An 18-year-old man has been arrested after he allegedly fatally shot a 50-year-old Big O Tires employee in a busy Monument shopping center after a dispute erupted over the changing of a flat tire.
The victim, whose name has not been released, was shot at 4:25 p.m. and died in the parking lot of the store at 650 Highway 105 in Monument.
Police are interviewing numerous witnesses of the shooting that happened near a Safeway grocery store shopping center and a gas station, said Lt. Lari Sevene, spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.
“I don’t believe they knew each other,” Sevene said.
The 18-year-old shooting suspect, Logan McClelland, is being held without bond on suspicion of first-degree murder.
He and his 54-year-old father, who are from Como, got into a heated argument with the 50-year-old employee inside the store after they went into the store to get a flat tire fixed.
The three continued the argument outside and it quickly turned into a physical confrontation, Sevene said.
The suspect then pulled out a gun and fired it multiple times into the Big O Tires employee’s body.
“I don’t believe the store employee was armed,” Sevene said. “There were a multitude of witnesses.”
The Monument police department called the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office for assistance, she said. The much larger agency took over the investigation.
Sevene said the shooting was only the second time in many years that someone has been killed in the tiny town 27 miles south of Castle Rock.
Monique Lynch was charged with first-degree murder last week in the death of 9-year-old Genesis Sims, who was killed in their Monument home. The girl’s decomposed body was found in the basement of the home in May. She had been beaten with a belt for soiling herself and then may have been buried alive.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
