Gunman kills 5 in Denver area, police say

A gunman killed five people and wounded at least two others, including a police officer, during a series of shootings in the Denver area on Monday that ended when he was fatally shot in an encounter with an officer, authorities said.

On Tuesday, police officials identified the gunman as Lyndon James Mcleod, 47, and said that he “had been on our radar.” Authorities also said that a fifth victim had died earlier that day.

Paul M. Pazen, the Denver police chief, told reporters that law enforcement officials had investigated Mcleod in mid-2020 and early 2021 but that neither inquiry had resulted in charges. Pazen declined to describe those investigations.

He said the gunman had personal or business relationships with the three people he appeared to have targeted in Denver on Monday.

Authorities described the case as “complex,” having occurred across several locations in and near Denver, Colorado’s capital, and did not offer a specific motive.

The shootings started shortly after 5 p.m. Monday in central Denver, where two women were killed and a man was injured, Pazen said.

Shortly afterward, a man was fatally shot several blocks away, the chief said, and police officers exchanged gunfire with Mcleod during a pursuit.

He then fled to the nearby city of Lakewood, Pazen said.

Just before 6 p.m., the Lakewood Police Department received a report of shots fired at a business, John Romero, a department spokesman, told reporters. The victim there, Danny Schofield, was later found and pronounced dead at the scene, Romero said.

By that point, officers had identified Mcleod’s vehicle as a black early 2000s Ford van, Romero said. When the officers found the van, the gunman opened fire, and officers shot back, Romero said.

The gunman then fled on foot to a Hyatt hotel, where he shot a clerk, later identified as Sarah Steck, 28, who died Tuesday, police said.

Mcleod then ran out of the hotel and later encountered a Lakewood police officer, Romero said. Mcleod shot her in the abdomen, and she returned fire, killing him, Romero said.

Two weapons were recovered at the scene, and the officer is in stable condition, Romero said Tuesday afternoon.

One victim in Denver was identified as Alicia Cardenas, 44, according to her father, Alfredo Cardenas. She owned the Sol Tribe Tattoo & Piercing shop and had worked in the body modification industry since 1994, according to a biography of her on the shop’s website.

“She was a real well-known person in the Denver tattoo community,” Alfredo Cardenas said in a brief telephone interview.

A number of mass shootings have taken place in Colorado since two students at Columbine High School shocked the nation in 1999 by killing a teacher and 12 classmates.

In March, a gunman killed 10 people at a Boulder grocery store, including a police officer.

About two months later, a gunman opened fire at a birthday party in Colorado Springs, killing six people before taking his own life. And last month, six teenagers were wounded in a drive-by shooting at a park in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

The Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one with four or more people injured or killed, not including the perpetrator, has counted 687 such shootings in the United States this year.