Commerce City, which averages 5 or 6 homicides each year, had 4 this weekend
Police in Commerce City are reassuring residents that there's no threat to the public after three deadly shootings.
It was an unusually violent weekend in the city -- maybe the deadliest in recent history.
"This turned into one of the most violent weekends Commerce City has probably ever seen," Commerce City police spokeswoman Joanna Small said at a news conference on Sunday.
Four people are now dead in the city.
"We probably average five, maybe six homicides a year and now we're at 4 for one weekend," Small said.
The four were killed in three separate shootings that police say are completely unrelated.
"If you have one criminal or one crime spree or one group of people committing crimes, that's a bit easier to digest, although disturbing," Small said. "But when you have three separate incidents all resulting in homicide involving completely different victims, completely different suspects, completely different parts of our city, that's unusual."
Crime data from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation shows six homicide cases in Commerce City in 2020, five in 2021, six in 2022 and four in 2023. The city had 7 homicides in 2012, but never any higher since 1985, according to FBI crime data.
In June, a Commerce City resident shot and killed an alleged home invader who attacked him. And in March, a man was shot and killed at a house party in the city.
The weekend's violence began Friday night in a 7-Eleven parking lot at East 104th Avenue and Highway 85, where a man was critically wounded and died Saturday. The woman he was with was also shot and critically injured.
Officers say a man they believe was involved took off and was later found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound Sunday morning.
Around 5 p.m. Saturday, another shooting was reported in the parking lot of Pioneer Park near Holly Street and East 60th Avenue.
A man was found dead at the scene and police detained a person of interest.
Police say the shooting was isolated to the parking lot and did not spill over into the park or pool area.
Then Saturday night, police responded to another shooting after gunfire-detection technology picked up shots fired near Monaco Street and East 65th Place.
People inside a car took off and later crashed in Aurora.
A passenger with a gunshot wound was found dead and a second person was later found dead in the yard of a home.
Commerce City police are now asking for the public's help in solving those three separate investigations.
"If you saw something we haven't contacted you if your camera caught something, please reach out," Small said. "We want to get as much information as we can."
