DENVER – Over the weekend, a wave of violence struck the Denver suburb of Commerce City, leaving four men dead and a woman hospitalized with gunshot wounds. The incidents occurred in separate cases, with a person of interest in one of the shootings later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot, according to police reports Sunday.
Meanwhile, in the Denver area, another fatal shooting took place, where one person was killed and three others were injured in two altercations in the city of Aurora, as confirmed by officials.
Commerce City Police Department spokesperson Joanna Small described the weekend as “incredibly violent” for the community of about 70,000 people, located northeast of Denver near the city’s airport.
Small mentioned, “We average maybe 5 or 6 homicides a year. We’re now talking about four homicides and a person in critical condition in 39 hours … The fact that the crimes are not related is even more baffling, really.”
No specific motives for the shootings were disclosed at this time.
The first incident occurred on Friday night in a 7-Eleven convenience store parking lot in Commerce City, where a man and a woman were shot. The man succumbed to his injuries, while the woman remained in critical condition at the hospital as of Sunday morning, Small reported.
Following the shooting, authorities tried to contact a man associated with the incident who fled. Unfortunately, he was later found deceased due to a self-inflicted gunshot on Sunday morning.
On Saturday evening, another fatal shooting took place in a public park with a pool in Commerce City. One person was arrested in connection with the incident, but no further details were provided by Small.
Later that same night, police responded to gunfire from a gunfight detected by Commerce City’s gunshot monitoring system. They encountered a stolen vehicle with three individuals that crashed after fleeing. A male passenger inside the vehicle was found dead from gunshot wounds.
A second passenger and the driver were injured in the crash and taken into custody. Upon returning to the scene, officers discovered another male shot dead in a nearby residence yard. It was believed that the victims and others involved were juveniles, Small added.
There appears to be no connection between the shootings at the convenience store, park, and residential neighborhood, according to Small, who refrained from providing further details pending ongoing investigations.
The fatal shooting in Aurora occurred around 2 a.m. in a nightclub parking lot, with details of the deceased pending release. Another victim, a 34-year-old man, sustained multiple gunshot wounds but managed to reach the hospital and is expected to survive, police stated. No arrests have been made yet.
Simultaneously, a shooting at an Aurora housing complex resulted in a man hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, while another man stabbed in the incident was expected to recover, according to police.
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