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Off-Duty Detective Confronts Robbers At Walgreens

Written by Brian Maass

DENVER (CBS4) - An off duty Denver Police officer who tried to stop a robbery at a Walgreens store tells CBS4, "I did what any police officer would have done."

Denver Police Detective Virginia Lopez said, "I just reacted."

Lopez, who is assigned to the DPD Identification Bureau, was at the Walgreens at 18550 Green Valley Ranch Blvd Thursday afternoon getting a prescription filled for her mother.

She confronted two robbers, drew her gun, and jumped the counter. One shot was fired from Lopez's weapon during a tussle with the robbers. Nobody was hit.

"I was more concerned for the three female employees that the suspects were going after," Lopez told CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass.

"As a cop we have an obligation to try to keep bad things from happening to good people. We don't have the option of running away. That option of ignoring doesn't exist for us so I did what any police officer would have done," said Lopez.

After the shot, one of the robbers wrestled Lopez's gun away and fled. Police say he then used it to steal a getaway car from a motorist at a nearby Grease Monkey store.

Police are looking for the armed robbery suspect and a second man who is thought to have driven away in a vehicle the robbers arrived in.

Lopez -- who joined the Denver Police Department in 1989 -- was being examined at a local hospital late Thursday night for possible injuries.

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