Denver police officials launched an investigation after the Dec. 27, 2021, killings to review how they handled tips they received about the gunman, Lyndon McLeod, in 2020 and 2021.

Both Denver police and the FBI were warned about McLeod’s potential for violence before he killed Alicia Cardenas, Alyssa Gunn Maldonado, Michael Swinyard, Danny Scofield and Sarah Steck in four separate locations in Denver and Lakewood, including two tattoo parlors, a hotel and a private residence.

Lakewood police Agent Ashley Ferris shot and killed McLeod after she confronted him in the Belmar shopping district, ending the spree — after being shot herself by McLeod.

The Denver Department of Public Safety is in the process of finalizing its review and will release additional information in the coming weeks, spokeswoman Kelly Jacobs said in a statement Friday.

“The Department of Safety would like to extend our deepest condolences to the family, friends and loved ones of those who lost their lives in this senseless act of violence one year ago,” Jacobs said in the statement. “We join our community in remembering and honoring their legacies and the impacts that they had on our communities. These individuals were positive, passionate forces for good in Denver, and their memory will continue to live on and inspire those who hear their stories.”

Without the review’s findings, friends and family of those killed have been left with lingering questions.

Luis Garcia became friends with Cardenas more than 20 years ago through the Association of Professional Piercers. He was disgusted when he learned police had received a warning about McLeod prior to the shootings, he said. He questioned why it has taken so much time to release the findings of the review.

“If it shows you did your due diligence, why would you be hiding it?” Garcia said.

Part of the review included whether detectives read McLeod’s self-published novels after a man alerted them to the violent, racist and misogynistic books in 2021. McLeod named two of his real-life victims — Cardenas and Swinyard — as murder victims killed by a character named “Lyndon MacLeod” in the series.

Denver police and the FBI received a warning about McLeod and his books in January 2021. Andre Thiele contacted Denver police and the FBI after reading the  books and participating in a chatroom for fans of the book. McLeod made increasingly alarming statements in the chats, which prompted Thiele to contact authorities, Thiele told The Denver Post in a previous interview.

“I think that there is a small, but undeniable possibility, that the accused may commit a terrorist attack,” Thiele wrote in his warning to law enforcement.

Thiele told a Denver police detective assigned to look into McLeod that McLeod’s books “could be read as an extremist right-wing manifesto and a terrorist prophecy.”

In one of the books, the “Lyndon MacLeod” character bursts into a Denver tattoo shop on West Sixth Avenue and kills several people. On the night of the killings, McLeod tried to break into a tattoo shop in the same block and fired several shots, but did not kill anyone.

Prior to the 2021 tip, a former roommate of McLeod’s in 2020 after receiving texts from McLeod about buying flamethrowers that she found disturbing.

Denver police also arrested McLeod in 2012 after he threatened co-workers with a gun. He pleaded guilty to felony menacing in April 2012 and completed two years of probation as part of a deferred sentence. The charge was dismissed after he completed probation. He petitioned to have the case sealed in 2014 — which hid it from public view — but a judge unsealed the case after the 2021 killings.

The one-year anniversary of Cardenas’ death has resurfaced a lot of feelings for Garcia. He misses his friend, he said. She was a pillar of the community who spoke bluntly but loved abundantly.

“She was a beacon of light,” he said. “She was just a beautiful person. I miss her so much. I miss that light.”

He wants law enforcement — whether it’s the Denver Police Department or the FBI — to take accountability for their lack of action. While the details of the investigation will be important, the basic facts are plain, he said.

“We know the truth,” Garcia said. “We know they knew and didn’t do anything. We don’t need an investigation to tell us that.”

The woman, , wasn’t even supposed to work that night. She was covering the Dec. 27 shift for a sick co-worker when Lyndon McLeod, 47, walked in and shot her. He was inside the Hyatt House hotel in the Belmar shopping district for less than 30 seconds.

The gunman’s motive for killing Steck was one of several new details made public Monday after First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King announced she would not charge Lakewood police Agent Ashley Ferris for shooting and killing him moments after he wounded her.

King found Ferris’ actions were reasonable and heroic.

