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Neighbors React To Deadly Shooting Of White Supremacist

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (CBS4)- The man shot and killed Thursday night by Englewood Police was Jeremiah Barnum, a white supremacist leader who was convicted in 1999 of murdering a West African immigrant in Denver in a shocking hate crime.

Barnum, 38, had been released from prison Nov. 30, 2011, after his most recent stay.

Neighbors describe unrest where Barnum had been living. A woman and child also lived at the home.

"It's always a commotion over there," said neighbor Betty Klein. "Different one's in and out and things constantly. Different than what the neighborhood is. They have different people going in and out and it had been raided sometime in the last year."

A yellow mustang is what led Englewood Police Officers to the Walgreens parking lot Thursday evening. Two men inside the car were arrested in connection with the stolen car investigation.

As one officer completed paperwork to impound the vehicle, another officer noticed Barnum sitting inside a white Mustang. Officers said he was a known associate of the men arrested.

Shooting
An image of the scene of the shooting Thursday night (credit: CBS)

When they approached Barnum, officers said he didn't act like he was going to cooperate.

"The subject was reaching for what appeared to be a weapon in his hand," said Englewood Police Investigator Brad Johnson.

Police said Barnum erratically backed up, nearly running over an officer.

Witnesses describe a similar scene.

"Told him to stop. Get out of the car," said witness Lonnie Eastwood. "It was like five shots that went off. We watched him pull him out."

RELATED STORY: Man Killed By Police Involved In Racist Murder, White Supremacist

Barnum died a short time later at Swedish Medical Center.

A Denver jury convicted Barnum in the 1997 murder of Oumar Dia in downtown Denver. Dia, a 38-year-old bellhop at a downtown hotel, was waiting at a bus stop at 17th and Welton when Barnum and an accomplice, Nathan Thill, approached him and shot him dead.

Barnum later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was imprisoned for the Dia case from 2002 until he was released on parole in 2009, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections. But he was arrested again in April 2011 on a drug charge and returned to prison for five months until he was released last November.

CBS4 Video Archive Feature

Watch a 30 minute special produced by CBS4 about the aftermath of the 1997 murder. A CBS4 crew traveled to West Africa and to Oumar Dia's homeland. See in the special how Dia's life in Denver meant so much to people around the world: Oumar Dia's Legacy.

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