This is America so you could not close out 2017 without yet another mass shooting. This one cost the life of a Colorado police officer.

Douglas County Coroner confirms shooting suspect in #CopperCanyonOIS as Matthew Riehl DOB 9/09/80 (pictured). Investigation still ongoing and being investigated by @DA18th Critical Response Team. pic.twitter.com/H6wT0klSQv

— DC Sheriff (@dcsheriff) January 1, 2018

Courtesy of the LA Times:

In a year racked by mass shootings, including the deadliest in U.S. history, a spasm of violence here on the last day of 2017 added one more to the grim tally. 

Four Douglas Country sheriff's deputies responding to a noise complaint were ambushed by a gunman who sprayed them with more than 100 bullets. 

All four were hit. Those who could crawled away. But Deputy Zackari Parrish, 29, was shot repeatedly and killed. 

Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said at a news conference that the officers were responding to a complaint about raised voices at the Copper Canyon Apartments in Highlands Ranch, about 12 miles south of Denver, at about 5:15 a.m.

One of the occupants of the building opened the door and let the officers inside.

However the other occupant, a Matthew Riehl, opened fire on the cops from his bedroom.

This led to a standoff lasting about an hour and a half, before SWAT entered the building and after an exchange of gunfire killed the shooter. (One of the SWAT officers was also wounded in the exchange.)

As it turns out the gunman was an Iraq war veteran with a grudge against the sheriff.

The Sheriff's name is Tony Spurlock, and Riehl even threatened to run against him in the next election: 

He is seen wearing an Iraq combat veteran hat in a Dec. 13 YouTube video in which he called Spurlock a “clown” and a deputy a pimp. 

“You know who’s going flub big time next election, Spurlock,” Riehl said in the video called “Fire Sheriff Spurlock.”

He said he was running against Spurlock as a libertarian. 

A video posted on Nov. 28 showed a traffic stop by a police officer in the city of Lone Tree — apparently taken inside the officer's car — that Riehl said was done illegally. He claimed the officer clocked the wrong driver, identifying the officer by name in the video and calling him "dirty."

"S---bag, dirtbag, liar," he says as the officer questioned the driver. "He's the boss, huh? He's the Nazi in charge with the stripes on his shoulder and the fake badge."

Yeah, nothing unhinged about that. 

I don't think he has officially been identified as such, but this Riehl guy sounds like a sovereign citizen type to me.

That would explain his lack of respect for law enforcement, and self identifying as a Libertarian.

For the record there were over 15,000 gun deaths in 2017, 344 mass shootings, and 316 incidents where a police officer was shot or killed.

I expect the numbers to be much the same in 2018.