The DA also cleared a second Lakewood police agent, Brianna Hagan, who fired at the gunman after he shot at her during a traffic stop as police searched for him the night of Dec. 27.

“Agents Hagan and Ferris and their fellow officers from multiple agencies responded swiftly and bravely to end this spree of senseless violence in our community,” King said in a news release. “Agent Ferris demonstrated particular heroism in returning fire while gravely wounded herself, and our community owes her and all of our law enforcement partners a debt of gratitude for their service during this tragic event.”

King’s announcement included the release of hundreds of pages of police reports and interview transcripts detailing the investigation of the Lakewood Police Department’s use of force that night, along with video footage of the shooting.

Ferris killing the gunman ended his series of attacks, some of which targeted people he knew or worked with previously.

He first shot Alicia Cardenas and Alyssa Gunn Maldonado at the Denver tattoo shop Cardenas owned on Broadway before killing Michael Swinyard in his apartment near Cheesman Park. The gunman then drove to Lakewood and killed Danny Scofield in the tattoo parlor where he worked before eluding Lakewood officers and walking into a restaurant in the Belmar shopping area and threatening a bartender. After leaving the restaurant, he walked into the Hyatt hotel and killed Steck moments before Ferris killed him.

The gunman was an angry, vengeful person who failed to keep friendships and relationships, according to descriptions of interviews with his former girlfriends included in the documents. One former girlfriend told investigators that he abused her and stole from her. He had not had a job in at least seven years, she said, and instead mooched off of others. He repeatedly made comments about hurting or killing people he thought had wronged him.

The gunman approached Ferris while she set up a perimeter in the Belmar shopping area. He wore a black vest with “POLICE” written across it and Ferris at first thought he was security from a nearby business.

Surveillance video of the shooting released Monday shows Ferris standing outside her police car, which is blocking the intersection at Vance Street and Alaska Drive, when the gunman approaches. The two stand face-to-face in the intersection for about 10 seconds. Ferris appears to reach for something in the gunman’s hands and then draws her gun and starts to back away.

The gunman pauses for four seconds and then turns and fires, striking Ferris. She falls and fires multiple shots. The gunman turns to run, stumbles and collapses behind her patrol car.

Ferris writhes in the street for 40 seconds before another officer drags her to safety, leaving a trail of her blood in the street, the video shows.

Three officers later arrive with guns drawn and surround the gunman, using Ferris’s patrol car for cover. The gunman is lying on his side but rolls onto his back and stops moving. Officers then approach his body.

The gunman shot Ferris in the abdomen and the bullet fractured before exiting her back, damaging her sciatic nerve and leaving her temporarily paralyzed in her right leg. Ferris returned to work in May after two surgeries and hundreds of hours of physical therapy.

Investigators found two sets of handcuffs, multiple weapons and at least 400 rounds of ammunition in the gunman’s van.

Investigators later learned the gunman was the author of three racist and misogynistic books that described similar killings and named some of his eventual victims. A German man warned the FBI and Denver police a year before the shootings that the gunman posed a violent threat, but Denver police were not able to contact the gunman at the time or substantiate the threat.

After the Dec. 27 shootings, a former girlfriend described the books as “revenge fantasies” to investigators, documents show.

Ashley Ferris received the award Thursday afternoon from The National Conference of Law Enforcement Emerald Societies (NCLEES), according to Lakewood police.

This afternoon Agent Ashley Ferris was awarded the Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award from the The National Conference of Law Enforcement Emerald Societies (NCLEES) for her heroic actions on 12/27/21. Thank you NCLEES for recognizing her bravery and professionalism.

— Lakewood Police Dept. (@LakewoodPDCO)

Ferris, an U.S. Army veteran, was recognized for her heroic actions on Dec. 27, in the Belmar area when she shot and killed the shooting spree suspect. Ferris was shot in the abdomen during the exchange, and she spent time in a Lakewood hospital as part of her immediate recovery.

“Thank you Agent Ferris for protecting our community, and thank you NCLEES for recognizing her bravery and professionalism,” Lakewood police said.

The award was presented to Ferris in Lakewood because she was unable to attend National Police Week in Washington, D.C., in May.

