Northglenn Officer Shot Needs Surgery

NORTHGLENN, Colo. (CBS) - A Northglenn police officer will need surgery after being shot in the line of duty.

It happened Monday night while Officer Dennis Alps executed a search warrant at the home of a registered sex offender.

Alps was shot twice as he entered the house at 1443 Bowman Place.

When the officers forced their way into the home they never saw anyone, they only heard gunshots.

For Alps the force of the gunshot was like being hit in the chest with a baseball bat. It's estimated Alps was about 15 feet away from the gunman when he was shot.

A bullet hit his name tag and twisted the metal. It was found lodged in Alps' bulletproof vest. It's the vest that saved his life.

"The second round hit the back of his upper arm and shattered the bone," Chief Russell Vanhouten with the Northglenn Police Department said.

Northglenn officers were looking for any and all computer systems in the home while executing a felony search warrant.

They also had an arrest warrant for 40-year-old Matthew Anderson for crimes including internet sexual exploitation of a child. Undercover officers had been communicating with him online using Yahoo Instant Messenger since November.

The details of the dialogue are explicit. Anderson requested photographs, said he'd use his webcam and he'd asked to meet a 13-year-old girl.

After a three month investigation, officers didn't have any information that indicated Anderson might be armed.

"Just because we don't have a history that a person is violent, doesn't mean they aren't. It just means we don't know that," Vanhouten said.

After a 7 hour standoff, a body believed to be that of Anderson was found inside the home with two self-inflicted gunshots.

Alps is out of the hospital and spent Tuesday visiting three different doctors.

It will be some time before he's back at work.