Gunman on police ‘radar’
Suspect had ties to places he targeted
The 47-year-old man who shot and killed five people and wounded two others during an hour-long killing spree between Denver and Lakewood was previously under investigation by law enforcement, police said at a news conference Tuesday.
Police identified the shooter as Lyndon Mcleod and said he knew many of the people he targeted. Mcleod opened fire in two tattoo shops, killed a clerk in a Lakewood hotel and hunted two people inside their Denver homes. In a 2018 book connected to Mcleod, the author described in detail a murder that closely mirrored one of Monday’s attacks.
Mcleod had previously been investigated by law enforcement in 2020 and 2021 but the investigations did not lead to state or federal charges, Denver police Chief Paul Pazen said. The chief declined several times to describe the nature of the investigations.
“This individual was on the radar of law enforcement,” Pazen said.
Pazen said it was too soon to determine a motive for the killings Tuesday, which began in central Denver and ended in the busy Belmar shopping area in Lakewood. At least four of those shot worked at tattoo shops.
Denver police did not release the names of the three people killed in Denver, but family members identified one of the victims as 44-year-old Alicia Cardenas. Jimmy Maldonado was wounded in Denver during the spree and is in critical condition at Denver Health, a hospital spokeswoman confirmed. His wife, Alyssa Gunn Maldonado, died in the shooting, according to a Gofundme campaign set up by a friend.
Lakewood police spokesman John Romero identified the two victims shot in Lakewood as Danny Scofield, 38, and Sarah Steck, 28.
Steck died Tuesday in the
hospital, Romero said. Mcleod did not know Steck but had a history with the hotel she worked at, the Hyatt House, Romero said. Mcleod spoke briefly with Steck before shooting her, he said.
“Obviously, it could’ve been a lot worse than it was,” Romero said. “Belmar is a very popular area and it was very populated at the time.”
An hour of violence
Mcleod opened fire in at least eight different locations across the two cities before dying in an exchange of gunfire with a Lakewood police agent in the Belmar shopping district.
Romero did not identify the agent who shot Mcleod but said she killed him after Mcleod shot her in the abdomen. The agent underwent emergency surgery Monday night and is expected to survive. Mcleod died at the scene.
“I can’t say enough about the courage and bravery shown by that Lakewood police agent,” Romero said.
Police officials on Tuesday provided a timeline of the spree:
• At 5:25 p.m., Denver police received a report of a shooting at a business near East First Avenue and Broadway. Two women were killed, including Cardenas, and a man was injured. That man remained in critical condition but is expected to survive.
•Police then responded to a home in the 200 block of West Sixth Avenue where the shooter broke into the building. The shooter fired at the occupants, but nobody was injured. Police believe the shooter then set a van on fire in the alley behind the building.
• At 5:45 p.m., Denver police responded to a residence in the 1200 block of Williams Street where they found a man shot and killed inside. The suspect was dressed in tactical gear and wore a police logo and badge when he gained entry to the building, according to an email to residents of One Cheesman Place obtained by The Denver Post. A very similar attack was described in a 2018 book connected to Mcleod.
• Four minutes later, Denver police officers in an unmarked vehicle found a van that matched the suspect vehicle near Zuni Street and West 13th Avenue. Police pursued the vehicle until Zuni Street ended. The shooter then started firing at the officers, who returned fire. The shooter disabled the officers’ vehicle and drove away.
• Lakewood police at 5:58 p.m. received a report of shots fired at Lucky 13 Tattoo Parlor on Kipling Street. Police found Scofield dead inside the shop.
• At 6:04 p.m., Lakewood police saw the suspect van near a Wells Fargo Bank in the Belmar shopping area. Police tried to contact the van and the shooter opened fire. Police returned fire but the suspect escaped.
• At 6:10 p.m., the shooter entered the Hyatt House in the shopping area and shot Steck, who was working the front desk.
• At 6:12 p.m., a Lakewood police agent found the shooter on foot near the intersection of West Alaska Drive and South Vance Street. The agent ordered the shooter to drop his gun, but he shot her. The agent returned fire and killed him.
Denver police first notified the public about the shootings with a tweet at 5:43 p.m. Monday, referencing the shooting at East First Avenue and Broadway. Police provided the next update at 6:27 p.m. when they tweeted about the shooting on Williams Street — 42 minutes after they received the call about the shooting and after Mcleod was already shot. Lakewood police made their first notification about the shooting at 6:26 p.m., when they announced on Twitter there had been an officer-involved shooting in the Belmar area.
Both Lakewood and Denver police encrypted their scanners, blocking the public from real-time information about reported crimes and police response.
When asked Tuesday about the department’s minimal public notifications, Pazen said the situation was rapidly evolving and that law enforcement across the metro were notified to look for the suspects’ vehicle.
“There’s law enforcement professionals from federal state and local that have come together to figure this out,” he said.
The shooter
Mcleod had several ties to the places he attacked Monday.
He previously owned a business, Flat Black Ink Corp., in the 200 block of W. 6th Avenue, the area of the second shooting, state business records show.
The records show the business was formed in 2005 and was listed as delinquent in 2017.
Flat Black Ink is also listed online as the publisher of three books written under the pen name Roman Mcclay that featured a character named “Lyndon Macleod.” In one passage in the first book, published in 2018, the author describes “Macleod” carrying out a murder at an apartment complex on the south side of Cheesman Park.
The description mirrors the attack police say Mcleod carried out Monday at One Cheesman Place in the 1200 block of Williams Street. Police responded to a report of shots fired around 5:45 p.m. and found a man killed inside the building.
The shooter dressed in tactical gear and wore a police logo and badge when he gained entry to the building, according to an email from the building manager to residents of One Cheesman Place.
In the book, the author describes staking out an apartment complex in the 1300 block of Williams Street, dressing in police gear, arming himself with a rifle then going inside and killing people. The author names several specific victims, some of whom are real people who live in Denver.
“Once would be murdered there would be no legal reason to not murder everyone else; any sentence he received would be the same for felony murder during a robbery whether it was one or seven or 10 people,” the author wrote in the book.
The books were described in an online review as “an epic, visceral journey into the dark heart of every man broken by society,” according to one reviewer on the website Goodreads. Another reviewer on Amazon called the first book an “800-page Alt-right rant” and said it featured fantasies about killing people involved in the Black Lives Matter movement.
“It’s important to note, as another one-star reviewer did, that this book presents characters who give full vent to their sexism, racism, and every other -ism kept out of mainstream discourse,” another reviewer wrote.