CO - Possible Serial Shooter Has Colorado Drivers on Edge #3

[Forager]

Here, to put our serial shooters into perspective, is a map a map by Dave Cansler, with a "source" credit to the Stanford Geospatial Center (http://library.stanford.edu/research/stanford-geospatial-center) that was published by the Oregonian on 10/1/15.

The've got a spreadsheet of 143 "mass shootings" that involving three plus fatalities that goes back to 1966. It has 38 odd entries in the past three years, including 13 in 2013, 7 in 2014, and 18 so far this year (thru 9/30/15). It excludes a large number of "gang related" mass shootings.

U.S. mass shootings since 1966

 

[Foxfire]

http://www.wwmt.com/news/features/t...-M-66-in-Calhoun-Co-213306.shtml#.Vg5Yy_lVhBc

Neighbors on edge along M-66 in Calhoun Co., Michigan
Updated: Fri, Oct 02 2015

Someone is shooting at cars along the busy stretch of road, and police need your help tracking down the shooter.

Three people have reported damage to their vehicles, and on Thursday, Calhoun County Sheriff Matt Saxton confirms one of those cars was hit by a firearm. Neighbors here are concerned but they're also alert.

<modsnip>

<snipped>

 

[margarita25]

IMO, Aurora is generally known to be a high crime area with active gangs and gang related crimes occurring quite frequently, so I am not so sure about activity in this area having a connection to our shootings up north, but it is not impossible imo, as the perp(s) can obviously travel / hit different areas. Again, I do know from experience that these gangs have traveled up north to commit their crimes (burglary) in the suburbs. JMO

 

[margarita25]

FTR, from the Loveland Police blotter from this past Monday:

"10 a.m. Weapons in the 2000 block of Mississippi Street. According to Sgt. Justin Chase, a resident found a bullet on the floor of the home's garage, which had left a hole in the large automatic door. The people living there didn't hear anything and they don't know when it happened."

http://www.reporterherald.com/news/...daily-record-loveland-police-calls-sept-23-28

*wierd.

 

[Forager]

http://www.wwmt.com/news/features/t...-M-66-in-Calhoun-Co-213306.shtml#.Vg5Yy_lVhBc

Neighbors on edge along M-66 in Calhoun Co., Michigan
Updated: Fri, Oct 02 2015

Someone is shooting at cars along the busy stretch of road... . < snipped, respectfully, for focus >

Notice how often we see phrase "on edge" that Margarita introduced in the thread name back in April? I've seen it at least three other times.

 

[Forager]

IMO, Aurora is generally known to be a high crime area with active gangs and gang related crimes occurring quite frequently, so I am not so sure about activity in this area having a connection to our shootings up north, but it is not impossible imo, as the perp(s) can obviously travel / hit different areas. Again, I do know from experience that these gangs have traveled up north to commit their crimes (burglary) in the suburbs. JMO

I think you are probably right about some of the seemingly random shootings and even window shatterings around Aurora really amounting to targeted urban underculture crime that's off topic for our serial shooter(s) case. But beware the impulse to dismiss incidents in poor or minority neighborhoods too quickly. It's a too easy a way of shrug off what's hard to understand, and I'm noticing a lot of it in the press. "Just gang related" is sometimes city talk for "just road debris". I keep remembering that line from the movie Chinatown, where a cop at a crime scene tells Nicolson "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." But that one turned out to be rich white guys.

 

[Forager]

We have a couple of live specimins of people who shoot at vehicles. These two guys got caught after taking shots at at least three cars, including an unmarked Deputy's car, a couple of blocks from a police station in downtown Wichita. They blew out his window.


Michael Valentine Photo courtesy Sedgwick County Sheriff&#8217;s Office)

_________________________________


Trenton Lampke (Photo courtesy Sedgwick County Sheriff&#8217;s Office)

By KSN TV
Updated: October 2, 2015, 6:39 pm
Two Wichita teens arrested after shooting out deputy&#8217;s car window

"Valentine was arrested for aggravated assault and criminal destruction of property, and Lampke was arrested for marijuana and drug paraphernalia possession and criminal possession of a firearm."

Valentine was shooting a .177 caliber pellet gun pistol, like the one in the screen shot, from a second floor balcony in the Waters Edge Apartment complex at Central Ave. near Waco Road a distance of about 70 feet. No word on motive yet, but I'm not figuring them for criminal geniuses. Judging from other cases, it's pretty hard to get caught plinking cars. These guys managed to on their first day out. I think that they were firing from their own appartment.

