City, community leaders address homicide spike in Pueblo
At the Lucero branch library in Pueblo, Mark Salazar set up chessboards for a dozen kids who were waiting to play.
Salazar is the director of non-profit Hard Knox Gang Prevention, an organization that tries to help at-risk kids stay away from gang life and the school-to-prison pipeline.
He does what he does because he was himself sucked into the pipeline when he was young, he said.
Salazar spent nearly a decade in prison after shooting a friend, who thankfully survived. Salazar tried to flee, was shot multiple times by police, and woke up several days later in a hospital bed.
"I'm blessed to be alive," he said.
In prison, conversations with a cellmate changed his outlook, and he emerged from incarceration a changed man.
After he was released on probation, he went back to school and got his associate's degree.
He founded Hard Knox Gang Prevention in 2015, hoping to keep kids from going down the same path he did.
Chess, he said, teaches kids to "think for themselves" and form strategies. Both skills will help them deal with problems in life.
Rising crime in Pueblo
Like other Puebloans, Salazar has watched crime rise over the past year and a half. He blames it on a number of factors, including trauma at home and stress.
"For the last two years, people have had to deal with being locked down because of COVID, the loss of a job, the bills piling up," he said. "I think a lot of people are just, I guess you could say, at the edge, where all it takes is one little push to push you over and deal with your problems emotionally rather than logically."
With 12 homicides reported in 2022 as of May 5, Pueblo may be on track to match or exceed 2021's record of 30 homicides. The grim statistic was recently revised upward from 29 after one case was reopened as a homicide investigation.
Between mid-April and early May, Pueblo had six homicides in two weeks.
All 12 killings in the city and county so far this year have involved firearms.
They've happened mainly in the city, but not in one particular area.
May 5. Suspected “road rage” incident, 2500 block of Taylor Lane, Mathew Davis pronounced dead. No suspect.
May 2. Double homicide, 600 block of W. Orman Ave. 17-year-old Joshua Martinez and 26-year-old William Buntzin were found with multiple gunshot wounds. No suspect.
April 25. Manuel Zagarelli shot and killed at the corner of 10th and Hudson. Body of Vetho Vigil also discovered with gunshot wound on East 24th street. No suspects.
April 24. Body of Fred Giron found on Little Burnt Mill Road. Cause of death was later said to be multiple gunshot wounds. No suspect.
April 15. Victor Trujillo shot dead on 600 block of E. 3rd St. Raymond Apodaca arrested on April 29. Victim was Apodaca's sister's boyfriend.
April 12. Ryan Lucero shot at 1400 Mandan Place. Warrant issued charging Josiah Lucero with homicide. Suspect remains at large.
March 14. Kaylie Lints killed at Riverside Bar and Grill, 4021 Jerry Murphy Road, in what police say was a domestic violence incident. Jesse Grondahl surrendered at the scene.
Feb. 17. Lawrence Trujillo found dead in building on 2600 block of Court Street. No arrest has been made.
Feb. 4. Daniel Howard shot and killed in Pueblo Village Apts. No suspect. Howard drove the vehicle for Dante Williams after a shooting outside Classic Q's in mid-January.
Jan. 14. Renee Francisca Dominguez killed at Dollar General. Suspect later killed himself in El Paso County. Police believe the incident was domestic violence-related.
This is expected, Pueblo police Chief Chris Noeller said. "Homicides can happen anywhere," he said, "the nicest or the poorest neighborhood."
"And that's one of the reasons why homicide is one of the toughest crimes to prevent — because you get two or more people that are emotionally charged and they make a decision and they act out and it results in a death," he said. "It can happen anywhere."
The proliferation of guns on the street, as well as laws in Colorado that have reduced law enforcement's ability to send people to jail or prison, have played into rising homicides over the past two years.
"The Colorado Division of Criminal Justice puts out these statistics, which show an inverse relationship between violent crime and incarceration," said Noeller. "I think the high number of homicides this year and last year was related to gun violence."
Combined with a 33% reduction in inmates in the Colorado Department of Corrections between 2008 and 2021, and less people in county jail, he said, crime, and particularly homicide, have gone up.
