Four imprisoned for vicious crime spree: "We're fortunate no one was killed"

The last of four people who pleaded guilty to a violent crime spree committed in the span of two and a half hours across three metro area counties were sentenced to prison last month.

The four, 29-year-old Deshawn Flores, 24-year-old Sergio Bucio, 25-year-old Lailani Sanchez, and 26-year-old Dominica Meza, were each sentenced immediately after their guilty pleas. Flores was ordered to serve 33 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections. Bucio was sentenced to 25. 

Flores and Bucio received their sentences in May and June, respectively. 

The two women, Sanchez and Meza, each received six-year terms. Both were sentenced in mid-September.

Their tour of violence began with a road rage incident at 1:42 a.m. the morning of Aug. 28, 2021, a Saturday. It was the first of five encounters which left cars damaged or wrecked and random strangers beaten, robbed and shot at. 

"These four defendants terrorized innocent people during a crime spree spanning multiple jurisdictions in the middle of the night," 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason stated in a press release last week. "The defendants traumatized the victims and the entire community, all to make a quick buck. Given the violence they perpetrated in these multiple episodes, we're fortunate no one was killed."

In that first incident, a pickup driver who admitted to cutting off a white Chevy Malibu was shot at by a passenger hanging out a window of the Malibu. The pickup driver did not initially realize he was being shot at, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by CBS News Colorado. Police later found shell casings on that stretch of road and bullet holes in the passenger side of his pickup.

When the vehicles stopped at a red light at 72nd Avenue and Federal Boulevard in Westminster, Flores exited an adjacent Mazda CX5 and confronted the pickup driver. The pickup driver tried to roll up his window as Flores approached his door while carrying a handgun. Flores, however, was able to strike the driver with the gun before the window rolled up, and the driver tried to wrestle the gun from Flores's grip. Flores fired three to four shots from the gun, hitting the pickup driver in the left leg and left arm. 

The pickup driver tried to follow the Mazda after the shooting but ultimately decided to drive himself to a hospital. 

An hour and 20 minutes later, residents in the 2300 block of Alcott Street in Denver began calling 9-1-1 after hearing gunfire. While officers were en route, Flores pulled his handgun on three females inside a Subaru Legacy. The Legacy drove off, and the Malibu, with all four suspects inside and Sanchez behind the wheel, gave chase. 

The Malibu intentionally struck the Subaru several times, eventually spinning it out near West 26th Avenue and Kendall Street in Lakewood. With the Subaru undriveable, Flores, Sanchez and Meza pulled the three females from the Subaru, one by her hair, and beat them with fists and their guns. 

The females surrendered their purses and phones during the assault and the suspects left. But not before Flores, using the butt of his handgun, struck a bystander who tried to intervene. That male bystander required 10 stitches for a laceration above his right eye, according to the affidavit.

Less than half an hour later, a woman and her boyfriend driving on Wadsworth Boulevard near West 52nd Avenue in Arvada were rear-ended by the Malibu. The couple pulled into a parking lot but were yanked out of their car and assaulted by the armed occupants of the Malibu. 

The couple managed to scramble back into their car and flee to a hospital. There, officers documented injuries to the boyfriend's face, head, neck and mouth. Those injuries included front teeth that were "displaced sideways," according to the affidavit. The boyfriend reported feeling the barrel of an AR-15 pushed against his head during the assault and a male suspect saying, "Give me everything you've got."

The fourh incident happened minutes later a short distance away at Wadsworth and 53rd. There, a man driving a rented Buick Encore had the vehicle carjacked. He told police the white Malibu lightly hit the back of his vehicle. When he pulled over, Flores jumped out of the Malibu, pointed a handgun at his face, and threatened to kill him.

Flores drove away in the man's Buick.

Soon, that Buick was seen on surveillance video in the fifth and last incident. It blocked in a male and female in a Mercedes Benz in a 7-Eleven parking lot at 7540 Pecos Street. In the video, Flores is seen pointing a handgun at the male driver of the Mercedes. The male driver then backs his car into the passenger side of the stolen Buick but fails to escape. 

Bucio then pulls the male driver from the car and beats him with the AR-15. 

During the assault, Flores walked to the back of the Mercedes and removed a bag contained the female passenger's work clothes and $500. 

Adams County Sheriff's Office deputies caught up with the stolen Buick 20 minutes later. They pursued it from Pecos Street into west Denver near Sloans Lake and forced it into a concrete barrier, per the affidavit. Flores ran from the Buick but was taken into custody.

Deputies reported Meza, driving the Mazda, interferred with the pursuit by "attempting to strike or run the police vehicles off the road," as stated in the affidavit. She was taken into custody at the crash scene where she told deputies "she was just trying to help her man."

Sanchez and Bucio were arrested later. 

All four suspects pleaded guilty to varying degrees and combinations of assault, robbery and auto theft in Adams County's prosecutions. Flores also pleaded guilty to attempted murder in Denver for the same night's activities on Alcott Street. He was sentenced to 26 years in the DOC in that case. 

Investigators discovered the white Malibu was owned by a woman who was in Denver's jail on a parole violation. 

Meza, the last of the four to be sentenced for the crime spree, still has an active Adams County case for vehicular assault to be settled.