 

[Forager]

While combing thru old reports of highway shootings and window shatterings, I came across a story in The Patch, a local newspaper in California, about a highway enhancement project. Irate moterists were complains about the road debris it generated. There were 15 complaints about broken windshields. There were 0 complaints about broken side or rear windows.

Is the Construction on the I-580 Corridor Damaging Cars?
Readers voice their opinions about cracked windshields and chips in the paint on their cars from driving past the project debris.
By AUTUMN JOHNSON (Patch Staff)
September 3, 2013

 

[margarita25]

We have a couple of live specimins of people who shoot at vehicles. These two guys got caught after taking shots at at least three cars, including an unmarked Deputy's car, a couple of blocks from a police station in downtown Wichita. They blew out his window.

Michael Valentine Photo courtesy Sedgwick County Sheriff&#8217;s Office)

_________________________________

Trenton Lampke (Photo courtesy Sedgwick County Sheriff&#8217;s Office)

By KSN TV
Updated: October 2, 2015, 6:39 pm
Two Wichita teens arrested after shooting out deputy&#8217;s car window

"Valentine was arrested for aggravated assault and criminal destruction of property, and Lampke was arrested for marijuana and drug paraphernalia possession and criminal possession of a firearm."

Valentine was shooting a .177 caliber pellet gun pistol, like the one in the screen shot, from a second floor balcony in the Waters Edge Apartment complex at Central Ave. near Waco Road a distance of about 70 feet. No word on motive yet, but I'm not figuring them for criminal geniuses. Judging from other cases, it's pretty hard to get caught plinking cars. These guys managed to on their first day out. I think that they were firing from their own appartment.

Marking my spot

 

[Foxfire]

AUDIO: DPS investigating road rage incident involving shots fired along Loop 101
Vivian Padilla
3:02 PM, Oct 3, 2015
http://www.abc15.com/news/region-ph...incident-involving-shots-fired-along-loop-101

PHOENIX, AZ - According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, shots were fired from one vehicle to another car along Loop 101 and Bell Road Saturday.

DPS believes the incident was an isolated road rage shooting that happened along the freeway at 11:05 in the morning.

RELATED: Arizona Freeway Shootings

According to DPS, a dark gray vehicle was traveling north on the 101 just south of Bell Road when a tan pickup truck pulled to the left of the car.

Officials said the truck fired multiple shots out from the passenger window directed towards the gray car.

Multiple rounds struck the driver's side and the left side of the vehicle. The driver's side window was shattered, as well as the rear passenger window which was shot out.
<snipped>

 

[Forager]

AUDIO: DPS investigating road rage incident involving shots fired along Loop 101
Vivian Padilla, 3:02 PM, Oct 3, 2015
http://www.abc15.com/news/region-ph...incident-involving-shots-fired-along-loop-101

PHOENIX, AZ - According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, shots were fired from one vehicle to another car along Loop 101 and Bell Road Saturday.

DPS believes the incident was an isolated road rage shooting that happened along the freeway at 11:05 in the morning.

<snipped for focus >

You have to feel for AZ DPS. They are going to have to spend a lot more of their time worrying about broken windows and highway shootings than they used to. In the wake of the concentrated series of blatant, well publicized attacks along I-10, Arizonans understand that any window shattering or attack might be important, so they are much more apt to report them. More natural "spontaneous" window shatterings will be reported and more real attacks will be reported, and they will all end up in DPS' lap as potentially related to the August-September I-10 series.

There could be a lot of them. I don't think anyone knows how many of each normally occur. In most places they are clearly way underreported to the police. A portion of the real attacks that are reported to the police are unknowingly and understandably dismissed by police as shatterings by natural causes for lack of evidence. Here's a pretty egregious example of that from the M.P.Whittaker case. I think we may already have seen some of that with a few side window shatterings on I-10. Of the rest, only some make it into a press report. You often see that in cases that have been solved. So if everyone around Phoenix starts taking every potential road shooting incident seriously, the the DPS could be pretty busy.

I suspect that there will be a temptation at DPS' level to accept explanations like "gang related" and "road rage", both of which do happen a lot and have the advantage of not suggesting an ongoing threat to the general population. That's the kind of thing that attracts press attention and pressure. No one will much care whether yesterday's shooting was solved if it was road rage, but DPS will be on the hook for it if it seems to one of the serial shootings. The trick will be to recognize which is which, but also to remember that both kinds matter.