In 2021, police saw a 13% increase in aggravated assault and a 26% increase in robbery. In the first quarter of 2022, crimes of that nature have continued to rise, he said, compared to last year.
Property crime, he said, has also gone up significantly over the past decade statewide. Before 2014, Colorado was below the national average for property crime rate, and now it's above the national average.
Gang crime has played a part, said Noeller.
"I think there's a number of these homicides that are gang, crime, drug involved," he said. "I can't get into specifics of cases, because they're all ongoing, but there's certainly a nexus there."
The police department has taken a number of steps to address this, including starting a directed investigations and community engagement team, said Noeller. The team is "flexible in their mission," which includes investigations of gang crime, he said.
Pueblo police are also partnering with the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, which can charge offenders for gun crimes under federal law, even when they can't be charged under state law.
Domestic violence on the rise
Another link in the chain of violent crime in Pueblo is the rise in family violence, said District Attorney Jeff Chostner.
"With the shootings and killings in the last month, I think it's more predominant that it's a family relationship" than gang-related violence, he said.
That marks a change from previous years, when gang violence has usually been a bigger factor than domestic violence, he said.
Like Noeller, Chostner believes state legislation is to blame for the rise in violent crime. He singled out Colorado Senate Bill 271, which, among other things, made it significantly harder for persons with previous felony convictions to be barred from possessing a firearm.
"In general, the laws that have been passed by the legislature over the last two sessions, they let people out of jail too early," Chostner said.
"The homicides, the officer-involved shootings, and drive-by shootings, 70% of those are people who are out on some form of release," he said.
Reducing repeat offending
The district attorney's office is part of several initiatives to reduce recidivism, such as the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, behavioral health programs and veterans' treatment court, said Deputy District Attorney Anthony Marzavas.
These programs try to address the underlying causes that lead to some offenders being more prone to re-offend — things like drug and mental health issues. But "while this is nice for the individual, it doesn't actually help reduce the overall crime rate as much as you might think," said Marzavas.
Another problem is that local law enforcement in the city and the county face staffing issues.
The district attorney's office had 16 active attorneys, out of 27 total spots, as of mid-May. Pueblo police can have 231 officers on the force, but currently have 202, including the new officers from class 63, who graduated in April. Another academy of six officers will begin in June, and police are taking applications until May 24 for a class to begin in February.
Chostner's office began having staffing issues last summer, with attorneys leaving for private practice as discussions such as "defunding the police" became more prevalent, he said.
Know your neighbor
Guns, gang violence, and poor decisions by young people were driving the rise in violence in Pueblo, Mayor Nick Gradisar said.
“I don’t think Mom and Dad are paying enough attention to what their teenage kids are doing," he said. "As a community, moms, dads, aunts, uncles can reassert a little bit of control."
While “nobody wants to take anyone’s guns away,” adults need to ensure that firearms are kept out of reach of children and thieves, said the mayor.
“Families ought to make sure their guns are safe, they’re secure, they can’t be stolen in a burglary, that their young people don’t have access to those guns,” he said.
“This is something people in their houses have to really pay attention to … we’ve had middle school students bringing in guns to school for God’s sake," he said. "That’s crazy. The city will be participating in a Harvard-Bloomberg project, one of the goals of which is to find ways to address youth violence and other forms of violent crime in innovative ways, he said.
"They asked us to identify a problem, and that was the problem we identified," said Gradisar. "This project we've been accepted for will hopefully help us come up with some innovative solutions."
Forming neighborhood watch groups might also help to reduce crime, Gradisar said.
"Know your neighbors, so you can keep your eyes out for each other, know when something is amiss, and when something is going on in your community," he said.
Rising crime is not unique to Pueblo
Drawing from the wisdom of an elder, Noeller said Pueblo is probably no more dangerous than other cities in the U.S.
"My mom used to say, 'Nothing good happens after midnight, it doesn't matter where you are,'" he said.
Puebloans should "pay attention to what's going on around you, be cognizant of who's approaching you and what's happening," not only in Pueblo but anywhere they go, he said.
Questions, comments, or story tips? Contact Justin at Jreutterma@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @jayreutter1.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: City, community leaders address homicide spike in Pueblo
