Officials at a Broomfield airport said Friday that police warned them to watch out for five men in connection with the killing of Denver Broncos player Darrent Williams, including a man who has since been named a “person of interest” in the case.
Kenny Maenpa, airport manager at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield, said a Denver detective gave him mug-shot photos of five men being sought in the Williams case.
He said one of the names he was given was that of Willie Clark, who was arrested last week on an unrelated parole violation. Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman said Thursday that Clark is a “person of interest” in the Williams investigation.
Two of the men whose names were given to Maenpa are described by police sources as a 26-year-old man who has multiple convictions on drug charges and a 35-year-old man who is a habitual traffic offender.
The 26-year-old was sentenced to two years in prison in 1997 for drug possession and four years in prison in 1999 for dealing drugs, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records.
(The Denver Post is not publishing their names because Denver police have not publicly identified them as being connected to the case.)
Meanwhile, a police source said that a few days after the New Year’s Day shooting, homicide detectives sent mug shots of three men in connection with the case to Denver International Airport police officers, who were asked to watch for them. Clark’s mug shot was one of the three, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It’s unclear why officials at the two airports received a different number of names from police.
Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said Friday he could not comment on how many suspects, if any, the department has in the Williams case.
Maenpa said the Denver detective warned him that if any of the five men were seen at the airport, no one should go near them. “If these individuals came to the airport, we were to call police immediately,” Maenpa said.
He said police were concerned the men may try to charter a private plane to leave the area.
“That’s highly unlikely,” Maenpa said. “It doesn’t happen very often, as far as I know.”
Police also sent mug shots to Centennial Airport in Arapahoe County, according to an airport official.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
