Worth More Dead

viewpoint of the underside of Yoder’s truck, a large diesel jacked up high off the road. He described seeing the woman’s legs “from the midthigh down” and assumed she was shooting straight down into the elderly man’s body. He then fired three or four shots at the part of the woman he could see from his kneeling position.
    Joey Perez, who was working plainclothes inside the Gang Unit, had rushed to the parking lot to provide Randy Yoder with backup. He heard Yoder shouting at someone but in his line of sight, he couldn’t see who it was. He then heard a number of gunshots. He crouched and moved around to the back of Yoder’s truck.
    It was dead quiet now. The acrid smell of gunpowder still drifted in the air. The Perez brothers and Captain Joe Padilla stood near Randy Yoder’s truck. Padilla leaned over the still figure of the woman and now saw a handgun underneath the old man’s leg. If the bleeding woman should suddenly regain consciousness, she could reach it, so he kicked it away, then carefully picked it up and put it on the floorboard of Yoder’s truck.
    Randy Yoder had been hit twice in the abdomen a few inches beneath his heart and lungs, but he wasn’t dead. Padilla already had fire department paramedics on the way.
    The most dreaded call police can hear went out over the radios of patrol units in the area. “Officer down…officer down.”
    The first uniformed officers to reach the scene on Colorado Boulevard expected the worst; they saw a motionless man and woman and an officer on the ground.
    Randy Yoder had been incredibly lucky as he stood in the middle of what was a virtual shooting gallery trying to save the life of the old man, who scuttled for safety in vain. Yoder was bleeding profusely from what proved to be two grazing rather than penetrating wounds.
    Paramedics from the Denver Fire Department inserted breathing tubes into the unconscious man and woman and attempted to force oxygen into their lungs, knowing as they did so that it was probably no use.
    Then the female shooter, the elderly man, and Randy Yoder were rushed to the Denver Health Medical Center’s emergency room. Yoder was admitted in fair condition. Dr. Katie Bates wiped away the blood on his belly and found that his wounds were painful but not critical, though a few centimeters either way and it would have been a different story. He was treated and observed for several hours then was released.
    Dr. Andy Knaut checked the shooter and her victim. At eighteen minutes after six he pronounced the elderly man dead. A minute later, he pronounced the woman dead.
     
    The case was assigned to homicide detectives Dave Neil and Dale Wallis. Along with many officers and crime scene experts from the Denver Police Department, they arrived at the Gang Unit.
    People were leaving the nearby IMAX theater, kids were playing football in the park, and nearby residents were standing in their yards, wondering what had happened as they listened to sirens, watched whirling blue lights atop cruisers, and saw a score of police vehicles pulled up close to the parking lot where the shooting had taken place.
    Detectives swarmed over the lot, whose surface was sprinkled with dull brown oak leaves and fresh blood, some of it in pools, some of it a path of dots, as if someone actively bleeding had run between the SUV and Randy Yoder’s truck. Its doors open, the SUV was parked headed north. Yoder’s truck, also with its doors open, was headed in the opposite direction. They were four to five feet apart.
    The investigators marked the myriad spots where evidence lay: bullet casings, fragments and expended rounds, a cell phone, a man’s Burberry wool cap, and sunglasses. Every bullet or casing was noted with a yellow billboard-shaped marker with a number. There were almost two dozen on the ground near Yoder’s truck, and five under the tree between Justyn Rosen’s SUV and a green metal picnic table.
    One of the most interesting items lying on the asphalt driveway was a small tape recorder with the tape inside intact.
    The detectives took scores of photographs and diagrammed and measured the area. Practically in City Park, it was also close to homes. The crowd on the other side of the yellow crime-scene tape grew, their voices hushed and curious.
    Identification of the two deceased people came as a shock to many Denverites. Justyn Rosen, 79, long familiar because of his automobile dealerships and as a benefactor of numerous charities, seemed to be