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Denver Police arrest man, 20, in fatal Maple Avenue house party fight, shooting

Denver Police Department announced an arrest Tuesday in connection with a shooting a few weeks prior, during which one person was killed and another injured.

Yeanbraiker Yriarte-Valera, 20, faces a first-degree murder charge after he allegedly shot and killed a man around 5 a.m. Feb. 14 at a residence in the 1500 block of West Maple Avenue, according to a heavily redacted probable cause affidavit for his arrest.

As police responded to the incident that morning, they found an adult woman who was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to her ankle, according to the affidavit. Authorities also found an adult man on the building’s front porch who was suffering from multiple apparent gunshot wounds. First responders carried him into the street to render aid, but he was ultimately pronounced dead at the scene.

Authorities later determined Yriarte-Valera was the one who shot him, according to the affidavit. Other residents had reported a loud party about 30 minutes before the shooting, saying that they had also seen several fights in the street.

During the initial investigation, police conducted a sweep of the house and found evidence of a party, with large amounts of suspected alcohol containers littered throughout the building as well as large speakers and a light display in the basement, according to the affidavit. In total, police found 25 spent 9mm cartridge casings on the street in front of the house, as well as 10 more on the first floor and staircase.

Investigators also found several suspected bullet defects on the outside of the unit, a fence between it and a neighboring residence and more on a residence to the east, according to the affidavit.

Officers conducted several interviews with Spanish-speaking witnesses with the help of an officer who was able to translate, according to the affidavit. All listed interviewees corroborated that there was a fight in the street in front of the house that involved multiple men and one woman, during which one of the men fired multiple gunshots.

A man who detectives spoke to around 10 a.m. that day said he had gone to the party with a friend between 3:30 and 4 a.m., according to the affidavit. During the fight, he saw a man fire a gun in the direction of the ground “several times,” with one of those shots hitting the involved woman in the ankle.

A few hours later, police interviewed the woman shot in the ankle, who initially denied but later confirmed that her boyfriend was with her at the party, according to the affidavit. She said when she got to the house, she saw her ex-boyfriend, and there were several documented and undocumented domestic violence incidents between the two.

The woman then said that she got into an argument with a man inside the residence and they moved out into the street, where he then shot her in the ankle, according to the affidavit. Her current boyfriend then pulled out a dark brown handgun and fired it 2-3 times in the air.

The significance of the woman’s ex-boyfriend’s involvement in the incident is redacted in the affidavit.

Around 1:42 a.m. the following morning, police interviewed one more woman who seemed fearful of her safety, according to the affidavit. She said she went to the party between 2:30 and 3 a.m. with three other people: two friends and a third party she does not know very well.

At the party, the woman said she went outside and saw several people in a “gun fight” in the street in front of the residence, according to the affidavit. At that point, she ran back inside the residence.

In that moment, a man she only knew as “Jehbra” or “Yebra” who was inside the home pulled out a small maroon handgun and fired 10-11 times at a man who was on the front porch of the residence, according to the affidavit. She further recounted that her friends pulled her away from the shooter, who said there was nothing she could do for the victim, and she left the scene before police arrived.

The woman said she had only known the suspect as he was a boyfriend of someone else, and identified a photo provided by the police of him as the shooter, according to the affidavit. She was unsure of his whereabouts but believed he is from Kansas; she gave detectives two Facebook accounts for him and gave his phone number believed to be a WhatsApp number.

That day, detectives reached out to a partner agency to help identify “Yebra,” and were provided the name of 20-year-old Yriante-Valera, along with several photos that matched his description and a last known address in Kansas City, Kansas.

Two days later, the Denver medical examiner determined that the victim had sustained about eight gunshot wounds, and there was stippling on his face, consistent with being shot at a close range.


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