After five months of recovery from the shooting, Ferris returned to work last month.

“I don’t feel like a hero,” Ferris said at a local news conference on May 18. “I feel like I did my job.”

Minutes earlier, dispatch had aired an alert about a homicide in Lakewood, following information from Denver police about a gunman on the loose in that city after several other killings that evening in late December. The man loaded rounds into magazines as he approached Ferris at the perimeter position she took near the Belmar shopping area.

She asked him a few questions, but something wasn’t right — Ferris could feel it in her gut. The man made a quick movement with his right hand and Ferris blocked him. She backed up and drew her gun.

“Don’t do this,” she recounted telling the man.

“I’ll show you what I’ll do,” the man responded, as he pulled a gun from his jacket.

The man shot Ferris in the abdomen, the bullet fracturing before exiting her back. As she fell, she fired several rounds at him as he tried to run away and she watched him drop. Bleeding on the ground, Ferris could see the gunman lying on the other side of her patrol car.

In the short stillness that followed the gunfire, Ferris felt angry — how dare he?

“I didn’t want to let him win,” she said Wednesday in an interview with reporters, speaking publicly about the Dec. 27 shooting for the first time.

After five months of recovery, Ferris is scheduled to return to work at the Lakewood Police Department on Monday. By killing the gunman, the 29-year-old police agent stopped his pre-meditated killing rampage that spanned two cities.

Investigators later learned the gunman was the author of three racist and misogynistic books that described similar killings and named some of his eventual victims.

The gunman already had killed five people — Danny Scofield, Alicia Cardenas, Alyssa Gunn Maldonado, Michael Swinyard and Sarah Steck — and attempted to kill several others by the time he encountered Ferris at the Belmar shopping area.

“I don’t feel like a hero,” she said. “I feel like I did my job.”

The fact that he walked up to her was complete chance and any of her fellow officers could’ve been in her shoes, she said. Her training kicked in when the gunman pulled out his weapon, she said, and her response was almost automatic.

“I do think the irony is kind of beautiful… that guy didn’t like women too much,” she said.

It wasn’t until other officers arrived and scooped her off the asphalt that Ferris worried she might die.

“The scariest part for me was when the other officer carried me into St. Anthony’s Hospital — he had me over his shoulder — and he was yelling ‘Officer down! Officer down!'” Ferris said. “Thinking about that even right now still gives me goosebumps. It’s hard for me to believe that I was the officer down.”

The bullet he fired at her damaged her sciatic nerve and left her temporarily paralyzed in her right leg. After two stints in the hospital, two surgeries and hundreds of hours of physical therapy, Ferris re-learned how to walk. Her nerve pain makes it feel like the back of her leg is perpetually sunburned. It still goes numb sometimes.

But she plans to return to patrol duty from desk work as soon as she’s able to run. She never doubted whether she’d return to policing or patrol, she said.

“This community showed up for me so much and I’m going to keep showing up for them,” she said.

Ferris and other officers involved in the Dec. 27 incident were honored by their department at an awards ceremony Wednesday afternoon.

When she has difficult moments, she thinks of the hundreds of thank you cards from community members she has stuffed in her cabinets and drawers. One of the victim’s best friends sent her a card, which hangs on her fridge.

“The outpouring of support has been paramount in my healing and my recovery,” she said. “I hope everyone knows I read every card and I’ve read them all multiple times. I haven’t thrown out a single thing.”

Lyndon McLeod, 47, wounded two others including a police officer in the rampage Dec. 27 at several locations around Denver.

The 47-minute film, “Warhorse,” shows McLeod in a hotel room with a briefcase full of $100 bills, riding a custom motorcycle around Denver, standing in an art museum and sitting in a van outside World Tattoo Studio, where McLeod once owned a business called Flat Black Ink Corp.

The film’s existence was .

The film intersperses action sequences, often edited as animation, with snippets of still photos, animal skulls, marked-up texts, forest fires, artwork, totems and Civil War references. Throughout, an audio-distorted, male voice-over reads texts about subjects including Genghis Khan and Jesse James, the Denver Gazette reported.

