A Cody police officer was legally justified in fatally shooting a 22-year-old man during a traffic stop last summer, Park County and Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Skoric says.

In a summary released on Wednesday, Skoric said the suspect, Lucas James-Erick Alvesteffer, was “attempting to apply deadly force” when he moved quickly toward a pair of Cody police officers with a knife in hand. Alvesteffer’s sudden movement prompted another officer posted on the opposite side of the truck, Cody Police Sgt. Josh Van Auken, to shoot Alvesteffer with six rounds.

The incident was investigated by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and after reviewing the information gathered by DCI, Skoric concluded that Van Auken’s actions “were lawful in the defense of others.”

He added that if Van Auken hadn’t fired, one of his colleagues likely would have.

“Law enforcement officers, like civilians, are entitled to self-defense and defense of others in certain situations,” Skoric wrote in his four-page summary. “This is one such situation.”

Though police didn’t know who they had stopped, Alvesteffer was on the run from charges in Campbell County. DCI later learned the suspect had told others that “if it came to it, he would either die or kill somebody not to go to prison,” Skoric wrote, “and that ‘somebody’ included law enforcement.”

A pursuit and altercation

The incident began around 8 p.m. on July 28 when Cody Police Officer Thomas Wilshusen tried to stop a truck that didn’t have visible registration. However, the driver — later identified as Alvesteffer — instead led police on a “low to medium speed pursuit” through Cody; at one point, he nearly hit another police vehicle, Skoric’s summary says.

Alvesteffer began heading east on the Greybull Highway, but about 3 miles out of town, the truck apparently broke down and he came to a stop.

Officers commanded Alvesteffer to get out, but the suspect, who appeared to be on his cellphone, ignored them.

Multiple officers approached the truck. Wilshusen opened the passenger side door while Officer Steve Bassett provided him cover, and Van Auken — who was accompanied by Officer Jamie McCloud — opened the door on the driver’s side, the summary says.

Alvesteffer started to step out toward Van Auken and McCloud, the summary says, while Wilshusen “attempted to subdue Alvesteffer” from the passenger side. That’s when Van Auken and McCloud both spotted a knife in the suspect’s right hand.

“Knife, knife, knife, stop!” Van Auken yelled, with McCloud also yelling.

Alvesteffer then turned and “attempted to exit the passenger side in a very accelerated manner towards Officers Bassett and Wilshusen,” Skoric wrote.

With the blade “inches” away from a retreating Wilshusen, Van Auken fired six shots from his patrol rifle, hitting Alvesteffer with each round, the summary says. Though officers immediately began administering first aid — applying chest seals and using an AED device — Alvesteffer died at the scene.

A subsequent toxicology report found he was legally drunk, with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.11%, the summary says.

Deceased was wanted man

Authorities in Campbell County had been seeking Alvesteffer’s arrest in the months leading up to the incident.

Court records show Alvesteffer was due to be sentenced on a felony charge of aggravated assault, stemming from a July 2024 incident in Gillette in which he struck his then-pregnant fiancee in the face and neck. Alvesteffer took a plea deal in January 2025 that called for probation, but that arrangement was scrapped when he reportedly battered the woman again in March 2025. Alvesteffer then went on the run, remaining at large until the July incident in Cody.

People who spoke to DCI during its investigation of the shooting said that Alvesteffer disliked and distrusted police.

One recalled Alvesteffer saying he “would die or die trying when it came to killing a police officer,” Skoric wrote. Another remembered Alvesteffer saying that, while he wouldn’t harm anyone, he planned to “[wave] a weapon” if he was caught, because he wasn’t going back to jail, Skoric’s summary says.

DCI learned that Alvesteffer attempted to purchase a firearm in Cody about a month before his death, the summary says, but was turned down because “he was legally prohibited from possessing firearms” due to his pending legal trouble.

Skoric said investigators also found that Alvesteffer had used a knife in two prior crimes.

However, Cody police officers knew none of that when they pulled Alvesteffer over, as they only learned his identity after the incident was over.

“This matter was entirely preventable … but by Alvesteffer,” Skoric wrote in his summary. He said Alvesteffer could have simply complied with the initial command to stop his vehicle or, later, come out of his truck with his hands up.

“Instead, he chose to conceal a knife until officers opened the doors to his vehicle and then engaged those officers with a deadly weapon,” Skoric said, “much in the manner he previously stated to others that he would.”

The prosecutor thanked DCI for a thorough investigation. 

The last fatal shooting by a local officer took place in the summer of 2022, when a Park County Sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a 37-year-old man in rural Powell. That man also had an active warrant and reportedly fled before pointing a shotgun at the deputy and grabbing the officer’s firearm in a scuffle. Because Skoric serves as legal counsel for the sheriff’s office, that shooting was reviewed by the Sweetwater County and Prosecuting Attorney, who found the deputy’s use of force was lawful.