AURORA — A bloody Sunday night ended with one man dead in front of a grocery store and a second at a hospital after two separate, and police said, unrelated, shooting incidents.
Police have not released names of the victims, both of whom were adult males, nor do they think the killings are gang related.
The first shooting was reported at about 10:35 p.m. when a man was brought to a hospital by two associates. Investigators aren’t sure where he was shot, but think it might have been near East Second Avenue and Peoria Street.
“The two people that dropped him off have been less-than cooperative,” Aurora Police spokesman Frank Fania said.
The second shooting took place at about 11:45 p.m. on Moline Street between East Colfax and East 16th avenues.
The victim ran to El Mercado de Colorado, a grocery store on Colfax, where he collapsed. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Some of those who live and work near the supermarket say the neighborhood is frequently the scene of street violence and robberies.
Ricardo Rangel, 48, lives in a nearby apartment and woke up Monday morning to see officers investigating.
He said he was robbed in the neighborhood last week. Rangel said he had left a bar and as he was walking a man grabbed his pants and pulled his wallet from a pocket. The assailant fired a .45 caliber pistol inches away from his head, he added.
“I turned around and when I held his hand to take the wallet back, he shoot.”
Ray Pettersen, 69, who lives a block from the murder scene, said he too has been the victim of gun play. About two months ago, after he and his wife had gone to bed, a bullet smashed through the front wall of their house and landed on the couch where his wife had been sitting earlier.
“I had a bullet come through my house,” he recalled.
In front of the small home, he pointed to a hole he had patched near a gas meter where the bullet entered.
Pettersen said police found bullet casings outside a nearby apartment complex.
“When it gets dark,” said a man who declined to identify himself, “you don’t want to be out on Colfax.”