One brief scene shows a figure in a black, hockey-type mask carrying a long gun and stepping out of a van. The film, which at one point shows McLeod removing the mask, solely credits McLeod at the end and he’s the only person featured in it.

The movie’s sale doesn’t sit well with Jeremy Costilow, whose name was mentioned 100 times in McLeod’s self-published book trilogy. Costilow was nearly killed in the rampage.

“Nobody should make money off of that. It¶¶Ňőap terrible,” Costilow said. “I know people are fascinated by killers, but I don’t think anybody should own that movie at all.”

Amanda Knight, a friend of McLeod’s who warned police about him a year before the slayings, is helping sell the movie to help McLeod’s former girlfriend recoup money and property she lost. A statement on the website says, “Proceeds of this film go to victims of the crime.”

McLeod’s friends are also traumatized from the killings, Knight said.

“People have to heal. People have to survive. We’re not rich,” said Knight.

Jimmy Maldonado, who was injured in the killer’s first stop at a tattoo shop, was shown a screenshot from the film showing McLeod in tactical gear.

“He was wearing that same helmet as what¶¶Ňőap in the movie,” Maldonado said. “At first I thought it was the police who shot me.”

McLeod was wearing all black, Maldonado said, when he walked in the door of a tattoo shop and killed Maldonado’s wife, Alyssa Gunn-Maldonado, 35, and her friend, Alicia Cardenas, 44, who owned the shop. McLeod in the next hour went on to kill Michael Swinyard, 67; Danny Scofield, 38; and finally hotel clerk Sarah Steck, 28.

Three killed were at tattoo shops and police have said McLeod knew most of the victims through business or personal relationships.

The self-published, fictional books written under the pen name Roman McClay named some of McLeod’s real-life victims and described similar attacks. The books were no longer available for download Sunday but the film could be downloaded for $30.

In the first book, a character named Lyndon shoots everyone at a poker party held by a character named “Michael Swinyard.” The second novel also features a character named Lyndon and names “Alicia Cardenas” as a victim.

Investigators know about the movie and will be reviewing it, Denver and Lakewood police said.

The FBI can’t comment on an ongoing investigation but continues to work with Denver and Lakewood police to determine the motive for the shooting, FBI spokeswoman Dana M. Plumhoff said by email Sunday.

Denver police arrested Lyndon McLeod on Feb. 2, 2012, after two men who worked with him at a medical marijuana warehouse in Denver said McLeod intentionally bumped into them and then pointed a gun at them, according to McLeod’s arrest affidavit. The men said McLeod told them: “I know my rights! You pushed me and I can put one in you!”

The men convinced McLeod to put his gun away and McLeod left, according to the affidavit.

McLeod pleaded guilty to felony menacing in April 2012 and completed two years of probation as part of a deferred sentence. The charge was dismissed after he completed probation and in 2014 the case was sealed, blocking it from public view.

A Denver District Court judge unsealed the case Jan. 14 after receiving petitions from news agencies. Colorado law allows the public to request a sealed case be made public if circumstances surrounding the case have changed and “the public interest in disclosure now outweighs the defendant’s interest in privacy.” the case had been unsealed.

A Lakewood police officer shot and killed McLeod on Dec. 27, ending his murderous rampage across Denver and Lakewood. McLeod killed five people: Alicia Cardenas, Alyssa Gunn-Maldonado, Danny Scofield, Sarah Steck and Michael Swinyard. He also injured Gunn-Maldonado’s husband, Jimmy Maldonado, and the officer who killed him, Ashley Ferris.

McLeod knew most of his victims through a previous tattoo business and targeted them, police have said.

Denver police records show the department had several minor encounters with McLeod in the years before the shooting. Police were called to this address at least six times between 2012 and 2016 for domestic disturbances, welfare checks and alarms.

Police responded to his home in 2015 for a report of a domestic disturbance. McLeod had tried to kick a partner out of the house and the argument escalated until a door was damaged, according to an incident report from the time. Neither person was injured and there were no witnesses to the incident and police did not pursue charges.

