On Monday, a lone shooter killed four people and wounded three others, including a police officer, in a Denver-area shooting spree that spanned numerous sites and ended with police killing the suspect, according to authorities.
According to Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen, investigators have yet to uncover a motive for the shooting spree, which began at 5 p.m. when the gunman shot and killed two women and wounded a man near downtown Denver.
The suspect then left in a car, fatally shooting a guy in the Cheesman Park neighborhood in east Denver, before opening fire in a west Denver neighborhood, Pazen said. According to Pazen, the man fired gunfire from his vehicle at pursuing Denver officers twice, causing a police cruiser to be disabled.
The gunman then drove towards Lakewood, a neighboring community, where he shot and killed a fourth victim inside an unnamed building.
When Lakewood police attempted to pull him over, the gunman eluded them and engaged in a gun duel with officers before fleeing on foot and shooting and wounding a hotel clerk, Romero said.
According to Romero, he then shot at police officers again, hurting one of them before being shot dead by policemen. Authorities did not name the suspect and said the circumstances surrounding the incident were still being investigated.
The officer’s and citizens’ conditions were not immediately known, according to Romero.
Anne Wilson, a shopper inside a Lakewood cell phone store when shooting erupted nearby, told a Denver-based NBC affiliate TV station that she heard “seven or eight bullets, and then like another set of maybe five more.”
Wilson claimed that store personnel took her and other customers into a rear room behind security gates until the threat had passed. “We live in frightening times,” she remarked.
