AURORA, Colo. — One of the victims of a June 27 shooting in Aurora will have surgery Wednesday in an effort to restore some use of his left arm.
Kenny Lottes, 35, and his mother both suffered gunshot wounds after stopping to check on the driver of an SUV who weaved down the street, climbed a curb and hit a tree.
“I was going to roll my window down and see if he was OK,” he said. “I didn't have time to do that, and he just started shooting. He blew out the window right away. … I froze for a second. I saw the first shot go through the window. And then the second shot – second or third shot, I don’t know which one it was – went through my arm, and right away I just knew my arm was messed up.”
His mother, Kimberly Lottes, 64, used the word “unbelievable” to describe what happened.
“We just have a simple life,” she said. “We just work and come home and, you know. We thought we were going to go back and help somebody that needed help, and then that happened.”
What happened is that bullets ripped through their Jeep. One shattered Kenny Lottes’ left elbow. It’s likely he’ll never have full use of it again. Another bullet lodged in Kimberly Lottes’ shoulder, and a fragment and shrapnel pierced her hand. She also suffered a grazing wound to her arm.
The man accused of shooting them – and wounding another woman a short distance away around the same time – is Austin Benson, 35. He faces four counts of attempted first-degree murder and numerous other charges.
He is next due in court on Oct. 1.
Before the shooting on June 27, Benson was charged in a similar incident on July 2, 2018, along Rampart Range Road in Douglas County. Prosecutors alleged that Benson shot and at threatened multiple people. It ended when a retired police officer, camping with his wife, grabbed his own gun and shot Benson multiple times, seriously wounding him.
Prosecutors charged him with three counts of attempted first-degree murder, attempted robbery, 14 counts of felony menacing and criminal mischief.
For more than five years, the case languished in court as doctors, on six occasions, concluded that Benson was not mentally competent to go to trial. That means they concluded he was not able to understand the proceedings against him or assist in his own defense.
On Oct. 26, Douglas County District Judge Ryan Stewart ruled that there was not a substantial probability that Benson could be restored to competency within the “reasonably foreseeable future.”
At that point, under state law, the judge had no choice but to dismiss the case.
The June 27 shooting began about 9:30 p.m. Kenny Lottes needed to get to work, and his mother needed the Jeep.
It was dark. As they drove toward the car with the erratic driver, Kenny Lottes said he realized the man was right in front of them with a semiautomatic rifle – and he opened fired.
“I was like, ‘He blew my arm off,’ pretty much,” he said.
His mother “screamed, and I just floored out of there.”
He found his way to a nearby street and pulled off his belt to use it as a tourniquet. It took him a couple of minutes to find someone to help them. Aurora Police officers cinched another tourniquet around his arm.
“My elbow shattered," he said. "I don’t have an elbow no more.”
Kimberly Lottes said she is healing physically but struggling emotionally.
“Just anxiety and being afraid,” she said. "And I have nightmares about driving to work and looking at the car next to me at a stoplight, and they have a gun pointed at me. So, I just can't get that out of my head. And then there’s the thought of what I saw in his arm when he was walking away from the car. It's really hard.”
Car has multiple bullet holes from random Aurora shooting
There are issues beyond the physical wounds and psychological injuries.
Kimberly Lottes is still making payments on the Jeep, now pockmarked and being held by police as evidence, with no firm on idea on when it will be released. She is renting a car for transportation.
A fund has been established to help the family.
If there’s been a bright spot among the misery, it’s been the connection with the family of the other woman shot that night, Aryn Johnson, 49.
“We were really worried about her, too, and didn't want anything to happen to her,” Kimberly Lottes said. “It’s been comforting to talk.”
Johnson faces a long road to recovery.
“This man affected our lives,” Kimberly Lottes said. “He turned us all upside down, and we’ll never be normal again.”
Contact 9NEWS investigator Kevin Vaughan with tips about this or any story: kevin.vaughan@9news.com or 303-871-1862.