Colorado Springs – The city is on target to have a record year for homicides following the fatal shooting Monday of a Western State College football player.
Diontea Forrest, 19, a star tailback for Wasson High School who was named to All-City and All-State football and track teams before graduating in 2006, was shot while driving a car in central Colorado Springs. He was hit by at least one bullet fired from another car. No arrests were made.
Forrest’s death marks the 14th homicide this year, putting the city on pace to tie a record of 28 homicides set in 1991.
Forrest was expected to start at running back in the fall for Western State, said head coach Pat Stewart.
“He was a leader as a young man. He was a tremendously successful kid, but he was very quiet and unassuming,” Stewart said. “Some kids could be full of themselves and everything else. He wasn’t that way.”
Police did not have a motive Monday for the shooting, which occurred just before 1 a.m. at Printers Parkway and International Circle just east of Memorial Park.
“There’s no indication at this point that the victim has any kind of gang affiliations or to believe that it was the result of any gang involvement, at least on his part,” said Colorado Springs police Lt. Skip Arms. “The suspects, since we don’t know who they are, we don’t know if they are gang members or not.”
Neighborhood leaders say the shooting Monday and one on May 28, which killed 20-year-old Anthony Grimaldo, are similar. Grimaldo was shot to death after an altercation by people in two cars on the west side of Memorial Park. A man was arrested in that case.
Leaders also point to the slaying of cab driver Terry Wilson as cause for concern. He died April 18 after he was hit by a stray bullet during a shootout in downtown Colorado Springs.
Arms said police noticed a gang presence in Memorial Park on Sunday afternoons and increased patrols in the park. “It appears as though some of that trouble has subsided,” he said.
Promise Lee, senior pastor of Relevant Word Ministry, said the police presence in the park has not been enough.
“The response is a little too late. It’s two shootings too late. Two murders too late,” Lee said.
Craig Carter, director of the Dream Center, an outreach program for youths and elderly people, said youths kill when they are hopeless and consumed by the negative messages of hip- hop music.
“When you’re talking about killing and beating and ‘ho-ing’ and all those negative things, that penetrates a person,” Carter said. “These are the kids that I believe society has, as a whole, given up on. And when we treat someone as though they are an outcast, then they begin to act like an outcast.”
Carter said he doesn’t believe that Colorado Springs is seeing evidence of a street war between rival gangs but rather the desperation of individuals who are “trying to show off, trying to get on the front page of the newspaper. They want to escalate themselves in the eyes of their peers.”
Lee said that after Grimaldo’s death, 800 people gathered for a block party outside the Dream Center to “emphasize positivity in the neighborhood,” yet none of the local news agencies covered the event.
“The community has to have a sense of ownership because this is the way it starts: It’s one, then another and another,” he said. “Before you know it, innocent people are getting hit by stray bullets.”
Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
Colorado Springs slayings, 2001-05
The killing of a Western State College football player puts the homicide toll at 14 for the city in 2007.
Year Homicides
2001-14
2002-25
2003-18
2004-14
2005-12
