Fatal weekend shootings jolt growing Denver-area suburb
DENVER — Four men were fatally shot and a woman was hospitalized with gunshot wounds during a series of weekend violence in the Denver suburb of Commerce City. A suspect in one of the cases was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said Sunday.
Also in the Denver area, one person was fatally shot and three others were wounded during two clashes in the city of Aurora on Sunday, officials said.
Commerce City police spokeswoman Joanna Small described it as “an incredibly violent weekend” for the fast-growing community of about 70,000 people, which is just northeast of Denver near the city’s airport.
“We average maybe five or six murders a year,” she said. “We’re talking four murders and one person in critical condition in 39 hours… The fact that the crimes are not connected is even more astounding.”
No details have been released about possible motives for the shooting.
The first occurred Friday night in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven convenience store in Commerce City. A man and a woman were shot, and the man later died. The woman remained in critical condition Sunday morning in the hospital, Small said.
Officers later attempted to make contact with a man driving a truck involved in the shooting, but he fled and was found dead Sunday morning as a result of suicide.
A man was fatally shot Saturday night in the parking lot of a public park with a pool in Commerce City. One person was arrested, but Small declined to provide further details.
Later that night, officers responded to shots fired during a shootout detected by Commerce City’s shooter monitoring system. Officers encountered a stolen vehicle with three people fleeing and later crashing, authorities said. A male passenger with a gunshot wound was found dead inside the vehicle.
A second passenger and the driver were injured in the crash and arrested. Officers returning to the scene of the gunfight found a man shot to death in the yard of a home, Small said.
The victims and others in that case were believed to be minors, she said.
There was no known connection between the shootings at the supermarket, the park and in the residential area, Small said. She declined to provide further details, citing ongoing investigations.
The fatal shooting in Aurora happened around 2 a.m. in the parking lot of a nightclub, police said. Details about the deceased were not immediately released. A second victim, a 34-year-old man, was shot multiple times but made it to a hospital on his own and was expected to survive, police said. No arrests have been made.
At about the same time, a shooting occurred at a housing complex in Aurora that left one man hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, police said. A second man stabbed in that incident is expected to survive, police said.