The man who livestreamed the March 2021 King Soopers shooting and subsequent police response last year is set for trial this summer on obstruction charges.
Dean Anthony Schiller, 43, pleaded not guilty to one misdemeanor count of obstructing a peace officer and is set for a one-day trial on Aug. 2, according to online court records.
According to an affidavit, Schiller posted a livestream video on March 22 from the Table Mesa King Soopers in south Boulder, where a gunman opened fire and killed 10 people.
An investigator with the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office wrote that Schiller was at the store at the time of the shooting and began filming the events with his cellphone. The investigator said that over the next 90 minutes, Schiller ignored about 60 different requests from various law enforcement personnel to leave the immediate crime scene, including several attempts to physically move him from the scene.
Schiller told law enforcement he was a journalist, but the investigator noted no other media members were in the immediate crime scene and Schiller refused to go to the media staging area.
According to the affidavit, Schiller also became “hostile” toward law enforcement, swearing at them and telling them he would not leave and that it was “worth it to get arrested for this one.”
The investigator also noted Schiller several times zoomed in on bodies and videotaped and narrated police movements, which “jeopardized the lives and safety of all responding police officers, as well as the safety and lives of the victims still inside.”
“Throughout his refusals to leave the crime scene, law enforcement was clearing the King Soopers for other victims and, possibly, gunmen,” the affidavit read. “By his actions, Schiller obstructed their investigation and the response to the mass shooting.”
Schiller told the Daily Camera that he was at the store that day with his friend Denny Stong, who would become one of the victims in the shooting.
“I found myself kind of caught up in what was going down from the beginning,” Schiller said. “I was really emotional at the time, and was anticipating that (Stong) would come out. The initial few minutes or even the first hour, I was staying close by hoping that he would come out and I would be reunited with him. I started getting distraught.
“I do admit that my reaction wasn’t necessarily appropriate, I probably could have handled things better. But part of what I feel that the officers there were thinking is that they thought I was there trying to cover a story, when I was part of the story.”
Schiller said he did not know he was facing charges until he was informed of the warrant.
“I had no idea they were charging me with anything, it caught me off guard,” said Schiller, who is currently representing himself. “I didn’t understand, and kind of still don’t understand. They never interviewed me on the scene, they never called me afterward to ask any questions to ask me what my intentions were.”
Schiller said he was never “trying to be a jerk.”
“I feel like I was just out there exercising my First Amendment right,” he said.
Boulder police Officer Eric Talley, 51; Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Teri Leiker, 51; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65, were killed in the shooting.
