DENVER — As a Colorado State Patrol trooper recovers from a gunshot wound, a witness who saw the ambush described the scary moments as she drove by the scene with her children.
“It was probably like five or six gunshots that went off, one right after the other,” Rebecca Quintana told 9NEWS.
Quintana said she was driving by with her two kids and husband as the shooting unfolded.
On Saturday afternoon, just after 1 p.m., a man driving a pickup on US 36 just west of Federal Boulevard pulled over and shot into Corporal Tye Simcox’s patrol vehicle as he was parked in the median doing paperwork.
“As we start passing the guy, we see the look on his face and he’s just super angry and mad and he stops his truck and he’s trying to back into where the cop is between the medians,” Quintana said.
Simcox was able to return fire, killing the suspect, who the Adams County coroner identified as 32-year-old Victor Anthony De Santago, of Thornton.
“And so he pulls up next to him and then all of the sudden I hear pop, pop, pop, pop! And I’m like….did he just shoot him?” Quintana said.
Simcox was shot in the forearm and is now out of the hospital.
So far, the suspect’s motive remains unknown.
Simcox is a 16-year veteran of the Colorado State Patrol.
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