A Jefferson County jury found a Denver man not guilty of criminal charges in the 2023 fatal road rage shooting at a Tesla supercharger station outside Edgewater Public Market.
Jeremy Smith was ordered released from custody Wednesday morning after the jury reached the not-guilty verdict following a six-day trial, according to a news release from the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office. Smith had been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in connection with the May 3, 2023, death of Adam Fresquez, 33.
Fresquez, who was shot twice in the back and sprayed with mace, died at a hospital shortly after the shooting. Fresquez was married and had two children.
The two had been involved in a road rage dispute and pulled into the Tesla charging station within seconds of each other on the morning of May 3, 2023. Both men drove Teslas.
After arriving at the charging station, Fresquez walked toward Smith’s Tesla. Video footage from nearby security cameras showed Fresquez stumbling about a minute after he approached Smith.
Smith pulled out of the parking lot but called 911 to report that he had maced and shot another person who had pulled a gun on him. He told police that he shot in self-defense.
Both men were armed, police said, but investigators reported that Fresquez’s gun was inside his clothes, near his groin, when he was found in the parking lot. Smith was charged in the case in December 2023.
Fresquez’s family held protests outside of the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office to demand prosecution, and community organizers called for an external investigation into the Edgewater Police Department’s handling of the case.
The Denver Justice Project had joined the Fresquez family in calling for prosecution. The activist group said in statement released Wednesday that Fresquez’s family was devastated by the verdict. The family and its supporters maintain that Smith was given the benefit of the doubt in the shooting because he is a white man.
“We firmly believe that if the roles in this case had been reversed, Adam Fresquez would have been arrested immediately and charged with first-degree murder,” the statement said. “Instead, Jeremy Smith was granted an extraordinary level of leniency that is almost never afforded to people of color, people like Adam. This case is yet another example of racial bias in the application of self-defense laws, where white defendants are far more likely to be justified, especially when the victim is a person of color. The system grants them the benefit of the doubt — a clear message about whose lives are valued and whose are not.”
