Denver Police give update on downtown shooting that

Reported the hospital for treatment while searching the individual the officers recovered a firearm and suspected fentanyl pills on him as well other officers contacted the occupants of a vehicle that was in the parking lot directly across the street from the ViewHouse in the 2000 block of Market Street the occupants were believed to be involved in the shooting when they were contacted the officers located a firearm in the floorboard of the driver's seat the driver of the vehicle was detained none of the none of the occupants of the vehicle had gunshot wounds in total 10 individuals sustained gunshot wounds in this incident all were adults nine were men one we had one woman injured as well all were reported to have sustained non-life-threatening injuries and I'll let the doctors speak more to their injuries um we recognize it's likely that the individuals who are responsible for shooting uh discharging the Firearms downtown were also injured by gunfire and we're continuing to investigate that and while we know some of the offenders were excuse me injured by gunfire we also know that several innocent people uh who were in the area were hit by rounds that were fired investigators worked throughout the night processing the crime scene it appears that multiple Firearms were discharged and that at least 20 rounds were fired in that area in addition to the firearm located at the individual on Park Avenue and the vehicle the one that was found in the vehicle three additional Firearms were recovered by investigators additional forensic work will be needed to determine if those Firearms were discharged at our scene crime scene technicians also located a significant quantity of quantity of fentanyl pills in the area that were bundled in in several baggies at this point we have two individuals in custody and they're in custody on weapons related charges as we continue to determine what their involvement was and what if any injuries they cause by the rounds that were fired the first individual is 22 year old Ricardo Vasquez he's being held for investigation of possession of a weapon by a previous offender as well as possession of a controlled substance that was the individual arrested at Park Avenue and Blake Street we also arrested 33-year-old Raul Jones he's being held for investigation of a possession of a weapon by a previous offender and that's related to the individual who was in the vehicle and we'll provide all these names and spellings after the briefing the investigation is ongoing we have been in regular communication with the Denver District Attorney's office and as we better understand the involvement of the individuals the two that I previously mentioned as well as anybody else that we identify additional charges will be pursued if appropriate members of the Denver Police Department's victims assistance unit will continue providing support and assistance to the injured victims as they recover investigators interviewed multiple Witnesses last night I appreciate the cooperation and the willingness to provide information by those people who have done so this will allow us to quickly identify and hold the offenders accountable I would encourage anyone with information about the incident to contact the Denver Police Department or metro Denver Crime Stoppers Crime Stoppers offers an anonymous mechanism to report information to law enforcement and the phone number for Crime Stoppers is 720-913 stop if anybody has video of the incident we are aware there's multiple uh videos that are out there at this point we'd appreciate you providing the raw video footage to the police department so we can analyze it and you can do that by contacting the police department and we'll provide a link and a mechanism to upload that to us um at this point I'd like to turn it over to uh Gary bershowitz from the Denver Health Medical Center good morning I'm Gary briscovich I'm the chief paramedic for the Denver Health paramedic division I want to first start by saying that our ability to respond so quickly to this was truly due to the collaboration of our Public Safety Partners the Denver Police Department the Denver Fire Department in the pre-planning that went into place to make sure that we had resources available during this event from the moment shots were fired we had paramedics on scene rendering care within one minute of the call over the next several minutes and through amazing care and coordination of a couple uh command post centers that we had set up to control these resources we're able to direct six ambulance in six ambulances in which transported 10 patients to Denver Health Medical Center at this point I'd like to turn over to Denver Health Medical Center surgeon Dr Eric champion thank you very much my name is Eric Campion I'm one of the trauma surgeons at Denver Health Medical Center I stand Here incredibly disappointed that such a wonderful celebration was marred by gun violence when we should have been celebrating the Denver Nuggets but I do stand here as well incredibly proud of the response of both all of our pre-hospital folks the Denver Police Department the Denver paramedics and all of the staff of Denver Health Medical Center last night we received 10 patients in a very short period of time to Denver Health Medical Center we're able to rapidly triage these patients identify which were the most seriously injured and get them rapidly to the operating room of which four patients required immediate emergent surgical intervention out of the 10 patients we still have five patients remaining in the hospital all patients to my knowledge are in fair condition I would like to emphasize that while receiving 10 gunshot wound patients at the same time is a challenge for any medical center Denver Health is a level one Trauma Center for both the city of Denver and the greater Rocky Mountain region this is something that we drill and prepare for on a weekly and monthly basis and I couldn't be more proud of the response of all of our paramedics all of the emergency department staff operative room staff surgical surgeons as well as our anesthesiologists and Intensive Care Unit staff and all the nurses so thank you very much I appreciate it turn over to our Public Safety