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Old 10-18-2009, 03:15 PM
ilbegone ilbegone is offline
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Things don't seem to have changed much in Denver over forty years.
Quote:
Activist puts gangs at crux of shootings
Denver cops cite homicide drop to dispute connection
By Kirk Mitchell and Manny Gonzales Denver Post Staff Writers
Updated: 07/12/2007 01:48:32 AM MDT
A poster offering $2,000 in reward money is posted on a lamppost on the corner of 44th Ave. and Fillmore St. where a man was killed and son wounded by a gunman early Monday morning. (Post / Glenn Asakawa)
A trail of dried blood leads up to the doorstep of a church where one of three fatal shootings happened within eight hours this week.
Members of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church on South Federal Boulevard held a candlelight prayer and vigil Wednesday night on the church's lawn.
"This city is a place that can be torn apart - a place where blood can be shed on the doorsteps of churches," pastor Jay McDivitt told the congregation.
Community activists say a battle is escalating between rival gangs in the city. But Denver police are downplaying any connection and say homicides in the city are down from previous years.
"There are a lot of things that have triggered our concern," said the Rev. Paul Burleson, vice president of political affairs for the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance.
"We want to make sure it isn't another summer of violence."
Lakewood officials say they suspect that a slaying there early Tuesday involved gangs. Denver police, however, say they don't believe two other killings in Denver involved street gangs.
Denver police also say that the 27 homicides in Denver this year are six fewer than at the same time last year and almost half the 53 homicides by the same time in 2004.
Furthermore, Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said it doesn't appear the three recent homicides are related.
But the Rev. Leon Kelly of Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives said the shootings - particularly a drive-by shooting - appear to him to be the work of gangs.
Kelly said the past three weeks have been particularly violent, with many shootings going unreported. Some appear to have been racially motivated, with black and Latino gang members attacking each other. Police reported that a Monday night shooting started as a dispute between groups of black and Latino youths.
"There has been this kind of hostility in Park Hill and the east side the past several weeks," Kelly said. "It takes two or three deaths at about the same time for people to take notice."
He said some of the dead and injured may be innocent victims of gang shootings.
At 9:30 p.m. Monday, two men were shot - one fatally - following a fight outside the South Federal Boulevard church. Roberto Perez-Juarez, 26, was killed, Jackson said.
Four hours later shots were fired from a dark sport utility vehicle at Christopher Pacheco on the 5600 block of West Mexico Avenue in Lakewood.
Members of Pacheco's family say he was not connected to gangs and they don't know why he was shot while playing pool in his garage.
"It certainly is a suspicion that at least the shooters are gang-related," said Steve Davis, Lakewood police spokesman.
Four hours after the Lakewood homicide, two other men were shot - one fatally - in the 4300 block of Fillmore Street in Denver. Eusebio Barboza-Aguilar, born in 1969, was killed, Jackson said.
Police have not arrested anyone in the three homicides, according to authorities.
40 YEARS OF CHICANO STUDIES
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