At least four of the victims in Monday night’s shooting rampage in Denver and Lakewood were part of the local tattoo community, according to friends and family members, and it appears the gunman may have targeted tattoo shops.

Six people were killed, including the shooter, and two others were injured in a series of shootings that began in Denver and ended with the suspect dying in a shootout with police in Lakewood, according to the Denver Police Department.

Among the victims was Alicia Cardenas, 44, a local artist and the owner of the Sol Tribe tattoo shop at 56 Broadway. Amy Gordon, who has known Cardenas for 30 years, confirmed her death Tuesday.

“I am stunned. Alicia was an amazing individual. Her loss is a piece of Denver that’s being erased,” Gordon said. “(That area of) Broadway will never be the same. … I just pray people will stop being as short sighted in their anger and disgust on society.”

Gordon said she was near the tattoo shop when the shooting occurred. In Denver’s close-knit art community, it didn’t take long for everyone to hear what had happened, Gordon said.

Cardenas’ fiancé, Daniel Clelland, said he was texting her before the fatal shooting, but she stopped replying after 5:07 p.m.

“She was working, so I thought she was doing a tattoo, so I waited. And she never wrote me back. I wrote her, ‘I hope everything is OK, I love you’ and she never wrote me back,” Clelland said through sobs. “I don’t know why somebody would do this.”

Alyssa Gunn-Maldonado, a yoga teacher, was also fatally shot at the tattoo parlor on Broadway, according to relatives.

Her husband, Jimmy Maldonado, was shot and wounded in the attack and is hospitalized in an intensive care unit. Jimmy Maldonado had worked at the tattoo shop.

Ernesto Burbank, who said he was a family friend of Jimmy Maldonado’s, posted about the couple on Facebook.

“It’s hard to even believe it’s real, I reread the message hoping it was a mistake or the wrong number but it’s all real and so painful to accept,” Burbank wrote. “I just don’t understand how so much hate can live in people and how the innocent always pay the price. Please tell your friends and family you love them. … Rest in Power our beautiful Indigenous Sisters.”

Friends and relatives of the couple have set up a GoFundMe account to pay for funeral and hospital bills.

The Lakewood Police Department identified the other victims as 38-year-old Danny Scofield and 28-year-old Sarah Steck.

A fifth victim, who police say lived in a high rise apartment building at 12th and Williams, has not been identified. A glass door in the front of the building was damaged by bullet holes.

Scofield was also part of the local tattoo community, working as a tattoo artist at Lucky 13 Tattoo and Piercing in Lakewood, according to the business’s website.

Surveillance footage from In and Out Liquor, which is near Lucky 13, appears to show the gunman enter the tattoo shop holding a gun Monday night. The shooter was inside the shop for only 10 seconds before walking out and driving away.

“Dano Blair was taken from us all way (too) early and taken away from the people who have not had the chance to get to meet him yet,” wrote Brandon Schechter on Facebook. “Danny was such an amazing person (who) would put anybody before himself. I have had the pleasure of calling this man my friend and artist.”

On Tuesday, Andraya Jorgensen laid on the ground in front of Lucky 13 and sprinkled rose petals on top of several bouquets that were placed in front of the tattoo parlor.

Jorgensen said she became friends with Scofield about a year ago. They both loved kava, a South Pacific drink made from the piper methysticum plant. She said Scofield was a “big teddy bear” who was authentic, kind and always willing to help anyone.

“Dano was a pillar in the kava community and was a really, really good friend,” Jorgensen said. “He was taken away suddenly, and it’s just so shocking and really hard to comprehend.”

Steck worked at the front desk of the Hyatt House hotel in the Belmar shopping center.

The third shooting in Denver was outside of tattoo shops at West Sixth Avenue and Cherokee Street. Police said the shooter fired gunshots at that location, but no one was injured.

An employee at World Tattoo Studio told The Denver Gazette that police surrounded the neighboring VI Collective tattoo shop Monday night after the shooting.

The employee said he didn’t see or hear the gunshots but said his shop was open when the shooting occurred between 5 and 5:30 p.m.

“This is pretty wild,” the employee said. “I don’t know why he’d target a place like that. It was locked and our door was open. It’s scary.”

Wes Donahoe, who lives nearby, said he came home Monday night to find his street blocked off by police.

“It was definitely scary,” Donahoe said. “I grew up in Albuquerque. This happened a lot down there. This never gets easier. It’s always just as scary and just as sad.”

Photographer Tim Hurst and reporter David Mullen contributed to this report.