Deadly morning shooting third in 3 months for Denver's Green Valley Ranch neighborhood
Two people died early Sunday after a shooting at a house in northeast Denver.
Early in the morning six people were shot on the 5050 block of Orleans Court in Denver. One boy and a 26-year-old man died. Denver police said the first 911 call came in just before 1:30 a.m. and that this was not a random crime. Two shooting victims took themselves or were taken by someone else to local hospitals, the other four were taken by ambulances.
Police said in a Sunday evening update that the shooting appeared to stem from a confrontation at a house party between attendees and people who were not invited. The confrontation escalated into multiple people shooting multiple guns. The boy who was killed was not part of the initial conflict, police said.
A neighbor who didn't want to be on camera says waking up to a crime scene is familiar to her.
"I don't want to say this neighborhood's horrible. And like I said, my kids are outside every day in the summertime. I don't feel it's like daily living," she said.
But she says days before Halloween there was a shooting at a party up the street on Orleans Court. Before that in May, a shooting suspect barricaded himself in a home a block away.
She says she doesn't think it's a dangerous neighborhood but her family is ready to move.
"I don't think this is a ghetto. I'm from L.A. I know what a ghetto looks like. I just think there's a lot of people in this area, and the police presence has completely gone down," she said. "I don't have anything bad against police. I just think this area's inundated with people that the population has probably quadrupled in the 10 years we've been here."
She says police have their hands full so she knows they are doing the best they can. She blames the current culture.
"People have get-togethers, people bring guns now, which is scary," she said.
That neighbor didn't hear or see anything, even though Sunday's shooting happened just half a block away. Still, she says it's time for her family to move on.
"Yeah, three shootings on the street in the last nine months. Not fun to live in this," she said.
DPD investigators are still working to develop suspect information. But department spokesman, Sean Towles, described the incident as "not random."
Three of the injured survivors are men and the fourth is also a male, but police said they haven't yet been able to confirm his age. One of them remains in critical condition.
Police are still investigating the circumstances of the shooting and working to develop suspect information. They believe some witnesses left before officers arrived.