Weekend Violence in Denver: Stabbings, Death, Shooting Near Larimer Square

It's not officially summer, but the city's crime scene got hot this past weekend, with multiple stabbings and shootings, including an incident during which a Denver Police Department officer opened fire near Larimer Square, just as clubs were letting out in the entertainment district.

The trouble started early, with an alert from the DPD's Twitter account at 1:10 a.m. June 3. The initial bulletin said that a victim had been transported to an area hospital following a shooting near the intersection of West 35th Avenue and Eliot Street, in the Highland neighborhood. An update later that day confirmed that the adult male had died from his injuries, and the case was being investigated as a homicide.

Next came an alert at 9:28 p.m. about a shooting on the 4700 block of Washington Street, in the Globeville neighborhood; one person was reported hospitalized.

More violence flared after midnight. At 12:32 a.m. on June 4, a stabbing occurred on the 1900 block of Blake Street in the Union Station area — one of the bloodiest stretches of downtown during a spate of shootings and attacks in July 2021. In this latest incident, two people were taken to a hospital with unspecified injuries.

The weekend's highest-profile gunplay took place less than an hour later, at around 1:15 a.m. on nearby Larimer Street, right by Larimer Square.  According to a DPD release, a black sedan turned from Larimer onto 15th Street at about that time, and one of its occupants pointed a gun out a window and squeezed off multiple rounds en route to Market Street. "Numerous people were present in the area and on the sidewalk as the shots were fired," the department stresses.

A uniformed Denver Police officer working an off-duty gig at a thus-far-unidentified nightclub saw what was happening, and after recognizing "the extreme risk of injury or death that existed," he opened fire on the person in the vehicle who'd been shooting, the DPD reports.

Uniformed cops in a marked DPD vehicle parked near 15th and Larimer responded as well, giving chase to the car but failing to catch up to it.

While a search is underway for the suspect automobile and those who were inside, the decision of the off-duty officer to shoot is now the subject of "a multi-agency investigative team that includes investigators from the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, the Colorado State Patrol and the Denver Police Department's homicide unit," according to the DPD. The probe will be actively observed by the Office of the Independent Monitor.

That wasn't the end of the police activity on June 4, though. At 2 a.m., a shooting occurred on the 2100 block of Grant Street in the Five Points neighborhood; two people were reported hurt. And at 11:31 p.m., a stabbing occurred on the 1600 block of South Federal Boulevard, in the Ruby Hill neighborhood. One person was hospitalized after the assault.

The last gun-related tweet of the weekend came through at 4:40 p.m. on June 5. The report revealed that officers were called to the 5100 block of Milwaukee Street in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood, where an adult male allegedly menaced an individual with a rifle before refusing to leave his home. The man was "talked into surrendering and was taken into custody," according to the DPD.

Anyone with information about these incidents can contact Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867).