 

[searchinGirl]

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/bottle-bombs-found-in-garden-of-the-gods-parking-lot

Another unsettling incident in Colorado...bottle bombs left to hurt someone at random in the Garden of the Gods...

 

[margarita25]

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/bottle-bombs-found-in-garden-of-the-gods-parking-lot

Another unsettling incident in Colorado...bottle bombs left to hurt someone at random in the Garden of the Gods...

Was just coming here to post about this. Another link carrying the story:

Bottle bombs found in Garden of the Gods parking lot
http://www.9news.com/story/news/loc...d-in-garden-of-the-gods-parking-lot/73340702/

"COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) - Colorado Springs police are investigating after finding chemical bottle bombs in the Garden of the Gods parking lot on Saturday."


*What day of the week was the other incident where the motorcyclists were shot at?

Eta:

It appears it was late on a Sunday night:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28732446/woman-shot-riding-motorcycle-through-garden-gods

"Colorado Springs police are investigating after a woman was shot in Garden of the Gods Park late Sunday in an apparently random attack.

Investigators say the woman was shot about 11 p.m. as she rode with her husband through the park on a motorcycle."

 

[margarita25]

Upon further research, it seems there have been other incidents involving bottle bombs:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...stic-bottle-bombs-found-in-s-jefferson-county

From an article dated Jan 3, 2014:

"JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. - Jefferson County sheriff's officials are warning people after someone exploded homemade bottle bombs in Easton Park near Littleton on Friday."

Snip

"On Thursday, a plastic bottle bomb was found lying on the ground outside the Edge Ice Arena at 6623 S. Ward St. near Littleton. The bottle was swollen with gas, but didn't exploded, Miller said.

On Friday, Jefferson County Park and Recreation employees discovered an exploded bottle bomb at Easton Park, located at 12819 W. Coal Mine Ave., which is near Edge Ice Arena. Searching the area, deputies found three more exploded bottle bombs. One of the exploded bottles was made of glass, leaving sharp shards on a parking lot."

 

[margarita25]

This article re: a NOCO cold case mentions the head of the NOCO shootings task force, Capt. Robert Coleman:

"It might as well have been yesterday to Larimer County's lead homicide investigator and primary cold case detective. It's certainly a case the head of the special task force investigating Northern Colorado's unsolved spring killings and spate of shattered vehicle windows thinks of regularly as he clings to his hope of justice. "

http://www.9news.com/story/news/crime/2015/10/04/cold-cases/73352302/

 

[Hatfield]

Was just coming here to post about this. Another link carrying the story:

Bottle bombs found in Garden of the Gods parking lot
http://www.9news.com/story/news/loc...d-in-garden-of-the-gods-parking-lot/73340702/

"COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) - Colorado Springs police are investigating after finding chemical bottle bombs in the Garden of the Gods parking lot on Saturday."


*What day of the week was the other incident where the motorcyclists were shot at?

Eta:

It appears it was late on a Sunday night:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28732446/woman-shot-riding-motorcycle-through-garden-gods

"Colorado Springs police are investigating after a woman was shot in Garden of the Gods Park late Sunday in an apparently random attack.

Investigators say the woman was shot about 11 p.m. as she rode with her husband through the park on a motorcycle."

Interesting. I wonder if its related to the other shooting of the girl on the motorcycle and if so then it could be a hint towards a possible younger age of the perp.

"Bottle Bomb" I am thinking is something simple like candy Mentos and Diet Coke. There are other variations using Vinegar and other simple items. These types of bottle bombs makes me immediately think of younger perps.

Still very dangerous and intended to hurt someone although the mentality of someone doing something like that tells me they are immature. So either young or a disturbed minded adult who acts like a child.

I think it could be related to the same perp who followed and shot the girl in the back on the motorcycle. She did not know she was actually shot until they got back home so that tells me it was maybe a pellet gun or BB gun or a smaller type weapon because if it had been a large caliber then she would have been killed. So again this is telling me the perp was younger or at a minimum was immature.

The bottom line is I do think these 2 incidents at the Garden of the Gods could be related to same perp. This perp may not be related to the other highway window shatterings but I do think this perp could be same one with the motorcycle shooting.

So if these 2 can be proven to be related then....