A German man in 2021 warned the Denver Police Department and the FBI that McLeod might commit a terrorist attack after reading his books and communicating with him online. McLeod’s self-published books described a character named “Lyndon MacLeod” killing some of the people he killed during his Dec. 27 spree of violence.

The German man called the books “an extremist right-wing manifesto and a terrorist prophecy.”

Denver police said they investigated the tip after receiving it but could not link McLeod to the Denver address provided in the tip and didn’t have any information that he was living in the city at the time.

A copy of McLeod’s concealed carry application shows he applied to carry concealed weapons on Sept. 4, 2014 — a month after his felony menacing case was sealed.

“We request your office conduct an investigation into whether law enforcement agencies were aware of the severity of the threats from the gunman, the actions taken in response to these threats including the closure of investigations, and whether information sharing among agencies was adequate,” said by U.S. Reps. Ed Perlmutter, Jason Crow, Diana DeGette and Joe Neguse. “We have serious concerns regarding the sharing of information and the response of law enforcement officials and whether it was adequate, timely and thorough.”

McLeod, 47, shot and killed five people and injured two others during an hour-long killing spree on Dec. 27 between Denver and Lakewood. Denver police received a warning about a year ago about McLeod and a series of novels he self-published leading up to the attacks. He wrote about two of the victims he would later kill last month.

Denver police Chief Paul Pazen previously said that McLeod had been the subject of two law enforcement investigations: one in 2020 and one in early 2021. Local FBI officials have failed to release any information about what they knew about McLeod prior to the killings.

In Thursday’s letter to Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, the delegation briefly outlined the shooting spree before zeroing in on news coverage of acts by McLeod, including using the names of people he intended to target in the self-published books.

The letter states:

• It was reported the gunman was on the radar of federal law enforcement for previous expressions of extremist views and a history of violent episode.
• The Denver Police Department investigated the gunman in 2020 and early 2021, but concluded there was not enough evidence to file charges
• The members of Congress have serious concerns regarding the sharing of information and the response of law enforcement officials and whether it was adequate, timely and thorough

“It is critical we understand who knew what information and when, and how this information was shared and acted upon in order to identify and close any gaps in the information sharing process among law enforcement,” the letter said. “Thank you for your attention to this matter and we look forward to your prompt response.”

A German man contacted Denver 311 on Jan. 3, 2021, about Lyndon McLeod and wrote, “I think that there is a small, but undeniable possibility, that the accused may commit a terrorist attack.”

The German man, Andre Thiele, said in an interview Monday with The Denver Post that he contacted Denver police after reading McLeod’s books and participating in a chatroom for fans of the book. The gunman participated in the chat and made increasingly alarming statements that prompted Thiele to contact authorities, Thiele said. Thiele also submitted a tip online to the FBI and sent them a letter via mail, he said.

“I cannot in good conscience say that he will act with certainty,” Thiele wrote in a letter to Denver police, which he provided to The Post. “But I can say that IF he should act, the result would be devastating. He then would stop at nothing.”

Denver police on Tuesday confirmed they received a tip from a person in Germany in January 2021 citing concerns about McLeod, including information about a fraud that involved a potential victim outside of Colorado. Denver police could not link McLeod to a Denver address and had no reason to believe McLeod was living in Denver at the time, Denver police spokesman Doug Schepman said in a statement.

“DPD is reviewing the investigation, but based on our initial review, there was not sufficient evidence to file criminal charges or a legal basis for monitoring McLeod at the time,” Schepman said.

The review of the January 2021 investigation will also include whether detectives read McLeod’s books, Schepman said. The self-published books described a character named “Lyndon MacLeod” killing some of the people he killed during his Dec. 27 spree of violence.

Denver police Chief Paul Pazen previously said that McLeod had been the subject of two law enforcement investigations: one in 2020 and one in early 2021. He refused during a Dec. 28 press conference to elaborate on the nature of the investigations.

FBI officials have failed to release any information about what they knew about McLeod prior to the killings. They declined to answer questions from The Post on Dec. 29 and Dec. 30 and did not respond Tuesday to an email about Thiele’s tip.

