This past Tuesday, while the trauma of watching the Newtown massacre was still fresh in our minds, a man was released from the Boulder County jail and 6 hours later shot and killed his ex-girlfriend, her Sister and her new husband, then turned the gun on himself. All of this was caught on a 911 call.
Follow me past the break if you want to read about yet another unnecessary gun death in an All-American town.
Longmont Colorado is a great city of 87,000 located about 11 miles northeast of Boulder. It's a city with a real life Main Street and is probably most famous for recently voting to
ban fracking in our city limits (so proud!). Longmont experiences the usual crimes that any city this size would experience, and is generally considered one of the
safest cities in Colorado.
My wife and I love living in Longmont. It's a small enough city that you can go to a restaurant and usually run into someone you know, but big enough that it has most of what we need as far as shopping, entertainment, dining. And if we need something Longmont doesn't offer, Boulder is a 20 minute drive away, Denver or Fort Collins is a 40 minute drive away. We happen to run a very busy and fun dog daycare and boarding facility here, so we are not just passive observers in what happens here, we employ 12 wonderful young people and try our best to support other local businesses.
This past Tuesday, while the trauma of watching the Newtown massacre was still fresh in our minds, a man was released from the Boulder County jail and 6 hours later shot and killed his ex-girlfriend, her sister and her new husband, then turned the gun on himself. All of this was caught on a 911 call.
When I first heard this story it was sad enough. Then I saw the photos of the victims in the paper and realized that one of them was the sweet young lady who regularly helped me at our local Chipotle burrito restaurant. That casual interaction was as close as I came to any of these victims, but I felt compelled to share their story.... Those 29,771 people killed every year by guns are real people with real stories.
Longmont shooting victim's friend recalls struggle to remove her from domestic violence cycle
By Pierrette J. Shields Longmont Times-Call
Posted: 12/19/2012 08:29:28 PM MST
Updated: 12/20/2012 08:57:25 AM MST
LONGMONT -- Roy Choudhary has only one photo of Beatriz "Betty" Cintora-Silva, and in it she is just 3.
She stares into the camera with bright blue eyes and holds her blonde ponytail in her tiny fist.
Beatriz "Betty" Cintora-Silva, 3 years old.
The image represented Cintora-Silva's innocence, he said, and she had given him the photo along with a request to help her find her innocence again.
"I could not take her back to innocence," Choudhary said Wednesday. "I couldn't even save her life."
Choudhary had known her for only six months before her ex-boyfriend shot and killed her early Tuesday morning, along with her sister and brother-in-law in the couple's home east of Longmont, before turning the gun on himself. Daniel Sanchez, just hours out of the Boulder County Jail where he was booked after being arrested for a domestic-violence attack on Cintora-Silva over the weekend, told a 911 dispatcher that he had killed everyone in the Longview Estates home because Cintora-Silva was cheating on him with "Roy."
That was not the case, Choudhary said. He said Sanchez's relationship with Cintora-Silva ended on Thanksgiving, when Sanchez beat her and she moved out of the basement room she shared with him at 174 Mount Massive Way and into her sister and brother-in-law's home.
After Sanchez's arrest, he said, he and the sisters were all scared. Choudhary said he received a call on his home phone from the Boulder County Jail on Monday night to make him aware of Sanchez's release because he was also listed as a victim after Sanchez threatened him. However, when he checked with Betty Cintora-Silva, who was working at one of her jobs at Marshall's, she told him she had not received the notification.
"I tell her, 'I don't think it is safe for you to go back home,'" he said. "Don't take this thing lightly."
He said he offered her a spare bedroom in his west Longmont home, but she declined.
I can't help but think how this may have turned out had Sanchez not had access to a gun. How many more times will we as a society allow this to happen?
Friends remember victims of murder-suicide east of Longmont
By Magdalena Wegrzyn Longmont Times-Call
Posted: 12/19/2012 08:28:06 PM MST
Updated: 12/20/2012 08:57:05 AM MST
LONGMONT -- In the photo, the newlyweds grin from the backseat of a car on their wedding day, as the bride clutches a bouquet of pink roses.
Max Aguirre Ojeda and Maria Cintora-Silva are seen in this undated photo from their wedding day less than a year ago.
Neighbors said that the couple -- Maria Cintora-Silva, 22, and Max Aguirre Ojeda, 32 -- had planned to start a family soon. They married within the last year.
Both were shot to death early Tuesday morning in their home at 11464 Hot Spring in the Longview Estates subdivision east of Longmont. The gunman, Daniel Sanchez, 31, also shot and killed his ex-girlfriend, Beatriz "Betty" Cintora-Silva, 25.
On Wednesday, friends and co-workers spoke about the three lives cut short.
Aguirre Ojeda was "a family guy" who co-workers saw as a leader, said TGI Fridays director of operations Kris Worner. He worked with the company for six years, four at the Longmont location and the past two in Thornton.
"It's a huge loss for us," Worner said, adding that grief counselors were helping staff at the both sites.
Aguirre Ojeda quickly developed friendships with people and "always had a smile on his face," Worner said.
"He's a very authentic person. You just knew he was a good person when you met him. He looked you in the eye. He smiled at you. He had questions about you. He knew things about you. He was just that kind of person," she said.
Roy Choudhary -- a good friend of Betty Cintora-Silva -- met Aguirre Ojeda and his wife, Maria Cintora-Silva, several times and called them "beautiful people" who worked hard. He remembers their home as "immaculate."
Sisters Maria and Betty Cintora-Silva, who were less than three years apart in age, were close, said Valeria Gutierrez, who worked with Betty at Chipotle, 1100 Ken Pratt Blvd., Longmont.
Gutierrez said that Betty Cintora-Silva had a "beautiful voice" and often sang at work. She remembered her singing Adele's "Someone Like You." The friends, who met while both attended Longmont's Skyline High School, became close when they started working at Chipotle. Betty had worked at the restaurant for less than a year and was taking classes at Front Range Community College in Longmont. She wanted to become a nurse.
Chipotle kitchen manager Alejandra Delgado said Betty Cintora-Silva often started the work day by hugging other employees and made them laugh by talking in a "squeaky voice." Staff jokingly called Betty, who is 5-feet tall, "chaparra," which translates to "shorty."
"She was really sweet. She was always smiling. She was so caring, also. I feel like I never really saw her mad, ever. And if she got frustrated, she'd never show it," Delgado said.
When Australia experienced a mass killing at Port Arthur it was only a matter of weeks later they enacted new gun laws to solve that problem. They did not blather on about video games and movies and make insincere statements about helping the mentally ill. Indeed, the way this country treats the mentally ill is a shame. But that is not the root of this issue. The entire globe watches the same violent movies, plays the same violent video games, and has trouble dealing with mental illness. The variable here in America is that we have gone out of our way to make sure EVERYONE who wants one can get a killing machine.
I don't care what any originalist says about the 2nd Amendment, our founders had no comprehension of what kind of weapons we would develop to destroy each other. When that amendment was written, there was not even a revolving pistol in existence, let alone a Bushmaster .223
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Our current epidemic of gun violence in this country is neither "well regulated", nor "necessary to the security of a free state". Please help push our legislators and President Obama to pass comprehensive gun safety laws now, not later.
29,771 people are killed each year by guns in this country. That is like ten 9/11s each year. Think about the disparity in the way we reacted to each.
Thanks for reading - it felt good to share.