Three hours after he began a 45-minute barrage of gunfire into his Edgewater neighborhood, including pinning down police officers, Lupo Wolf Solazzo, 26, gave up and admitted he had been firing out his window, police said.
“We’re still trying to figure out the exact reason,” Edgewater police spokesman Steve Davis said this afternoon. “We have an indication that he and another male might have gotten into a verbal dispute, and it spilled over to his home.
“I don’t know if he was shooting out the window because he thought the guy was trying to following him, or what he was thinking.”
Davis said police had talked to the other man, “but we’re not getting any cooperation at this point.”
Neighbors who saw Solazzo taken into custody said he laughed and acted as though he might be high when he was led out of his home at 2010 Marshall St. just before 4 a.m.
Eight adults were in the residence at the time, as well as two infants and a 3-year-old child, as SWAT officers and police from numerous agencies surrounded the home, Davis said.
“That’s really the scary part,” he said. “This man had children in his home, and he just didn’t seem to care.”
Records indicate Solazzo and five other adults have lived in the rented home since about August, after he previously lived in Lakewood.
Solazzo is being held without bond in the Jefferson County jail. He is being held on suspicion of eight counts of attempted murder and three counts of child abuse.
Solazzo has no previous criminal history, other than a civil case brought by a credit company, records show.
Police said Solazzo began firing randomly at about 12:40 a.m. When the first two officers arrived, they were quickly pinned down in a shopping center across West 20th Avenue from the home, three blocks east of Jefferson High School.
“We don’t know for a fact he was shooting specifically at the officers,” Davis said. “But they reported shots hitting near them and flying over their heads. These are two veteran officers with 10 years each; they know if they’re being shot at.”
No one was injured, but the gunfire did hit at least one house east of the standoff location.
When police cut power to the two blocks around the home at about 1:30 a.m. The shooting stopped immediately afterward.
Police talked by phone with someone inside the home, and SWAT officers went in at about 3:40 a.m., then Solazzo surrendered, Davis said.
“He pretty much admitted he was the one shooting, but then he got quiet after that and didn’t want to talk anymore,” Davis said.
Numerous neighbors called 911 to report repeated volleys of gunfire, up to 11 shots at a time, police said.
“He was laughing like he was under the influence of something,” said Connor Kelleher, who lives about a block away. “He was laughing like he was on dope. He was laughing like it was a joke.”
Kelleher stepped outside after first hearing nine consecutive gunshots.
“Did I really just hear that?” Kelleher recalled thinking.
It didn’t take long for an answer, he said, when the first series of shots was quickly followed by another round.
“I’m getting back in the house,” Kelleher said.
Kelleher said about 250 shots were fired — he kept track along with a couple of neighbors — over the course of about 45 minutes.
The shots kept coming until police had the power in the area turned off, that’s when the gunfire ceased, Kelleher said.
Joyce Marquez huddled with her 12-year-old son, Guillermo Calderon, in the boy’s bedroom.
The pair live in a brick home just across the alley from where the shots were being fired.
“It was a very scary night,” Marquez said this morning as she was hustling Guillermo off to school. “It was really close.”
Guillermo, who attends North Arvada Middle School, looked tired as he climbed into his mother’s car. The student didn’t get to sleep until after 3 a.m., he said.
They relaxed a bit after a police officer knocked on their door and talked with them about the situation.
“I felt much better,” Marquez said.
Law enforcement from Denver, Lakewood, Jefferson County, Wheat Ridge, Golden and the Colorado State Patrol assisted with the incident.
Staff member Dan Boniface contributed to this story.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
