Bracing for increased gun violence as Halloween party season amps up, downtown Denver businesses will meet with Denver District Attorney Beth McCann next month to discuss what they perceive as a lack of consequences which has made criminals unafraid.  

“Young people seem to be using guns to express themselves,” Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association President Jerry Orten said Monday.

This past weekend’s shootings claimed three victims, and injured six more. It’s been a month since a teenager randomly shot five people at 20th and Market streets. The suspect was apparently upset because she was denied entrance to a bar over a fake I.D., police and bar owners said.

All five victims survived the incident, but police have not apprehended the 17-year-old female suspect.  

This past weekend, the shootings returned with renewed intensity. 

Gun violence in two separate incidents in Denver Saturday and Sunday after midnight left three people dead and six others wounded. The first went down at 1:37 a.m. Saturday. Witnesses commenting on the social media platform Reddit reported that 5-6 shots rang out during a Halloween party at an industrial complex at 12445 E. 39th Ave. and that “people were screaming and running for their lives.” 

Three people died and three others were injured, but survived. Denver police said that several dozen people were attending a party at a northeast Denver warehouse and that the shooter may be among the injured or dead. One of the victims killed in the gunfire was Eric Lee, who left behind a wife and three sons, all under seven years old.  

In a Facebook post, the boys’ mother, Seina Fifita, said that Lee had nothing to do with the gunfire. She said that she has shrapnel in her leg and that the children have been waiting for their “superhero” to walk through the door.

“I tried to close my eyes last night and I heard the shots just ringing,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “WE NEED YOU THIS IS NOT FAIR.”  

The second shooting happened when a fight erupted into gunfire just before 2 a.m. Sunday in the Denver Pavilions at 16th and Glenarm outside of Lime, according to Denver police. Three people were injured but there were no arrests. 

A demand for prosecution “to the highest extent of the law”

Depending on where they live, downtown Denver residents say that they often hear gunfire. In their letter to DA McCann, 28 people representing both themselves and 25 downtown organizations and businesses advocated “for the prosecution of criminal offenders to the highest extent of the law,” and stressed that they felt unsafe and lived in fear in their own neighborhoods. 

The organizations who signed the Oct. 10 letter included representatives from Monfort Companies, Attimo/Snooze, McGregor Square and Viewhouse. 

In response, McCann invited “any member of the LoDo community” to attend a registered neighborhood organization meeting Nov. 15 to discuss their concerns.  She disagreed that the rising crime rate was the fault of her office.

“I do not believe, as your letter implies, that my office has in any way contributed to the increase in crime,” adding that her office had actually helped keep the situation from being any worse than it is.  

The group wrote a separate letter to Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas asking for more officers not just at the times that bars let out, but also “during regular operational hours.”

In an email to The Denver Gazette, a Denver police spokesman said that currently there are not many changes happening, but officers are still in the lower downtown area when the bars close and “there are off duty officers who work the various special events that occur during this time.”

In an earlier interview, Denver Police Division Chief of Patrol Aaron Sanchez admitted that an understaffed force makes adding officers to one district (the 6th) a challenge. Still, Orten said that Denver police have stepped up their game.

“This is not a problem that is being ignored,” Orten said.  

Anyone with information leading to an arrest in both of this weekend’s shootings is asked to call Crime Stoppers Colorado at 720 913-7867.

Seina Fifita’s Sister, Fifita Fane, said on Facebook that when no ambulance responded to her 911 call, she drove her bleeding husband to University Hospital where she honked the horn and did not receive emergency help. If not for the delay, Fane said that emergency personnel “could have possibly saved him.” 

A GoFundMe has been created to pay for Eric Lee’s funeral, and to help with educational and daycare expenses for his three children.