good morning I'm Armando saldate III executive director of Public Safety here in Denver I wanted to start by adding some words from mayor Hancock mayor Hancock was at the game last night I was keeping him briefed as we prepared for the game and the planning around our safety plan for the game through the night and early this morning he was not able to attend this morning's briefing because he is on City business travel but prior to getting on a plane I did provide him an up-to-date briefing similar to what we're going through today also I had the opportunity to brief mayor elect Mike Johnston this morning also around the events of last night all of us share the concern about this the concern about gun violence in our community you know such a great event marred by some senseless acts of violence that we see far too common conflict needless conflict being settled or or where guns are produced and then gunfire and violence Islands but one thing that that I wanted to assure everyone and I wanted to assure our community we put everything in place to prevent serious things happening and for a safe event these are the same types of plannings that we've gone from Major League All-Star games what we've done for abs Victory parades but we all know it's different and we learn from each one our response from each one has been different and we try to learn adapt our tactics to provide safe venues for that we have been preparing as a city and as not only a police department but a department of our Public Health paramedics fire departments Dottie all sorts of City resources a coordinated plan we had hundreds of officers deployed last night for our plan for the effectiveness of our plan I received plenty of positive feedback of officers celebrating with our fans and the thousands that did celebrate peacefully it was really great to see you it was great to see for our city we were in a command post last night Chief and I and his executive staff but we're also represented by much more than just our departments we had our local departments that were there that were helping us assisting us our Sheriff Department who played a critical role for us our fire department um we had it all and unfortunately we also had it on video and we're going to queue up the video to show you all here in a second of of kind of the incident as it happened um but we were watching as it transpired and as the chief and Commander Clark described after midnight where it devolved into some physical fights and then ultimately shootings um I'll tell you it was a very chaotic scene I've been in a lot of command posts through my 30 years in this business and this was one of the more chaotic scenes but it was also very well managed because we had every resource available and we were well coordinated I was just giving compliments to our Denver Health Partners about I had two paramedic staff in front of me they were helping us as victims were pouring in you could only imagine the chaos that ensued around trying to count the number victims we had and get the right emergent Medical Care as you will see in the video you're going to see very heroic response by our Denver police officers unfortunately we know what has happened when you have gunfire in a large crowd in Lodo we've seen some very negative consequences of that as I said we've learned from our training and our tactics and our experience and that response was evident you saw police officers went gunfire and shots rang out several shots you will see our office our officers all run without hesitation towards those shots rendering care immediately life-saving care and then our paramedics and fire officials getting there and doing life-saving care I also got to commend the world-class Care at Denver Health Emergency Room and the doctor is there I've spent far too often in in the hospital lately with our own injured officers that have shot in the line of duty I see the incredible care and concern that the nurses the staff and the trauma care that they provide our citizens and we are in good hands with them and they they truly perform life life altering and life-saving and I'm truly thankful for that in that partnership so right now we're going to bring up Commander Clark he's going to show you some of our halo footage Halo is our overhead cameras and as Commander Clark said investigation will also be looking for other like businesses and venues that have video and obviously the our community community that has video we hope to share those with you we also have queued up for release some of these videos for you after this um so commander clerk thank you okay this video will be available for release as well but uh what we're looking at right now is uh the view from a Halo camera uh what we're looking at is 20th and Market Street we're looking down if you're looking down here in the 2000 block of Market Street and specifically there's officers in the intersection and the specific area that we're looking towards uh where the shots occur is up by that vehicle it's at the top of the screen there this is about a 30 second clip with no audio so it's tough to make out specifically what's happening but again the actions occurring within feet several feet uh just down the street from where the officers are the the multiple shots at least 20 rounds are fired um and then the vehicle that's that's there is where one of the Firearms was recovered um off camera that's not captured by this Halo an officer officers can engage in a foot chase and pursue that individual to the location where they take him into custody down on Park Avenue uh the other thing that we wanted to show was just to give a perspective we don't we're still working to understand the motive that ultimately led to the shooting in this case there appears to be a drug Nexus for this there's several instances of fentanyl being recovered uh specifically at the end we described four uh baggies or multiple baggies of bundled fentanyl suspected fentanyl pills and this was recovered at the scene and we're still looking to determine who this is associated with you know she any uh we're happy to answer attempt to answer any questions at this point um can you clarify how many of the people arrested are wounded and how many people overall are possible Shooters so