Another Ghost In Denver

There is really nothing all that exceptional about police shooting and killing a robbery suspect who points a handgun at police according to multiple witnesses to the 12:18 p.m. (lunchtime) shootout this afternoon. The robbers did what robbers are known to do, and the police did nothing improper or unexpected when they encountered the robbers and were in hot pursuit.

Except, that is, that I happen to be at the intersection where the shooting took place almost every single week, for a child's music lesson and grocery shopping or coffee while I wait. I've shopped at the liquor store in that plaza and parked my car right where the police fired their shots more than once.

For people who don't know about the shooting, nothing will be different in a few days. But, for me, a perennial news hound who also becomes aware of incidents like these in the course of my work, it is one more ghost on the streets of Denver just in time for Halloween. This new ghost will share space with the fellow whose car was flung off the Alameda exit on Southbound I-25 in an accident, whose family I represented in a wrongful death suit; the woman killed in a domestic violence incident in the parking lot of what is now Whole Foods in Capital Hill; the homeless man who died in his sleep one cold evening on the 16th Street Mall. This list goes on and on and on.

Despite the once rather rowdy reputation of the address at East 14th Avenue and Krameria Street, the neighborhood has gotten a lot safer and has been gentrifying a lot lately. This is an aberation these days. But, crime happens and leaves memories behind long after the physical traces have vanished.