Dan Starks went to work Tuesday at his Colorado Springs auto glass business without his son for the first time in eight months.
With each stop — at the car dealerships and body shops — the tears came harder, he said. And with each stop he repeated his story.
“I told them, ‘My son got shot and killed on Sunday night,’ ” Starks said. “I told them I will be burying my son.”
Starks’ son, 27-year-old Jeff, was one of three people killed in two gang-linked shootings Sunday in Denver. Family members said he was visiting the city with his girlfriend to attend a baby shower when he stepped out onto the porch of a home on the 3200 block of Pontiac Street for a cigarette and was fatally shot.
Over a roughly 24-hour span between early Sunday and Monday morning, in four separate shootings.
Police say Starks’ slaying and the double fatal shooting early Sunday of Tyrael Lamar Adams, 28, and Deanthony Clyde Williams, 30, in the city’s Lowry neighborhood had a connection to gangs.
Investigators have not believed to be gang-linked and say a lack of help from witnesses has hampered efforts to solve the others.
Victims’ loved ones, Denver’s chief of police Robert White and public officials — including Mayor Michael Hancock — have been appealing for the public’s help to identify suspects in the cases.
“He did not deserve to get shot down like a dog,” Dan Starks said of his son. “He was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Witnesses told Starks’ family that before he was struck by bullets, he pushed his pregnant girlfriend out of harm’s way.
Family members say he wasn’t the intended target but rather the victim of mistaken identity.
Starks once was involved with the Bloods, but after completing a prison sentence following a weapons conviction he told those around him he wanted to change his life starting with his auto glass job, his father said. He paid his debts and was focused on working hard and living a normal life, his mother said.
“He was not a gang-banger when he died,” Dan Starks said, explaining he felt it important to return to work after spending Monday making funeral arrangements for his son. “He was an auto glass technician when he died. People do change.”
At a community meeting to discuss the gang-linked slaying, a video was shown of Starks’ mother, Paula, recounting how she rushed to a hospital after learning her son had been shot. She said she was told to sit down as a nurse came to speak with her.
“You know when you know they’re not telling you something,” she told the camera through sobs.
“I hope the number of these types of stories stops,” Paula Starks told The Denver Post on Tuesday.
Authorities ask anyone with information on any of the shootings to call crime stoppers at 720-913-7867.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JesseAPaul
Four shootings
• Two men — Tyrael Lamar Adams, 28, and Deanthony Clyde Williams, 30— were shot and killed at an apartment complex in the city’s Lowry neighborhood in the 200 block of South Monaco Parkway about 12:40 a.m. Sunday.
• Jeffrey Turner Starks, 27, of Colorado Springs, was shot about 9:45 p.m. Sunday in the 3200 block of Pontiac Street.
• A man was shot and killed in the 3400 block of Race Street late Sunday night. Police say they do not believe the shooting was gang-related. Authorities identified the victim as David Dornell Edwards, 53.
• One person was shot and wounded in the 1900 block of South Depew Street. Police reported the shooting at about 4 a.m. Monday and said the victim is expected to survive.
