The man convicted of killing a Denver police officer and shooting another nearly 20 years ago was denied admission to an early parole program.

“It’s a good day,” former Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey told The Denver Gazette Tuesday after hearing that Raul Gomez-Garcia was denied admission to the Colorado’s Department of Corrections Program for Juvenile Offenders.

The Colorado Department of Corrections didn’t respond when asked to confirm the development.

Gomez-Garcia — then a 21-year-old immigrant from Mexico unlawfully staying in the U.S. — shot and killed Donald “Donnie” Young on Mother’s Day weekend in 2005. Young was a 12-year veteran of the Denver Police Department. Before the shooting, Gomez-Garcia had been thrown out of a baptismal party because he was uninvited.

Young’s partner, John “Jack” Bishop, was also targeted but was wearing a bulletproof vest. Young, who was not wearing a vest, was shot three times, including in the head.

A member of the MS-13 gang that originated in Los Angeles, Gomez-Garcia fled to California before heading back to Mexico, where he was later turned in to the police by his grandmother.

The suspect was not extradited to America for nearly two years due to a treaty signed between the U.S. and Mexico in 1978 that gave Mexico the right to refuse extradition if a person faced the death penalty. Due to Gomez-Garcia likely receiving a first-degree murder charge, and therefore the possibility of the death penalty, Mexico refused to extradite him.

In an agreement to get Gomez-Garcia back to the states for prosecution, Morrissey, who was then the district attorney, lowered the charges to second-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder, a compromise that, he said, still bothers him to this day.

“This was a really frustrating case for me to begin with because this guy got the benefit of almost everything that he did,” Morrissey said, reflecting on his first large case after he took the mantle of district attorney in 2005.

Gomez-Garcia was convicted on Oct. 26, 2006. He was found guilty of both charges and sentenced to the maximum penalty — 48 years for second-degree murder and 32 years for attempted murder, both running consecutively.

In March 2025, Gomez-Garcia applied for the juvenile offender program.

If approved, Gomez-Garcia could potentially only serve around a quarter of his maximum sentence. He was originally up for parole in 2053.

The program, part of Senate Bill 16-180 in 2016, allows convicts to apply for the program after serving 20 years. After a convict completes the three-year program, he or she is eligible to apply for early parole. The governor must approve the early parole.

In 2021, lawmakers expanded the age range of people able to apply for the program, allowing prisoners to apply if they committed crimes before they were 21.

Gomez-Garcia was younger than 21 at the time of the shooting.

A letter was sent on March 10 to victim families, alerting them of Gomez-Garcia’s application and allowing them to petition.

The Colorado Department of Corrections received more than 300 letters against the early parole, according to Morrissey.

He was denied nearly a month later, Morrisey said.

“It’s overwhelming to have over 300 people take the time to contact the Department of Corrections,” the former district attorney said. “Gomez-Garcia should not qualify. He should not get the benefit of this program. He already got the benefit of the leniency that I had to show him.”

Morrissey added that Gomez-Garcia can apply again in three years. The family will have to go through this again in 2028, he added.

“I don’t think people realize it takes you back to Day One,” Kelly Young, Donald Young’s wife, told The Denver Gazette in March. “My girls and I, we are all anxious, fearful and upset. It brings us back to the day it happened and it’s so so unfair.”

Morrissey believes someone should “step up and change the law,” barring convicts who attacked first responders from being able to apply for the program.

“It’s a comment on how many people remember Donny Young. How many people remember that he got ambushed,” he said. “It really mattered to a lot of people. People that knew him, people that didn’t know him. People are still reaching out, they still remember him.”