one of the one of the individuals who is at the hospital is uh in custody right now uh as an as an injured individual I'm sorry what was your second part so we're still working to understand what the involvement of everybody was at this point last year we had celebrations for the Avalanche parade and there were maybe a couple hundred people in that exact same intersection but it was a very different scene than what we had last night did you guys prepare in a different manner did you prepare in the exact same way and if so what was different difference well I think we prepared in uh very much a similar fashion understanding that we would have a very similar sized crowd and we did and we saw many of the things that we saw consistent with the the AVS uh win celebration uh what we couldn't have planned for is a drug deal right in the middle of a celebration for uh for an NBA championship and so thankfully we were close enough to be able to respond quickly take suspects into custody and tend to those that were that were wounded but I think that our planning was appropriate we did account for things that we saw and experience last year as well as uh things that we may not have uh been able to see it before a drug like a drug deal if you please expand on that more well again um much more investigation to be done but it certainly does appear to have been a drug Nexus there were quantities of of cash there was a large amount of drugs as you can see there does appear to be a collection of individuals who are engaged in some fashion at some point in time you you begin to see an altercation and I think at the tail end of that altercation is where shots were exchanged and so in that particular area that Mr Clark pointed to that's where it all started that's where the fight was correct correct no no our our strong belief is that this was completely unassociated to the Celebration why were there such a concentration event like that right there well again we had a significant presence throughout the downtown area being responsive to all the challenges that we had in the downtown area that particular location at 20th and Market there had been a very large crowd very boisterous crowd peacefully protesting but we wanted to be there and be a visible presence and also be responsive to anything that may happen and so that's why you see the large collection of officers and I would say that there were upwards of 100 officers in that immediate vicinity a good question so certainly you know we've been involved in in celebration parades before we're certainly aware of the the potential for for violence we'll certainly be prepared for that I think we have a significant plan we continue to work with the city to develop that plan and make sure that we're prepared for any instance of violence or or anything that that goes awry so I think that we're just even more uh understanding of all of the challenges that could occur and we'll be prepared to respond there are families yes certainly certainly certainly you know I think that I think the thing to focus on is that there were literally tens of thousands of people that were in the downtown area that were peacefully celebrating and um unfortunately there was a small group of individuals that chose to engage in some illegal behavior and that went awry and and and shots were exchanged and so certainly we will be even more Vigilant keeping a close eye on on crowds and Gatherings and and so I believe that we will be responsive to those challenges during the parade I think our strong suspicion at this point is the five or six of those were completely innocent bystanders and others had some level of involvement in the in the altercation they're all handguns I think it's uh presumption at this point to to assume that it was Gang Related I mean they think that there is some gang Nexus but certainly we think that the primary motivation for this Gathering was uh was a a drug deal you mentioned that were taken into custody or being questioned had previous offenses and were in the possession of firearm when they shouldn't have been are they gang members but no no no gang members I'm not familiar with the gang involvement of those individuals that are currently in custody right now but we do know that there are individuals involved in the incident that that do have some gang involvement I think that we're going to you know very chaotic seeing lots of evidence to collect lots of witnesses to interview that is that work is underway as we speak and so I can't I can't give you a timeline when uh when individuals will be charged but certainly we will be looking to to move that way very quickly no absolutely not in the floorboards uh that weapon is being tested to determine whether or not it's been fired well uh because of the the different shell casings that were recovered at the scene it's pretty clear that there was more than one weapon that was fired was that vehicle towed away yes it was yes you made four outside the bars there is this a specific area that is troublesome for you guys well um certainly there have been a lot of violin incidents that have occurred there I think that this is you know a collection point for a lot of uh celebratory community members there are a number of liquor establishments and um at that particular location so certainly a draws a crowd and and you know they they engage with each other um it let out and after those establishments close and so there's always the potential uh for violence and I I think you know the the two elephants in the room that I think it's important to address is that there's far too many guns that are in our communities today we have a tremendous problem with fentanyl and our community today those were key elements in this particular situation Could Happen they're having 100 officers in that intercept certainly and I and I think you know that uh you know not long before that there were hundreds of individuals that were in the intersection there again uh peacefully celebrating Chief Thomas is it fair to say that any gather large Gatherings where people are drinking are just inherently dangerous now because of the amount of guns I think that there's certainly the potential for danger anytime that there are large gatherings I think that it's something