The owner of a downtown Denver sushi bar has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a fatal shooting Thursday in his restaurant.
Yan De Yang, 40, owner of the Chopsticks & Sushi restaurant, 1630 Welton St., is being held at the Denver Jail, Denver police said.
The shooting, just off Denver’s busy 16th Street Mall, happened about 3:30 p.m. and caused a commotion downtown as police shut two blocks of Welton Street to investigate the homicide. Dozens of bystanders had crowded up to yellow police tape to survey the scene.
Police said there are no other suspects in the fatal shooting.
After an autopsy, the victim, who was not a restaurant employee, was identified Friday evening as 29-year-old Lloyd Running Bear.
Police did not disclose a motive in the shooting.
Throughout the day Friday, the restaurant was closed to the public. People meeting inside the business came to the door but declined to comment on the incident.
Shootings near the mall are highly unusual, especially during daylight hours.
The most recent headline-making shooting happened on an afternoon in August 2007, when a clerk at a 7-Eleven store on the mall was shot in the head while people crowded the mall after a Colorado Rockies game. The clerk survived the shooting.
A fatal shooting took place in April 2006, when an alleged Tre Tre Crip gang leader shot a 22-year-old man to death after a hip-hop party at a nightclub in the Denver Pavilions on the mall.
And in August 2005, singer Marc Cohn — best known for the hit single “Walking in Memphis” — was shot in the head during a botched carjacking attempt in the 1400 block of Stout Street.
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com
