Raul Gomez-Garcia was found guilty Friday of second- degree murder in the death of Denver police Detective Donnie Young and attempted second- degree murder in the shooting of Young’s partner.
He faces up to 48 years in prison for the conviction in Young’s death and 32 years for wounding Detective Jack Bishop.
Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said he will seek the maximum penalty of 80 years when Gomez-Garcia is sentenced Oct. 25.
It was an emotional time for Kelly Young, Donnie Young’s widow, who cried for about 20 minutes before Gomez-Garcia was brought into the courtroom for the verdict announcement. After the verdict, she expressed immense relief.
“I’m pleased with the verdict. I’m happy it’s over,” Young said. “I’m happy they came to a decision today.
“It’s not going to bring him (Donnie) back. I’m sure I’m going to wake up tomorrow and I’m not going to feel any better than I did today. But at least I know this part is over, and we can try now to start healing. It’s been very hard to start the healing process with all this stuff hanging over our head.”
Just after the verdicts were read at 5 p.m., following more than seven hours of jury deliberation, Kelly Young and Bishop embraced.
Bishop, who wept as he testified during the trial, said he told Kelly Young that “we basically got what we came for.”
“We got a guilty verdict on two counts. Raul Gomez-Garcia is never getting out of jail; he is going to rot in his cell,” Bishop said. “And that was my goal – to see him in the United States.
“I said, ‘I’ll never forget Donnie, and I’ll never forget your family,”‘ Bishop said he told Young.
Gomez-Garcia, 21, admitted he fired the shots that killed Young and hurt Bishop on May 8, 2005, as the officers were providing security at the Salon Ocampo social hall, 1733 W. Mississippi Ave. Gomez-Garcia, an illegal immigrant, fled to Mexico, where he was arrested June 4, 2005.
He said he wanted to frighten the officers after they had denied him entrance to a party, but he said he didn’t want to kill them.
He claimed he believed they were wearing bulletproof vests and would be hurt but not killed.
But jurors said they didn’t buy that story.
“When he came on the stand, obviously that was the first time we heard about that,” said juror Ben DeWitt. “Ultimately, because there were no other corroborating witnesses that a bulletproof vest had been mentioned at all, we just couldn’t accept that testimony from him.”
DeWitt said other factors that led to the verdict were the number of shots Gomez-Garcia fired and the fact they were directed at the torso of the officers.
Juror Mara Fielding-Purdy said the jury returned an attempted second-degree murder verdict in Bishop’s shooting rather than attempted first-degree murder – which prosecutors had hoped for – because jurors didn’t feel Bishop was the target. She said jurors felt Gomez-Garcia’s hatred was directed at Young.
“We honestly believed he was not trying to kill Jack Bishop and that Jack Bishop was inconveniently in the wrong place,” Fielding-Purdy said. “We had a hard time with that. We thought it was way beyond recklessness; we just couldn’t take it the next step. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to believe that he honestly wanted Jack Bishop dead.”
Fielding-Purdy said that, despite the verdict, her heart goes out to Gomez-Garcia.
“He was really human to me, and that was hard,” she said. “It was hard to see him cry for his wife and his child. He is not a monster. He made a terrible, terrible decision under anger. It was just a crying shame.”
During the trial, prosecutors Tom Clinton and Bruce Levin told the jury the evidence against Gomez-Garcia was irrefutable.
Bishop said being ambushed has forever changed his life.
“I’m just very angry because in my line of work you are always paranoid about what’s behind you,” Bishop said. “And now after this, I’m even more paranoid. Whenever I hear a loud crack or loud bang or something behind me, I’m always more paranoid. I’ve had to change the way I think on certain occasions and how I approach things now.”
His wife, Diane, who held her husband’s hand as the verdicts were read, said she doesn’t want her husband to stop being a cop.
“He’s got nine lives,” she said, laughing. “So we are still using up some of those lives. He wouldn’t change his mind and do anything else. He loves being a police officer, he is good at what he does, and he is out there supporting and helping the city of Denver every single day.
“I’m very proud of him, proud of Donnie. I wish Donnie was here,” she said, tearing up.
