the time of the shooting.

“I think it’s important to recognize that this is somebody who is at the protest working to protect First Amendment rights,” Richards told the Post. “He was not there on behalf of any organization or to advance any political agenda. You can see in the images that he put his body in between the protester and the reporter. Matt was doing everything he was supposed to do and everything he was trained to do.”

Richards also asserted that records showing Dolloff was not licensed to act as private security in the city did not stop Pinkerton, a private security agency, from employing him as a contractor in the area.

“Even if he didn’t carry the special Denver security license, it didn’t stop Pinkerton from sending Matt into that job and it doesn’t change the fact that Matt was acting in self-defense,” Richards told the newspaper.

Dolloff was arrested after Saturday’s shooting on suspicion of first-degree murder but has not been officially charged. The victim’s son, Jon Keltner, described his father as an attendee of a pro-police protest in response to Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the city.

“He wasn’t a part of any group,” Jon Keltner previously told the Denver Post. “He was there to rally for the police department and he’d been down there before rallying for the police department.”