Victim’s loved ones seek justice after southeast Colorado Springs shooting
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - Family and friends are looking for answers after a man was shot and killed outside an apartment complex in southeast Colorado Springs.
Jerome Nelson, 38, was taken to the hospital and later died from his injuries.
Another person was also shot and suffered non-life threatening injuries.
KRDO spoke with the mother of one of Jerome's six children, MaryAnn Leighton, today about her call for justice. She wants someone to come forward with information, so the person responsible for the shooting is caught.
"Having to tell your child your father is no longer with us - it's something that I'll always remember, it's something that she's always going to remember, and I wouldn't want anyone else to have to experience that," Leighton told KRDO in an interview Tuesday.
She said Nelson had a great sense of humor and always had a good vibe.
"He was a loving dad, very funny, he always walked into the room and you know he would make everyone laugh," Leighton told us.
Leighton said she and Nelson's other loved ones hope tension between police and people of color, due to ramped-up Black Lives Matter protests, doesn't prevent people from coming forward with what they know.
"There's a lot of distress in the community toward cops and I don't know if that one way or another affected this specifically," she said. "But it is a domino effect, to where people don't want to speak to police, they don't want to give information -- either for fear of retaliation against them, or they just don't feel that the police will be able to keep them safe."
Leighton and the others urge anyone with information they think could help the investigation -- and possibly help find the suspect -- to call police.
