This is a List of notable shootings in the U.S. State of Colorado.
This is a List of notable shootings in the U.S. State of Colorado.
Since 1990, three Colorado massacres in the Denver metropolitan area have garnered national attention: the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, which resulted in 15 deaths (including the post-massacre suicides by the two perpetrators); the Aurora shooting in 2012, which resulted in 12 deaths; and the 2021 Boulder shooting, which resulted in 10 deaths.[1]
| Events | Location | Date | Number of persons killed |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 Aurora, Colorado shooting | Aurora | December 14, 1993 | 4 | Nathan Dunlap, 18, who was fired from a Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant as a cook, later returned to the restaurant and opened fire, killing four employees and wounding another. He was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder charges and was sentenced to death.[2] In 2013, then-Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper indefinitely delayed Dunlap’s execution.[3] Although Hickenlooper was expected to order a clemency in his death penalty before his term ended in early 2019 but took no such action.[4] He was succeeded by Governor Jared Polis, who commuted Dunlap's sentence to life imprisonment. He said he conferred with the families of Dunlap's victims, personally felt that Dunlap's crimes were "despicable," but took the action as being consistent with Colorado's prior repeal of the death penalty in cases of new crimes.[5] |
| Columbine High School massacre | Columbine | April 20, 1999 | 15 (including both perpetrators) |
Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a shooting spree in which a total of 12 students and one teacher were murdered. They also injured 21 other students directly, with three further people being injured while attempting to escape the school. The pair then committed suicide. It is the sixth-deadliest school massacre in United States history, after the 1927 Bath School disaster, the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the 2022 Robb Elementary School Shooting and the 1966 University of Texas massacre, and remained the deadliest for an American high school until the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting of 2018.[citation needed] |
| Subway Valentine's Day shooting | Littleton | February 14, 2000 | 2 | Stephanie Hart-Grizzell and Nicholas Kunselman were shot in a Subway restaurant in Littleton, CO on February 14, 2000. The case remains unsolved.[6][7] |
| AMF Broadway Bowling Alley shooting | Littleton | January 27, 2002 | 3 | Bobby Zajac, Erin Golla and James Springer were shot at the AMF Broadway Bowling Alley in Littleton, Colorado, on January 27, 2002. The case is still unsolved.[8][9] |
| 2005 Denver police officer shooting | Denver | May 7–8, 2005 | 1 | Two Denver police officers were shot at a dance hall by Raúl Gómez-García. |
| Platte Canyon High School hostage crisis | Bailey | September 27, 2006 | 2 | Duane Roger Morrison, took a high school classroom hostage. Emily Keyes, one of the hostages, was shot and killed as she tried to escape. Morrison died after a combination of shooting himself and being shot by police.[10] |
| 2007 Colorado YWAM and New Life shootings | Arvada/Colorado Springs | December 9, 2007 | 5 | Matthew Murray, opened fire at two church organizations in separate cities, killing four and wounding five others before committing suicide. |
| 2010 Deer Creek Middle School shootings | Littleton | February 23, 2010 | 0 | Bruco Eastwood, fired a rifle in the school’s parking lot, wounding two students. He was tackled by faculty and arrested. Eastwood was found to be legally insane and committed to the state mental hospital. |
| 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting | Aurora | July 20, 2012 | 12 | James Holmes, opened fire during a midnight showing of the film "The Dark Knight Rises". In addition to 12 dead, 70 people were injured.[1][11] |
| 2013 Arapahoe High School shooting | Centennial | December 13, 2013 | 2 | Eighteen-year-old student Karl Pierson entered Arapahoe High School carrying Molotov cocktails and a shotgun. He shot another student and then shot himself dead.[12] |
| October 2015 Colorado Springs shooting | Colorado Springs | October 31, 2015 | 4 (including the perpetrator) |
Noah Harpham randomly killed three before responding police officers killed him. Harpham had been open carrying, and some open carry opponents would assert this allowed such a delay before a response that he was able to kill more individuals than in a case where a police intervention would have been warranted by his presence with a rifle.[13] |
| November 2015 Colorado Springs shooting | Colorado Springs | November 27, 2015 | 3 | A shooting and five-hour standoff with police occurred at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.[14] A University of Colorado Colorado Springs police officer and two civilians were killed in the shooting, one was a mother of two and the other was an Iraqi war vet.[15][16] The killer, identified as Robert Lewis Dear,[17] was captured alive after police convinced him to surrender.[14] During his arrest, he gave a "rambling" interview[18] in which, at one point he said, "No more baby parts".[19][20][21] Nine other victims, comprising five police officers and four civilians, were also shot. |
| Thornton shooting | Thornton | November 1, 2017 | 3 | A lone gunman named Scott Ostrem, walked into a Walmart store, killed three people near the cash registers, then fled the scene. All three victims were killed.[22] He had been arrested 14 times before the killings.[23] |
| 2019 STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting | Highlands Ranch | May 7, 2019 | 1 | At STEM school in Highlands Ranch, 9 were shot including 1 dead. In 2019, Devon Erickson, an 18-year-old male, and another boy began to stand trial for the murders.[24] |
| Aurora Town Center shooting | Aurora, Colorado | December 27, 2019 | 1 | A 17-year-old boy was shot and killed inside a JCPenney store in the Aurora Town Center mall.[25] Kamyl Xavier Garrette, age 18, was charged with first degree murder in early January 2020.[26] |
| 2021 Boulder shooting | Boulder, Colorado | March 22, 2021 | 10 | Ahmad Al Aliwi Al-Issa opened fire in a King Soopers supermarket, killing ten people,[27] including one Police Officer (Ofc. Talley) and injuring the suspect with a gunshot to the leg. |
| 2021 Colorado Springs shooting | Colorado Springs, Colorado | May 9, 2021 | 7 (including the suspect) |
At a birthday party, six adults were killed. The shooter then took his own life.[28] |
| 2021 Aurora shooting | Aurora, Colorado | November 15, 2021 | 0 | Near William C. Hinkley High School, shots were fired resulting in injury to seven. Four teens were charged with attempted murder after the incident.[29][30] |
| 2021 Denver and Lakewood shootings | Denver and Lakewood | December 27, 2021 | 6 (including the suspect) |
Lyndon McLeod (aka Roman McClay) killed 5 and injured 2 at multiple Denver and Lakewood locations. McLeod would later be killed by a Lakewood police office after the two exchanged gun fire.[31][32] |
| Colorado Springs nightclub shooting | Colorado Springs, Colorado | November 19, 2022 | 5 | Five people were killed and 25 others wounded. Attack took place at LGBTQ+ club, Club Q.[33] |
| American Elm restaurant shooting | Denver | April 24, 2023 | 2 | Emerall Vaughn-Dahler and Ignacio Gutierrez Morales were killed in a shooting inside the restaurant located on the corner of 38th Avenue and Raleigh Street in the West Highlands on April 24, 2023. The case remains unsolved.[34][35] |
