(COLORADO SPRINGS) — The man accused of allegedly hitting and killing Pueblo Parole Officer Christine Guerin Sandoval will appear in El Paso County Court for an arraignment on Friday, March 22 at 9:30 a.m. and is expected to submit a plea to the charges he is facing.

On Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) responded to a hit-and-run west of downtown Colorado Springs. Two Parole Officers, including Sandoval, were hit and taken to the hospital where Sandoval later died.

Police found and arrested Justin Kula, who was allegedly the driver of the vehicle that hit the two parole officers. According to an arrest affidavit released, the officers were looking for Kula on an active warrant for a parole violation and were given his location by his ex-wife who was worried about his welfare due to drug use.

The affidavit stated that Kula was in the driver’s seat of a Lexus RX-330 in a parking lot near North Spruce Street and West Bijou Street. Kula told officers he had been using drugs that morning and was suspicious of his ex-wife’s reasons for meeting him and assumed she had “set him up to be robbed.”

During a preliminary hearing on Jan. 8 for Kula, CSPD Detective Ashton Gardner, the officer who reviewed the surveillance footage, said the incident unfolded in a matter of seconds.

Gardner described how Kula reversed his car with open doors, causing Officer Sandoval and another responding officer to be knocked to the ground before Officer Sandoval became “lodged underneath the vehicle,” and dragged toward the entrance of the parking lot.

Kula’s defense attempted to argue that his nature was not reckless but instead self-defense, since responding officers did not announce themselves as law enforcement upon their arrival at the scene, but this argument was dismissed by the judge.

FOX21 will be listening to the hearing and will update this article as we learn more.