Email records Thiele provided to The Denver Post show that a Denver police detective contacted Thiele via email on Jan. 4, 2021, and said he would look into his concerns. Thiele sent the detective two documents that outlined his concerns about McLeod and included statements McLeod made in the chatroom that worried Thiele. He included a link to a listing for McLeod’s book on Amazon.

“Though the book is not political per se, it could be read as an extremist right-wing manifesto and a terrorist prophecy,” Thiele wrote in one of the documents.

“It may very well be that the accused is a typical case of a literary genius and a petty thug, who runs his mouth and talks too much,” Thiele wrote. “I would from my personal experiences say that this might be a 90% chance. But there is a 10% chance, that he has – at least in his own mind – created the perfect storm of right-wing terrorism.”

The detective responded a few minutes later thanking Thiele for contacting Denver police and said he would reach out if he had any further questions.

That was the last Thiele heard from the department, Thiele said, though he later heard from at least two people he listed in the letter that they had been contacted by law enforcement.

Thiele did not know at the time he made his report to police that some of the people McLeod’s main character killed in the books were real people.

Thiele at first was a fan of McLeod and his book and started interacting with him in 2019. It wasn’t until he participated in a fans-only chatroom with McLeod that he became alarmed. McLeod recommended books that were essentially neo-Nazi pamphlets, Thiele said, and made concerning remarks about wanting to start a war.

“Only after I got to know him better and the reality of his life and the reality of his points of view, I realized that this was not a novel but a manifesto, or a letter of commitment,” Thiele said Monday.

Thiele said he didn’t know if his alarm was more than a hunch, but wanted trained law enforcement professionals to take a look at McLeod and complete their own risk assessment.

“Tragically, they didn’t see what I saw,” he said. “I saw through the jokes and saw the guy underneath it. I’m sad I couldn’t prove it.”

The gunman’s writings are and racist and often focus on violence, the extremism experts said. His books and online writing glorify violence, decry an alleged attack on white masculinity and advocate for a return to unequal gender roles.

On Twitter, he wrote that aggressive white men are being made irrelevant and that “war is coming.” In another tweet, he wrote that “a generation of defective men” had been programmed to be passive and gentle — traits he said belonged to women — and that the feminine traits made them “passive eunuch slaves.” He wrote angrily that laws, social norms and law enforcement protected the weak from the strong.

“I’m over it,” he wrote in 2020. “The weak better buckle up… (expletive) is about to get real.”

“While we can’t necessarily pinpoint any extremist ideology or groups he was with, he was in a generally extreme, right-wing space,” said Jessica Reaves, editorial director for the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism

The gunman participated in a sector of — a loosely connected collection of websites and chat forums where men oppose the idea that women are equal and discuss an alleged crisis in masculinity. The gunman’s writings repeat many of the beliefs found in the manosphere and he publicly connected online with men from several well-known white nationalist and hate groups.

“What I see is an individual who carried a lot of concerning indicators,” said Matthew Kriner, a senior research scholar at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies

Denver police Chief Paul Pazen said at a news conference the day after the Dec. 27 shooting that the gunman was on law enforcement’s radar and had been the subject of at least two investigations. Neither of those investigations resulted in arrests, Pazen said. The Denver Police Department and the FBI have refused to release more information about the prior investigations.

Police have said that the gunman knew his victims and interviews with some of those impacted reveal he may have been exacting revenge against them. The Denver Post is limiting the use of the gunman’s name in an effort to it gains due to his violence.

One former employee said the gunman operated a tattoo business with some of the people he targeted in his shootings and that the gunman blamed everyone else when the business failed. The gunman also named several of those he targeted in his three-volume book he self-published and described killing them. A Lakewood police officer, Ashley Ferris, shot and killed the gunman after confronting him in a busy shopping and restaurant district.

While there’s no evidence that the gunman killed to further an ideological goal, research and history show that extreme beliefs expressed online can translate into real-life violence, Kriner said.

The gunman’s focus on survival skills, physical strength, the need for tribes, European myths and genetic purity also aligns him with a category of hate groups that Groups in this category rely on “imagery and myths of a bygone, romanticized Viking Era” and “seek to transcend nationalism and wield whiteness as it suits their ill-conceived ends,” according to the center.

