The Sentinel
Three Venezuelan national men accused of opening gunfire between two vehicles driving down Havana Street and injuring a bystander this summer are linked to two other shootings hours apart, police records show.
After weeks of investigation, Aurora detectives determined the melee was connected to three shootings within 24 hours, stolen vehicles and a scuffle during an infamous flashmob at an Aurora shopping center connected to the results of the July 28 Venezuelan presidential election.
An earlier version of this story was published before additional details were made available by a police affidavit obtained Tuesday night by the Sentinel.
The special Aurora police investigative unit interviewed numerous people, some as far as Salt Lake City, analyzed bullet casings poured through hours of security video and analyzed cell-phone and GPS data to track suspects over weeks, according to the Arapahoe County courts affidavit.
Arrested and facing a bevy of charges, including several counts of attempted first-degree murder, were Jose Daniel Gimenez-Chacin, 23, Alonzo Lara, 29 and Yilbert Fransua Maldonado-Moncada, 29.
All three men are Venezuelan nationals, and all three acquainted with each other, police said in court records.
None of the three men were tabbed as members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, according to court documents.
Some crimes linked to the TdA gang members in the region have created a firestorm of controversy in national media over the last few months.
After weeks of investigation, police offered this account of what happened.
The three men were acquainted with each other as friends connected by a variety of social and alleged criminal activity during the last few months, detectives summarized in court documents.
The men told police that they, as do many local immigrants, communicate with each other directly and in groups using WhatsApp.
At about 3 a.m. July 28, an Aurora man called police to say he’d been threatened by another man with a gun while in a remote, unlighted Aurora park after he stopped to check on a flat tire.
The man had pulled his car over at Great Plain Park, 20355 E. Jewell Ave., near Buckley Space Force Base, and noticed a crowd of about 30 people apparently partying in the park, the man told police.
The park has been the location of a variety of crimes and incidents, some involving immigrants gathering for late-night parties, according to police records and witnesses interviewed by detectives in the case.
Multiple witnesses called the park “the dark place,” according to the affidavit.
The man told police the people in the park appeared to speak in Spanish and were intoxicated.
“He observed a male approaching his vehicle by the driver’s side who pulled out a black handgun from his waistband and pointed it down to the ground,” the investigator relayed in the court affidavit. “Upon seeing the handgun, he felt like his life was in danger, so he left the parking lot immediately.”
He said he heard gunfire as he drove away, but that he didn’t think he was being shot at. He pulled over a short distance away and called police.
As he was telling his story to an officer, they both heard nearby gunfire coming from the park.
The officer rushed to the park, but shooting suspects had left the scene.
Witness statements, review of cell phone data and a forensic investigation of shell casings persuaded investigators weeks later that Gimenez-Chacin was one of one or, possibly, more gunmen in the park, according to the affidavit.
Later that afternoon, as national news stated that initial results from the hotly contested Venezuelan presidential election indicated that dictator Nicolas Maduro would be ousted by opposition, cars filled with revelers began packing the parking lots of the Gardens on Havana shopping center, especially west of the Target store in the plaza.
Within a few hours, the revelers overwhelmed the parking lot, creating consternation among store owners and employees. Some stores, still open Sunday evening, closed down because of the crowd.
The event marked the beginning of local and national focus on Aurora and the Venezuelan immigrant community, culminating with then GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump holding a political rally in Aurora. Trump has focused on Aurora for months, repeating a wide-range of anti-immigrant rhetoric, especially about Venezuelans.
Police have repeatedly said the Gardens on Havana mob was unruly, that there were shots fired into the air during the afternoon and evening, but there were no arrests from the event. Police and city officials have said they were in control of the event until it ended at about 9 p.m.
At one point in the early evening, during the revelry in the Target parking lot, witnesses said there was some kind of confrontation between Gimenez-Chacin, his new girlfriend and a former girlfriend, witnesses told detectives, according to the affidavit. One woman said the dispute was about money.
Eventually, the woman who said she formerly had a relationship with Gimenez-Chacin, began leaving the parking lot by about 8 p.m.
She would be linked to another shooting allegedly involving Gimenez-Chacin hours later.
A few hours after the flash mob had broken up at the mall, an Aurora police officer was patrolling Havana Street near East Idaho Avenue at about midnight, according to the affidavit.
“…an on-duty Aurora police officer in a marked unit, reported over the radio he was driving south on Havana Street when he heard gunfire and believed his vehicle had been struck by a bullet,” Aurora police spokesperson Joe Moylan said in a statement released Tuesday.
The officer was not injured by the gunfire.
A few minutes later, officials at a nearby hospital called police to say a man had come to the emergency room suffering a gunshot wound to the scalp.
“The man later told officers he was on the sidewalk near the 1500 block of South Havana Street when he heard several shots and realized he had been struck,” Moylan said. The man was with a woman and they were standing outside after being involved in an unrelated traffic crash.
Investigators at the time recovered a host of shell casings, but no information about suspects in the shooting.
“Investigators also identified four additional victims who were in the crossfire,” Moylan said in the statement
None of those people were injured.
