Officer-involved shooting in Sterling kills suspect after earlier shooting

Sterling residents are still waiting for a full accounting after a traffic stop near Highway 6 and Atwood turned into a fatal officer-involved shooting tied to an earlier weekend of violence in town. The case has become a test of transparency for Sterling Police, the Logan County Sheriff’s Office and outside investigators charged with sorting out exactly how a local call escalated into a death on a county highway.

The chain of events began Thursday in Sterling, when police said Tyler Wayne Kracht, 28, of Fort Collins, fired a handgun into the side of an occupied vehicle with three people inside. No one was hurt in that shooting, but it set the stage for Sunday’s encounter and quickly turned Kracht into the focus of a law-enforcement search across the area.

At about 5:45 p.m. Sunday, a Sterling Police Department officer attempted to pull over a vehicle near Highway 6 and Atwood after recognizing the driver as the suspect from the earlier shooting, police said. The stop did not end there. According to later reporting, Kracht fled along Highway 6, briefly drove the wrong way on Interstate 76, then returned to Highway 6 before the pursuit ended in a crash and deadly confrontation near Highway 6 west of Hillrose.

Kracht died at the scene on May 3, 2020. No passengers were in his vehicle, and no officers were injured. Sterling Police Chief Tyson Kerr said the officer who first spotted Kracht was driving to work when he recognized the vehicle, underscoring how quickly an ordinary commute became a major public-safety incident for Sterling and Logan County.

Under Colorado’s officer-involved-shooting process, an outside agency must investigate. The Morgan County Critical Incident Response Team was assigned to examine the shooting, with the Logan County Sheriff’s Office also involved. The 13th Judicial District Attorney’s Office later said Kracht’s vehicle reached speeds above 115 mph during the chase. That office is part of the public record that will determine whether criminal charges are filed and, if not, how the shooting will be explained to the community.

What has not been fully released is still the most sensitive part of the case: the complete investigative file, the full account of the force used during the stop, and the findings that led officers to fire. Later, Kracht’s estate filed a federal civil-rights case against the City of Sterling and Officer Austin Molcyk, extending the accountability fight beyond the criminal investigation and into federal court.