that we should all be aware of and cognizant of um again as I as I mentioned there are far too many guns in our community today far too many individuals that act irresponsibly with weapons and so I think that is something that people need to be aware of and be cognizant of um certainly something that we are aware of and something that we focus on you know certainly we want to be respective respectful of people's opportunities to to celebrate and and be entertained in our downtown core but that is something that that is a concern you know if the Web building was hit the web structure I don't I don't believe so I know that there were I know that there were celebratory gun fire throughout the city um uh whether or not there were any significant structures that were struck I don't believe so what would you want to say to people who are considering I I think the answer to that is yes we believe that we can keep them safe that will we will have a significant uh presence uh throughout the parade route um I think that people uh will be safe I would encourage people to come down with plans to peacefully celebrate certainly if you become aware of of troubling Behavior or if you believe that someone has a weapon I think that's something that we need to know immediately so that we can respond to that and and secure that particular situation but I anticipate this prey being very similar to to last year's parade see something say something to the close up yeah I think that that's that's always a good tactic you know whether you see a suspicious package whether you see someone that is handling a weapon or you you see what you believe to be a weapon in someone's possession uh underneath their clothing or in a container that's something that we want to be able to to look into well you know as you see we were steps away from from this incident and so our mere presence certainly did not stop the incident from occurring um and I I can't I can't speak to why those individuals felt emboldened enough to uh to engage in the behavior very near to where officers were gathered um but certainly I think just illustrates the the considerable challenge we have in our community thank you one last question okay very fun last question yes certainly so we we um you know we you know we've been you know we're a championship city so we have been planning for a Nuggets win for a long time and so we have been engaged with the businesses in the downtown area making sure that they were familiar with our plan understood our plan and uh were able to help us in any way that they that they could certainly we understand the businesses down there that have cameras that could be uh useful to us in any kind of investigation and the same thing will uh occur you know we've known the date of the parade for a long time and so we have been engaged in planning and members of our community members of our business Community have been involved in that planning process as well one last question were your officers wearing body cameras were they activated and would you consider releasing some of that video and because of public interest so the simple answer to all those is yes I mean all of our officers are outfitted with body cameras all of our officers have their body cameras activated because of the the environment that was uh that was going on down there and certainly uh if we can identify relevant pieces of video that uh that we'd like to release just to just to give greater context to the situation that was going on we'll do that yeah sure contingent in our in our Denver Health paramedic division but also our Dottie teams our business partners our downtown Denver partnership visit Denver key Partners like that our business community in providing that um we are working uh we've been working for quite some time to plan this our office of special events in the mayor's office so it's a it's a large Gathering well what we will do now um if there's going to be any different obviously we're going to rethink and look at things um to be doubly sure especially around crowd management crowd control and suspicious behaviors but we will be well staffed that's a that's a big thing you know as we continue to Grapple with with our staffing you know we've had short staffing for some time since since covid but we're working through that we have a lot of folks on extra Duty extra time over time coming out to do that so we'll be well staffed and well positioned we'll have our Command Post and likely have our Emergency Operations Center activated as well which brings all people to Bear monitoring Halo cameras and all sorts of things but I also want to want to reiterate you know community members are our best eyes and ears you all know when you see something you say something you report it so if you see something you see some undesirable Behavior you see suspicious activity please report it it's Our intention and my confidence is that it will be a very safe event I'll have my own family there so I hope that it'll be a very safe event for all and and we're preparing for that how different is it to have an event that much well it is it's different you know night and day just brings a whole different element and environment also you know I I don't think we're going to have the drinking folks drinking all throughout and we all know what sometimes drunken Behavior can do to to exaggerate some of these these things so um hopefully we won't deal with some of those same things but um but but yeah obviously at daytime and I think this will be kicking off around 10 a.m to around 1 p.m so I think hopefully that'll add better better environment as well series the injuries word you talk that they're in fair condition can you tell us just generally yeah I think um you know based on patient safety being appropriate to share specific details but I think it's safe to say that every patient that went to the operating room had serious and life-threatening injuries yes we have 12 operating rooms in the main hospital of Denver Health and we had uh four concurrent operations for this event and there was an unrelated gun violence victim who is also being operated on so we had five operating rooms running at the same time last week I'm sorry I'm not aware of where that that victim was specifically from