“While outward-facing violence rarely erupts from the Folkish movement, it is premised on an ethnically or racially charged warrior pathos,” according to the center.

The Denver gunman made several references in his book and online to the , one of the hate groups in the Folkish category, Kriner said. Groups like the Wolves of Vinland practice “bastardized Norse pagan extremism,” Kriner said.

“They are fascists, but they are esoteric fascists,” Kriner said. “They’ll hide this behind this Norse veneer to make it more palatable.”

Kriner and Reaves disagree whether the Denver gunman should be labeled an extremist. Kriner said his misogyny alone qualified him as an extremist. Reaves said the gunman seemed to hold some beliefs that would’ve once been considered extreme — like the belief that white masculinity is under attack — but those beliefs have become common enough that it has become difficult to use such beliefs alone to label a person an extremist.

“That has become so mainstream at this point — you hear it from mainstream politicians — that the line is blurred at this point,” she said.

It’s difficult to tell how many real-world connections the gunman had in the extremist realm, Reaves said.

“What we’ve seen repeatedly is that the men who are committing these crimes are not affiliating themselves in any way, or any real-world way, with any movement,” Reaves said. “They’ve radicalized online for the most part and our operating on their own.”

While some extremists have distanced themselves from the gunman since the killings, others are celebrating the killer and his acts online, Kriner and Reaves said.

“Our concern going forward and what we’ll be looking at for a while is how this plays out in extremist spaces online and whether he is lionized and elevated and praised as a saint,” Reaves said.

Bouquets of flowers rustle in the wind. Candle flames flicker, their wax pooling on the sidewalk. Offerings of fruit, photographs, crystals, and feathers are presided over by a portrait hanging on the storefront door: A depiction of Alicia Cardenas, the store owner and giant in the tattoo and body modification community, and among the victims killed in a Monday night shooting spree across the city that began at the Broadway tattoo shop.

The sacredness of the memorial fits the hallowed description Denver’s body art community discussed when commemorating the victims, the shop and the family created out of a reverence for ink on skin.

The community — comprised of walking canvasses and the artists who pierce and paint them — is in mourning after multiple tattoo artists were targeted this week in a shooting rampage spanning Denver and Lakewood that left six people dead including the gunman.

The tattoo shop, mourners said, is a temple where the oddballs gather to heal.

“It’s going to take a lot of time as a community to heal from this,” said Madison Lauterbach, a Denverite with eight facial piercings and several tattoos who frequented the first location of the shooting spree, Sol Tribe Custom Tattoo and Body Piercing. “My hope is we continue to treat our home shops as the temples they are and we continue to treat our modification artists as the healers they are.”

“A place for the oddballs”

Among those healers killed in the shooting: Danny Scofield, an artist at Lucky 13 Tattoo and Piercing; Alyssa Gun Maldonado, the jewelry manager at Sol Tribe Custom Tattoo and Body Piercing; and Cardenas, Sol Tribe owner and a matriarch in the industry, said Kacy Jonez, a tattoo apprentice who worked alongside Cardenas at Sol Tribe.

Sol Tribe and the shop’s first iteration, Twisted Sol, did things differently, Jonez said.

In a male dominated industry, Sol Tribe and its crew of employees, customers and fans made space for women, non-binary people, the LGBTQ community, people of color and anyone who felt a little different, Jonez said.

“Alicia and Alyssa were this matriarchal force the tattoo community needs desperately,” Jonez said. “She took me on to teach me how to tattoo, but she was also teaching me how to take a stand. It was a safe place. I could be brown. I wasn’t a toilet scrubber. I was an equal.”

The Sol Tribe staff would hold meetings about how to change the industry for the better and fight patriarchal attitudes that persisted, Jonez said.

“We didn’t need to dominate,” Jonez said. “We just needed a place, and that’s what the shop is. A place for the oddballs and the people who didn’t fit in.”

Lauterbach, a 26-year-old Denverite, grew up fascinated by body modification. She felt out of place until finding a home in the tattoo and body modification community with a home base of Sol Tribe where she received her forehead dermal — a piercing she begged Cardenas to administer because she was only 17-years-old but accompanied by her mother.

