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Double Shooting In Westminster: Suspect Breaks Into Strangers' Apartment After New Year's Party

WESTMINSTER, Colo. (CBS4) -- The suspect in a double shooting forced his way into a stranger's apartment in Westminster early on New Year's Day.

The residents of that apartment were talking to Westminster Police Department dispatchers as its officers fought their way inside, struggled with the suspect, and took him into custody.

No one in that apartment was injured, but two others were apparently shot in a separate apartment in the same complex, according to Trevor Materasso of Westminster PD.

Westminster Shooting 1 (sanchez)
(credit: CBS)

Dispatch received its first call at 4:31 a.m., as Materasso described. A shooting was reported at a party at the IMC Hyland Hills Apartments at 93rd Avenue and Yates Street. That location is two blocks of WPD headquarters.

The first units to respond tried to pull over a white sedan that witnesses claimed the suspect was driving. That car high-centered on a parking lot median when officers attempted to pull it over. The male driver got out and ran -- eventually breaking into the other apartment, Materasso explained.

Officers found a man with gunshot wounds to both legs at the first apartment. Several party-goers had carried the man from the apartment. They helped put the shooting victim in a Westminster Fire Department paramedics' ambulance and he was taken to a local hospital. His injuries were initially described as life-threatening but are now thought to be non-life threatening.

westminster shooting
(credit: CBS)

Materasso said it the circumstances of the shooting were still being investigated and it was not immediately known whether the alleged shooter was an invited guest of the party or knew the victim. Materasso did mention that the witnesses at the party were cooperating with investigators.

Meanwhile, a second shooting victim walked into a nearby hospital, allegedly wounded during the same incident.

The medical condition of the second victim is not known at this time.

 

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