Update: Last week, we told you about a triple shooting at Jenny's Market, a business in the Cole neighborhood, that hurt a juvenile and killed two men, Sergio Evelynmoe and Travis Kimbrough-Sanders. See our earlier reporting below.
Since then, there have been no arrests announced in the case. Neither have investigators publicly linked the shooting to gang violence.
However, numerous supporters of Evenlynmoe have reached out to Westword to complain about the attention we paid to his previous arrests.
They say he'd overcome his past troubles and had turned his life around before he became the victim of a senseless crime. According to them, he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
On Facebook, Evelynmoe was known as "Sergio NotGuilty Moe." The page's photo gallery includes numerous portraits, including this one....
...and this one:
In a note to Westword, a person close to him writes of Evelynmoe, "I know he had a bad record and spent some time in jail. But when he got out, he changed his life. My brother got killed for cleaning out his truck on the wrong side of town."
By this author's account, city bureaucrats changed their tune about Evelynmoe.
"At first, we didn't get funded by victims assistance to cover the funeral," he writes. "Then, all of a sudden, they called the other day and apologized and said they could fund it. He was ruled a victim in the case according to the detective."
Evelynmoe was "a person with such a warm heart and true intentions to be a better man and citizen of Colorado," he goes on, adding, "Our prison systems are for people to reform, evolve and overcome their past ways. It is not our job to criticize a person for elevating and reaching new heights since he got out of jail.... My brother was outnumbered and assaulted by a gang who just recognized his face."
Our sincere condolences to the friends, family and loved ones of Sergio Evelynmoe. Continue for our earlier coverage.
Update, 8:04 a.m. September 24: The Denver Police Department has not yet announced whether it regards a triple shooting at Jenny's Market, near 35th and Downing, to have been gang-related.
However, at least one of the two men killed in the incident has had numerous previous brushes with the law.
As we've reported, gunfire rang out at the market at around 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday, September 22, causing children just leaving a nearby school to scatter and run to safety.
Three people were shot: two adult males and one juvenile male. The juvenile male is expected to survive, but the two men died.
The Denver Office of the Medical Examiner has identified the victims as Travis Kimbrough-Sanders, 34, and Sergio Evelynmoe, who just turned 28. Gunshot wounds were the cause of death for both.
Kimbrough-Sanders doesn't have much of an Internet footprint, but there's plenty of material online about Evelynmoe, including multiple booking photos and references to arrests in both Denver and El Paso County. In addition to the one above, we also found this image from 2014.
Also, a 2010 item in the Colorado Springs Gazette notes that Evelynmoe was wanted at the time on suspicion of robbery.
This criminal past can't be taken as confirmation that Evelynmoe was in a gang. But it explains why officers from the gang unit responded to the shooting, and why the DPD is continuing to follow this line of investigation.
Continue for our previous coverage.
Update, 11:19 a.m. September 23: Earlier today, we told you about a triple shooting at Jenny's Market, on the 3500 block of Downing Street — and close enough to a nearby school that students taking part in a bake sale and others in the vicinity right after the end of classes for the day heard the shots and took cover; see our previous coverage below.
At the time the item was published, we knew that three people had been shot, but their conditions were unknown.
Now, however, the Denver Police Department has confirmed that two adult males and a male juvenile were hit.
The juvenile is receiving treatment for his injuries, and he's expected to survive. Unfortunately, however, the two adults have died. Their identities will be revealed by the Denver coroner's office pending next-of-kin notification.
The DPD hasn't provided any information about suspects, vehicles or any other particulars about the case — and investigators are hoping for help from the public. If you have any information, you're encouraged to contact Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867).
Continue for our previous reporting.
Original post, 5:45 a.m.: The recent rash of metro-area murders and shootings that may be gang-related seem to be blending together of late. That's how many of them there have been.
But the triple shooting at a Cole neighborhood Jenny's Market yesterday will stand out to many children and parents at Annunciation Catholic School.
The gunfire was close enough to hear and caused those present in the moments after dismissal for the day — including a group of students operating a bake sale — to run for cover.
The source for this information? My wife, who's the principal at Annunciation and was present for the incident.
First official word of what happened came via this Denver Police Department tweet:
Alert: #DPD on scene of shooting in 3500 blk of Downing. 1 party transported-unknown condition. No suspect info. Updates posted as available
— Denver Police Dept. (@DenverPolice) September 22, 2015
In the meantime, media raced to the scene.Here's a shot of the area courtesy of 7News.
The station reported that shots rang out around 3:30 p.m., but that's not quite right. According to my wife, the actual time was closer to 3:15.
Parents were arriving at Annunciation, approximately two blocks from the market, to pick up their students, while others were heading home on their own. In the meantime, a group had a table set up in front of the school for a bake-sale fundraiser.
My wife had stepped inside the building to make a phone call when students ran in, yelling about gunfire. With help from the remaining staff, she quickly gathered together the remaining students and parents in the area and rushed everyone to the basement, where they hunkered down for the better part of an hour.
Some kids and their parents were calm about the situation. Others were understandably terrified.
For some reason, several 911 calls didn't go through. (By coincidence — or maybe not — there was a 911 outage in eastern Arapahoe County yesterday, too.) When my wife finally reached an operator, she was told police were already on the scene.
Over the next few hours, the DPD ratcheted up the number of victims hurt in the gunplay.
The initial tweet's reference to one victim was subsequently increased to two, and then to three males.
Their conditions remain unknown at this writing.
Likewise, the DPD has released no information about possible suspects, motives or vehicles that may have been used by the shooter or shooters — although members of the gang-unit were on the scene. The whole thing remains a mystery.
Eventually, the 911 operator gave my wife the go-ahead to release the students and parents at the school. Some kids were on foot and lived awfully close to the market. My wife walked them home, then circled the perimeter of the school to make sure there were no obvious dangers lurking. There weren't.
Hours later, I joined my wife as we drove back to the area; in the hubbub, she had left her computer in her office, and she had more work to do. Around 7 p.m., the market was still surrounded by crime tape and a few police vehicles remained. Officers were looking for evidence of the sort captured in the image at the top of this post, which shows a gun left behind.
Just another day in the neighborhood? In some ways, yes. By 7 p.m., residents were out and about, trying to go on with life as normal.
But if this was normal, plenty of things need to change.