Denver police have few leads in a shootout at an apartment doorway in which a 10-year-old girl was killed in the crossfire.
“It is as bad as it gets,” Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman said of the shooting. “A pretty 10-year-old girl is murdered. Why wouldn’t someone come forward with information?”
The Denver coroner’s office identified the girl as Auralia Cisneros.
Whitman said the shootout broke out about 10:30 p.m. in the doorway of the apartment on the 4700 block of West Tennessee Avenue, and shots were exchanged from inside and outside the unit.
He said the shooting was related to drugs being sold from the apartment and that seven detectives are working on the case, including gang-unit detectives.
Police are looking for two suspects. One is described as a Latino man in his early 20s, about 145 pounds and 5 feet, 5 inches tall. The man has a mustache or goatee, Detective John White said, and was wearing a dark plaid outer shirt or black hoodie with a white inner shirt. He was wearing a brown or black hat.
Whitman did not describe the second suspect but pleaded for the public’s help in the form of tips to investigators.
“She was a sweet little girl. She was very respectful,” said Christina Peña, 31, whose daughter was a friend of the victim. “I still have goosebumps on my body, feeling for the parents.”
Auralia liked to dress up like a diva and do her nails, Peña said.
“My daughter is going to miss her friend,” she said.
Peña said she heard three loud shots Monday night.
“It was really loud,” she said. “It sounded like a rifle. It was very nerve-racking.”
A neighbor named Frank, who would only give his first name because he fears possible reprisal from gangs, said he heard more shots.
Frank said he was watching television about 10:30 p.m. when he heard the shots ring out.
“I heard some gunfire, an exchange of gunfire, at least a dozen or so shots,” Frank said. “I turned the lights out and hit the deck.”
A short time later, Frank said, he heard a car roar down the block away from the apartment.
White said the people in the apartment where the girl was found are being interviewed by investigators.
Frank recalled police responding to the fourplex earlier this year on a stabbing, he said. Whitman confirmed a stabbing happened on the front lawn of the property.
A resident listed at the fourplex, Leo J. Cisneros, 46, has an extensive arrest record that dates to 1983, involving assault, menacing, burglary, trespassing and larceny charges, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. His record also includes arrests for disorderly conduct and domestic violence.
A CBI records search also indicated Cisneros had spent 2 1/2 years in prison in 1995 for trespassing and 18 months in 2000 for assault and felony menacing. However, court records do not indicate what his relationship to Auralia Cisneros is, and other records searches list him only as a relative at the same address.
According to police records, there were 19 crimes reported within a block of the shooting this year, including a robbery, eight thefts, an arson and drug dealing. On Jan. 5, 2006, an assault with a weapon was reported.
Peña said there were four shootings on her block last summer, and car windows, including hers, were broken. Taggers paint graffiti on top of old graffiti.
Gene Garcia, 72, has lived on the block for 60 years, he said, since his parents moved to Denver from Trinidad.
Garcia said his grandson has played with Auralia and that they attended nearby Force Elementary School together.
“I think it’s terrible,” Garcia said of the shooting. “This is what happens when you have guns in the house.”
Denver Post staffers Hyoung Chang and Kathryn Scott Osler contributed to this report.