-a younger perp OR at minimum a mentally immature adult OR maybe mentally ill
-lives close to Garden of the Gods
-could be related to the NOCO highway window shatterings

 

[Forager]

As we've seen again and again in the NoCO case, the occupant of a car whose window shatters usually jumps to the conclusion, at least initially, that they have been attacked with a firearm. Many people seem to mistake the bang that the glass itself produces as it shatters for the report of a firearm. I do hope that these officers were better than most people at recognizing a real attack and figuring out who was responsible. Based on what we've heard so far, however, I have no reason to beleive they got it wrong.

L.A. police shoot a man to death after patrol car window shatters
Matt Hamilton, LA Times, 10/4/15

The two officers were in their patrol car at a stoplight... at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday when they "suddenly hear and saw their rear window shatter," said LAPD Officer Mike Lopez.

Both officers got out of their car and fired an unknown number of shots at a man, described as in his 30s, who was later pronounced dead at the scene. ... It's unclear if he was carrying a weapon.

LAPD investigators are working to determine what caused the window in the patrol car to shatter, Lopez said.

 

[searchinGirl]

Thank you, indeed, Hatfield, for the kind words. Yes, the last incident report that we have was from almost three weeks ago:

A driver's window was shot out on I-225 early near S. Yosemite St., south of Denver on Thurs. (9/10/15) morning. "... police confirmed they found evidence that several rounds were fired at the vehicle." Blair Schiff, KUSA

I can't tell whether that means the shootings have stopped, or aren't being reported, or are being reported and we aren't recognizing them. That 9/10/15 incident was south of Denver, where there had been a long series of suspicious and window shatterings in 2013 and at least eight in June thru August of 2015. They haven't gotten much coverage, and we don't have much detail on them.

There were two cases of parking lot shootings, one fatal, within a mile and a half of one another in Aurora in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Were either or both a William Connole style attack on a random pedestrian? I'm not sure we'll ever know. A few quick reports came out, with the usual confusion and errors of initial reports. No suspects or motives known. The police are quoted by one story as saying that the incidents are related, and another that they are not. And that was it for follow-up, at least for now. I've mapped them, as in the screen shot below, but have put them in the "Disused Markers" layer until we get more on them.

View attachment 82348

View attachment 82349

Aurora police: Sunday overnight shootings are connected
Man found wounded in parking lot later died, and a second victim called 911 from another location

By Tom McGhee
The Denver Post

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...n-deadly-double-shooting-at-aurora-apartments

they captured this guy for the shootings police said were connected in Aurora on 9/27/15...

 

[Forager]

Upon further research, it seems there have been other incidents involving bottle bombs:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...stic-bottle-bombs-found-in-s-jefferson-county

From an article dated Jan 3, 2014:

"JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. - Jefferson County sheriff's officials are warning people after someone exploded homemade bottle bombs in Easton Park near Littleton on Friday."

Snip

I'm still able to pick my nose only because I hadn't heard about this as a kid. This video of a dried-ice-in-a-glass bottle bomb shows a teenager losing an index finger.

Published on Youtube on May 13, 2012 by "Crackpot Inventor"
Kid blows his finger off playing around with a homemade bomb
https://youtu.be/HLy8mVbHy4I

 

[margarita25]

Interesting. I wonder if its related to the other shooting of the girl on the motorcycle and if so then it could be a hint towards a possible younger age of the perp.

"Bottle Bomb" I am thinking is something simple like candy Mentos and Diet Coke. There are other variations using Vinegar and other simple items. These types of bottle bombs makes me immediately think of younger perps.

Still very dangerous and intended to hurt someone although the mentality of someone doing something like that tells me they are immature. So either young or a disturbed minded adult who acts like a child.

I think it could be related to the same perp who followed and shot the girl in the back on the motorcycle. She did not know she was actually shot until they got back home so that tells me it was maybe a pellet gun or BB gun or a smaller type weapon because if it had been a large caliber then she would have been killed. So again this is telling me the perp was younger or at a minimum was immature.

The bottom line is I do think these 2 incidents at the Garden of the Gods could be related to same perp. This perp may not be related to the other highway window shatterings but I do think this perp could be same one with the motorcycle shooting.

So if these 2 can be proven to be related then....

-a younger perp OR at minimum a mentally immature adult OR maybe mentally ill
-lives close to Garden of the Gods
-could be related to the NOCO highway window shatterings

Agreed.