Another I-70 shooting raises worries in Denver: "Settle it the old-fashioned way with a fistfight or something"
The early Friday morning shooting of two people on Interstate 70 east of Quebec Street became the second shooting along I-70 northeast of downtown since the beginning of the month.
Denver police said they had no arrests and were still investigating the shooting. It follows the killing of a motorcyclist on the highway near Colorado Boulevard on July 4th. Two people who were in a pickup have been arrested in that incident.
There's no indication in the July 4th case that it involved road rage, said police, but the topic of road rage rose again with the shooting early Friday. Road rage incidents around the country are up and in Colorado; statewide reports collected by the Colorado State Patrol went from 30,347 in 2021 to 31,760 in 2022.
"Speed seems to lead to what we get with road rage. Because you get following too closely, bad passes, not signaling and so that starts to irritate other people. And that's when you get this conflict of two drivers going at each other on the roads," said Master Trooper Gary Cutler of the Colorado State Patrol.
Behavior worsened when roads got busier after the pandemic said Cutler: "When people get to this road rage level, they are at such a point that they are not thinking straight. They don't care about what happens to them. They don't care about what happens to anybody else."
There's no specific data for the busy stretch of I-70 between I-25 and Tower Road, but the area has seen multiple high-profile shootings in recent years.
That includes the deaths of 31-year-old Kevin Piaskowski and Glen Haven assistant fire chief John Jaros in 2022.
In 2020, 61-year-old Kim Phok was shot and killed at about 5 a.m. on an April morning as she headed to her job as a cleaning woman. She was a refugee from Cambodia who survived the genocide of the Khmer Rouge, only to be killed for an unknown reason near Brighton Boulevard. The case is still unsolved.
"I don't understand why someone would harm another person just out of the blue like that," said her son Chhom Seng. Word that two more people were shot this week was hard on him. "It angers me to see innocent people who are just going about their lives get hurt for seemingly no reason at all."
His mother's shooting is especially baffling because she was not one to drive aggressively or get into conflict. In April 2020, fewer cars were on the road as the COVID pandemic began to unfold.
"She's just the kindest most compassionate person. Everyone at work loved her," said her son.
The rise in shootings on the highway and elsewhere is partially the result of more firearms explained Cutler: "We're finding more and more people that have guns in their vehicles. That's fine, it's their right to do that, but, we also have to realize of something for them to grab if they get into that level of they're not thinking straight and they utilize those guns."
Chhom Seng also worries about weapons being used on the highways. Not opposing gun possession, he has seen the result of someone's anger with a weapon.
"If you have something to settle, why settle it with a gun? Settle it the old-fashioned way with a fistfight or something," he said. "Once you pull that trigger, you're powerless to stop that -- undo that harm."
There is still a reward for information leading to a conviction in his mother's killing through Metro Denver Crimestoppers: https://www.metrodenvercrimestoppers.com/