5 killed, including gunman, in Denver shootings

DENVER, Dec 28, (AP): A gunman killed four people and injured an officer in the Denver area, police said Monday.

The suspect also died Monday, Lakewood police said. Officers had exchanged gunfire with the suspect, KDVR reported.

The shootings started shortly after 5 p.m. in central Denver, where two women were killed and a man was injured, Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen said at a news conference.

A short time later, a man was fatally shot several blocks away, Pazen said. During that pursuit police officers exchanged gunfire with a suspect. The suspect 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 said John Romero, a spokesman for that department.

Dead

A gunshot victim was later found and pronounced dead at the scene, Romero said. Police officers identified the car and the shooting suspect, Romero said. The suspect was not identified at the joint news conference.

Romero said that when the officers found the car, the gunman opened fire and officers shot back. The gunman then fled on foot to a Hyatt hotel, where he is believed to have shot a clerk. He also shot and wounded a Lakewood police officer after he left the hotel.

The wounded officer was undergoing surgery Monday night and his condition was not immediately known, a spokesman for the Lakewood Police Department said. The hotel clerk’s condition was not known.

The suspect was later shot in Lakewood and pronounced dead at the scene, Romero said. It was not immediately clear if police officers had shot him.

“This one individual was responsible for this very violent crime spree that took place this evening, Pazen said.

Meanwhile, video released Monday

showed Los Angeles police firing at a man suspected of assaulting customers last week at a clothing store, a shooting that also killed a 14-year-old girl hiding in a dressing room who was struck by a bullet that went through a wall.

The Los Angeles Police Department posted an edited video package online that included 911 calls, radio transmissions, body camera footage and surveillance video from the Thursday shooting at a Burlington store crowded with holiday shoppers. The department’s policy is to release video from critical incidents, such as police shootings, within 45 days.

Surveillance video showed the suspect attacking two women, including one who fell to the floor before he dragged her by her feet through the store’s aisles as she tried to crawl away.

Multiple people including store employees called police to report a man striking customers with a bike lock at the store in the North Hollywood area of the San Fernando Valley. One caller told a 911 dispatcher that the man had a gun. No firearm - only the bike lock was recovered at the scene.

The early surveillance footage showed a man in a tank top and shorts carrying a bicycle up the store’s escalator to the second floor, where he

wandered around, seemingly disoriented, clutching a cable-style bike lock. At times he stood motionless, staring into the distance.

The footage later showed the man on the down escalator attacking a woman, who managed to escape his grip and run out of the store.

The man then left the store for a minute and a half, police said. After he returned, according to the video, he repeatedly beat a woman with a bike lock while she cowered on the floor. As she tried to escape, he dragged her through the aisle toward the dressing rooms.

Approached

In bodycam video, armed officers entered the store and approached the suspect.

“She’s bleeding!” an officer shouts as the victim crawled on the bloodstained floor and the suspect was on the other side of the aisle. At least one officer opened fire, striking the man.

The 24-year-old suspect, Daniel Elena Lopez, died at the scene. Also killed was Valentina Orellana-Peralta, 14, who was hiding with her mother inside a dressing room.

“At this preliminary phase of the investigation, it is believed that the victim was struck by one of the rounds fired by an officer at the suspect,” police Capt. Stacy Spell said in the posted video. Police believe the bullet skipped off the floor and struck the dressing room wall.

The investigation is just beginning and it could take up to a year or more to complete, Spell said. The California Department of Justice is also investigating.

“We at the LAPD would like to express our most heartfelt condolences and profound regret for the loss of this innocent victim, Valentina Orellana Peralta. There are no words that can describe the depth of the sorrow we feel at this tragic outcome,” Spell said in the video.

The girl’s parents will appear with civil rights attorney Ben Crump at a news conference outside Los Angeles police headquarters on Tuesday.

LAPD officers have shot people 38 people - 18 of them fatally, including the shooting Sunday of a man with a knife - in 2021, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Those figures mark a dramatic rise in cases where officers shot or killed people in either of the last two years - 27 people were shot and 7 of them killed by LA police in all of 2020. In 2019, officers shot 26 people, killing 12.