City’s Latest Homicide May Be Gang Related
By Laurie Ciprianol.cipriano@krdo.com
COLORADO SPRINGS – Police are investigating the city’s latest homicide. It happened Monday night in the 4500 block of Dewey Drive.
When police arrived, they found two men with gunshot wounds. Both men were taken to Memorial Hospital. One was pronounced dead at the hospital. The other is still there being treated. No names have been released.
“This is happening way too many times,” said a neighbor who did not want to appear on camera. “We have a lot of kids that run around here.” Her biggest concern was for a daycare right across the street from where the violence occurred. “One of these times, one of these kids are going to get shot.”
She said she heard the gunshots. “There were seven shots fired.” She told NEWSCHANNEL 13 what she saw. “There was three cars. One was a green low rider, which lives right up around the corner on Frost. There was a little black compact car, which was black primer. He backed up from Dewey onto Frost, and then took off,” she said. “He took off west with his lights off, so I couldn’t get the license plates. Right behind them was a dark brown Blazer, older Blazer which had his lights off and took off west. The green low rider took off east.”
She said the violence is happening more often. “At least once every week, once every two weeks you’ll hear shots or they’ll get into arguments and stuff like that. It’s just a constant thing.”
She has her suspicions about why the violence is occurring. “Oh yes, definitely. It’s gang related,” she said.
Lt. David Whitlock, with the Colorado Springs Police Department shared his thoughts on the subject. “We don’t think this is some sort of a gang problem or a gang war or anything like that,” stated Whitlock. “Frankly in a community our size our gang problem is miniscule at best.”
The anonymous neighbor told NEWSCHANNEL 13 that this kind of violence has happened before in her neighborhood. “This is not the first incident. A few months back they had a drive-by shooting.”
“You know there’s been some other unpleasantness in that area certainly. It’s something that we’re cognizant of,” said Lt. Whitlock. “We’re doing the best we can with the resources we have, but we can’t be everywhere all the time.”
Lt. Whitlock said investigators are trying to put together exactly what led up to the crime. “We are going to put somebody in jail over this, I can guarantee you that, at some point in time.”