“It’s become a defining feature of who I am,” Lauterbach said. “Alicia impacted me so deeply with just that one piercing.”

For Lauterbach, the tattoos and piercings are art that make her feel beautiful.

“I used to hate my thighs when I was a teenager,” Lauterbach said. “I remember being in the bathtub at 15 and calling my mom in and sobbing and begging her to let me get liposuction on my thighs.”

Instead, Lauterbach’s thighs became the backdrop to several tattoos — a rainbow trout, a woman wearing a deer headpiece, a heart surrounding the word “no” and more.

“It’s become really difficult to hate my body because it’s covered in art that I love,” Lauterbach said.

“More than just a shop”

The tight-knit tattooing community is made up of artists and customers who have worked and played together for years, members said.

“The massive community that we have has just been rocked,” said James Clarke, a tattoo artist who used to work with Scofield. “Our community is devastated.”

Krisha Jeannoutot, who owns Phantom 8 Tattoo & Piercing in Englewood with her husband, Chris, started piercing in the 1990s around the same time as Cardenas who she considered an industry peer.

Jeannoutot said Monday’s loss was personal.

“It’s family beyond family,” Jeannoutot said.

Tattooing has deep roots in ancient artistry and Indigenous practices, Jeannoutot said, which Cardenas and Sol Tribe were adamant on preserving and celebrating.

“It¶¶Ňőap a deeper connection,” Jeannoutot said. “It¶¶Ňőap Indigenous people. It¶¶Ňőap tribal.”

Alicia “Bruce” Trujillo, a Chicana working in Denver’s arts and music scene, said the Denver body modification community has space for everyone but that she particularly loved the environment Sol Tribe created.

Trujillo, who partook in Indigenous sweat lodge ceremonies with Gunn Maldonado, recounted Sol Tribe staff burning sweetgrass as Cardenas tattooed Trujillo’s palm with ancestral artwork.

“It was special,” Trujillo said. “Sol Tribe is an educational space. A space of ritual. It’s more than just a shop.”

Jher Clark, co-owner of Denver’s Landmark Tattoo, said Monday’s tragedy brought together colleagues across the industry as former coworkers gathered outside Sol Tribe to mourn.

Old friends hugged, traded memories, wept and were reminded of the passion for art that drove them into the industry in the first place.

“There’s definitely a feeling of family,” said Clark, who worked at Twisted Sol — Cardenas first tattoo shop she opened in 1997.

Holidays were often spent at Cardenas house, Clark said. Big gatherings — birthdays, barbecues, industry conferences and camping trips — bonded coworkers across shops and created lasting ties and chosen families for those whose family lives weren’t as bright, Clark said.

Cardenas was a force at the forefront of pushing the tattoo industry to be more inclusive, Clark said, which rubbed off on artists across the country. Landmark Tattoo holds meetings educating its staff about topics such as asking and using people’s proper pronouns and being more conscious of the language they use when speaking to people.

“So much of that is because of Alicia,” Clark said. “She taught me and so many others.”

Continuing the work

Julia Torres only has to look at her arm to be reminded of the significance of the tattooing community in her life and Cardenas’ magical touch.

Cardenas inked a memorial piece extending along Torres’ arm and upper back honoring Torres’ dead stepfather who designed stained glass. The piece — bursting with vibrant colors — managed to resemble stained glass with light bouncing through it, which Torres said is especially impressive on her Black skin.

“Alicia was one of the few artists in the state who really understood tattooing melanated skin,” Torres said.

The loss to the tattooing community is a wake-up call to Torres. She thought about all the communities the victims belonged to, fought for and loved — the artists, the poor, the Indigenous, the women, the queer — and felt called to pick up the fight where they left off.

“We who love them have an ongoing commitment to continue their work and the best thing people can do is research all the causes they were passionate about and find artists either in Denver or elsewhere who do Indigenous work and body modification and tattooing who need your help, uplifting, resources,” Torres said. “Alicia supported the homeless community, the queer community, so many. The best way we can honor her life is continuing that work, and that’s what I plan to do.”