An audible sigh of relief could be heard from the countless number of police officers stuffed into an overflow Jefferson County courtroom — Sonny Almanza will serve life in prison for shooting and killing their fellow officer.

First Judicial District Court Judge Russell Klein sentenced 32-year-old Almanza to life in prison without parole on Thursday for the murder of Arvada Police Officer Dillon Vakoff, 27.

Family members from both sides, and police officers, filled two courtrooms. 

“I am also a police officer with the City of Arvada, so I hope every word I’m about to say hurts you to your core because you murdered one of us,” Officer Megan Esslinger, Vakoff’s long-term girlfriend, said with palpable anger in her voice.

“We will not apologize for the number of officers being present for sentencing today,” she added. “I love my job because I have the ability to stop people like you, but I would give up everything if it meant seeing Dillon, the love of my life, one more time.”

Jurors also convicted Almanza of seven other counts on Dec. 7, including first-degree murder of a peace officer, first-degree murder with extreme indifference, two counts of criminal attempt of second-degree murder, second-degree assault, illegal possession of a large-capacity magazine and first-degree trespassing. 

Along with the life sentence, Almanza received 18 additional years to be served consecutively with the life sentence and three years to be served concurrently for the additional convictions.

“We all have choices, and you chose to annihilate my family the night you murdered my son,” Vakoff’s mother, Lisa Vakoff, said in a written statement. 

Vakoff — an Air Force veteran who had been with the Arvada police for three years — responded to a family dispute at 1:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2022 at 6753 W. 51st Ave. 

Evidence presented during his trial showed Almanza fired eight shots in Vakoff’s direction with an AR-15 rifle, hitting Vakoff in the mouth and left leg. He also hit his ex-girlfriend’s sister, Mercedes Lopez, in the leg.

“The defendant’s attack was an attack on our community because Dillon was a representative of our community who was there that night to help two families work through a difficult situation,”  Arvada Police Chief Ed Brady said.

Almanza previously claimed in an interview with police that he fired into the crowd in reaction to being shot, according to Detective Julie Glynn, the case’s lead detective. He believed his ex-girlfriend’s brother had shot at him.

“Everyone can sit here and judge him, but at the end of the day, people are scared to call the police because the way they’ve treated people in the past,” Almanza’s brother-in-law, Jacob Marrujo, said. “There are a lot of people that are killed by police today. The police sit here and think they protect and serve, but they’re all sitting here in this courtroom today.”

Multiple family members stood to say that Almanza is a “good person, father and brother.”

During the trial, Almanza stated that he bought the weapon to protect him. He believed his ex-girlfriend’s family was going to kill him. 

He and the mother of his two daughters had broken up just two weeks before the incident. 

Now, his daughters will grow up without a father, Klein said, calling the entire incident a “tragedy in almost every sense of the word.”

Esslinger addressed Almanza’s family members in reaction to multiple outbursts from the gallery at the conclusion of the trial after Almanza’s guilty verdicts were delivered, saying they yelled “horrid and vile” things at the officers.

“Yet we’re the bad guys,” she said. “The same ‘pigs’ and ‘white-trash’ officers who will show up when you call 911, even if you hate us. Ironic.”

Almanza addressed the court prior to the official sentencing: “I just pray for everyone here every day, every night, that their anger is taken away. Their hate is taken away.”

“This is the end of it,” he said. “Everybody can start to heal now.”

Almanza’s attorney, Nancy Holton, said an appeal is planned.