Editor’s note: 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason in a May 6, 2025, decision letter ruled that Colorado State Patrol Corporal Tye Simcox was justified in fatally shooting Victor Anthony De Santiago. Read the decision letter .
Investigators on Tuesday publicly identified the gunman who shot a Colorado State Patrol trooper parked along U.S. 36 over the weekend as a 32-year-old Thornton man.
Victor Anthony De Santiago — who is also known as “Spider,” according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation — shot and injured Cpl. Tye Simcox around 1:18 p.m. Saturday before he was killed in a shootout with the trooper, investigators said.
“The deceased is a citizen of the United States born in California and a long-term resident of Colorado with an extensive Colorado criminal history, beginning as a juvenile,” Colorado State Patrol officials said in a Tuesday news release.
De Santiago’s criminal record in Colorado and California includes multiple minor traffic violations — such as excessive window tint, driving without a license or with a suspended license, driving without insurance and a broken taillight — according to law enforcement records.
Since 2015, the now 32-year-old has also been arrested in Colorado for failing to appear in court, making false reports to law enforcement and 10 counts of felony assault and menacing, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records.
He was convicted on at least four of the assault charges, according to CBI records.
The Adams County Coroner’s Office identified De Santiago as the shooter Tuesday and said an autopsy had been conducted, but did not release the cause and manner of his death.
According to the Colorado State Patrol, Simcox was doing paperwork while parked in his marked Ford 150 pickup truck between two concrete barriers in the center median of U.S. 36, just west of Federal Boulevard in Westminster, when De Santiago opened fire while driving past.
De Santiago was driving a black Chevrolet pickup truck eastbound on the highway and slowed as he passed the marked state patrol truck, pulling out a handgun and firing multiple shots into the truck, officials said.
After shooting Simcox, De Santiago pulled over, got out of his vehicle and was killed by the wounded trooper in a shootout along the turnpike’s center median, authorities said.
Simcox was shot once in the arm and was able to apply a tourniquet to the limb as he waited for backup from responding Colorado State Patrol troopers and Westminster police officers. He was taken to Denver Health, where he was treated and released that afternoon.
The shooting is still under investigation as investigators look into a possible motive and interview Simcox.