In the weeks after, the Aurora Police Department Crime Gun Intelligence Unit collected security video from different locations in the region, piecing together what happened, police said.
“A rolling gunfight had taken place on South Havana Street between a black Land Rover SUV and a white Ford F150 pickup,” Moylan said.
Investigators said that the fight was over the pickup-truck, which Gimenez-Chacin’s acquaintance had allegedly stolen from an Aurora apartment Lara shared with the man. The pickup truck, according to witnesses talking to police, was owned by Gimenez-Chacin, but it was later determined to have been stolen.
The roommate accused of taking the truck said the keys were left in the apartment, according to the affidavit.
When Gimenez-Chacin realized the pickup had been taken, after the flashmob event at the Gardens on Havana, he contacted Lara and Maldonado-Moncada, to go find and retrieve the truck.
Driving in a stolen, black Landrover, the three men, armed with guns, spotted the truck and chased the driver into a gas station, police said in the affidavit.
After a confrontation there, the driver of the white truck sped away and the three men in the Landrover gave chase, police reported.
Lara drove the car and Maldonado-Moncada and Gimenez-Chacin allegedly shot at the driver along Havana Street as they sped away.
Lara said that Maldonado-Moncada and Gimenez-Chacin were hanging out of car windows as he drove, firing their guns at the pick-up truck as they sped down Havana Street.
The affidavit contained security camera photos of the chase and the gunfire.
That’s when stray gunfire hit the officer’s car and injured the man standing along the street, according to the affidavit.
The squad car struck by gunfire became a controversy itself. Hours after the July 28 flash mob, Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky claimed on a social media post that a police car had been fired on during the melee. Police said it was unclear until after the weeks-long investigation what had struck the car. Initially, police said there was a “white smudge” on a car window and what appeared to be a bulge in the metal door frame. Initial tests for bullet fragments were negative, however, according to arrest affidavit. It wasn’t until further tests were complete that police determined the car damage was from gunfire, and the gunfire came from Gimenez-Chacin’s gun.
Jurinsky continued her insistence that it was a firearm round. It wasn’t until the release of this investigation that it is now clear the a police squad car was struck that night, but it was after the flashmob had dispersed, and not directly releated to that event, police said.
“At the time of the initial post, we knew SOMETHING hit the police car, but couldn’t at that time confirm that it was a bullet,” Aurora police spokesperson Agent Matt Longshore said in an email Wednesday.
Lara, Gimenez-Chacin and Maldonado-Moncada went back to the shared apartment and “shot up” the Jeep of the roommate who’d stolen the white pickup, witnesses told police.
The truck was later found, damaged by gunfire rounds, and impounded.
About two hours later, the former girlfriend of Gimenez-Chacin was at a party outside the Harper Apartments, 8680 E. Alameda Ave. in Denver.
A fight broke out, involving people with guns, and the woman called Gimenez-Chacin for help.
At about 3 a.m.Gimenez-Chacin, Lara and Maldonado-Moncada arrived at the Denver apartment party with guns, according to the affidavit.
The three men, brandishing a handgun and a long-gun, began confronting people at the parking-lot party, frightening people, police said.
At one point, Gimenez-Chacin handed a rifle to another acquaintance “and instructed Juan to “cover him,” according to the affidavit.
They confronted a man they both knew, telling him, “we know you, so we won’t kill you,” according to Aurora and Denver police reports.
The man told his wife they must leave the parking lot. As they were driving away, they were stopped by Gimenez-Chacin and the other man, pointing guns inside the car, witnesses told police.
Both Gimenez-Chacin and the other man “pointed their firearms at (the victim’s) face, and he put his hands up to cover his face,” according to the affidavit. Gimenez-Chacin “began shooting at (the victim) and he was able to drive out of the parking lot and go to the hospital for treatment.”
The man suffered gunfire wounds to both hands and his leg, police said.
Gimenez-Chacin and others left the scene before Denver police arrived.
The three suspects remained at large until Aurora police began piecing the events together.
Crime scene investigators said an analysis of the shell casings were linked to all three shootings.
“Ultimately, investigators were able to identify three suspects, including the suspected driver of the Land Rover and two passengers, who are the suspected shooters,” Moylan said.
In October, police arrested Jose Daniel Gimenez-Chacin, 23, and Alonzo Lara, 29 in connection with the shootings.
A third suspect, Yilbert Fransua Maldonado-Moncada, 29, was in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, police discovered in November.
All three men are Venezuelan nationals, according to the arrest affidavit filed in an Arapahoe County court.
“Last Thursday, Maldonado-Moncada made his first appearance in Arapahoe District Court where he was formally advised of the charges against him for the July 28 shooting on South Havana Street,” Moylan said.
All of the suspects have been charged with six counts of attempted first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree assault and one count of first-degree assault, Moylan said.
Gimenez-Chacin is being held in the Arapahoe County jail in lieu of $750,000 bond. Lara is being held on $500,000 bond. Maldonado-Moncada is now at the Arapahoe County jail and being held in lieu of $250,000 bond, according to jail records.
