Slain Boulder Shooting Victim Officer Eric Talley 'He was a devout Christian'

(The Denver Channel) The Boulder Police Department confirmed 10 people are dead, including one Boulder Police officer, in a shooting at the King Soopers on Table Mesa Drive.

Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold confirmed Officer Eric Talley, 51, was the first to respond to the King Soopers minutes after initial 911 calls around 2:30 p.m. He was shot and killed. Talley had been with the department since 2010.

“I’m grateful for the police officers that responded, and I am so sorry about the loss of Officer Talley,” Herold said.

Homer Talley, Eric Talley’s father, provided the following statement to ABC:

“He took his job as a police officer very seriously. He had seven children. The youngest is 7 years old. He loved his kids and his family more than anything. He joined the police force when he was 40 years old. He was looking for a job to keep himself off of the front lines and was learning to be a drone operator. He didn’t want to put his family through something like this and he believed in Jesus Christ.”

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Editor’s note. Jeremy Herko, who described himself as one of Talley’s best friends, said in a Facebook post.

I cannot describe my level of devastation I feel right now. My heart is heavy. So many things I would do differently. The person I was calling and messaging earlier, one of my best friends, died today in Boulder. He was the police officer killed. Eric Talley is his name, and he was a devout Christian, he had to buy a 15-passenger van to haul all his kids around, and he was the nicest guy in the world. I’ve known him since we went to the academy together, and we talked all the time. Please keep his wife and kids in your thoughts.