Children were spared death in Colorado massacre killing of 7

Investigators will continue seeking a motive and possibly release the names of the victims and the shooter on Monday after a Sunday morning massacre at a Colorado home where a man killed six adults and then himself in the presence of children.

The gunman, described as the boyfriend of one of the victims, walked into a birthday party shortly after midnight on Sunday and opened fire before taking his own life, the Colorado Springs Police Department said.

Police arrived to find six people dead plus a seventh who was seriously wounded and died after being taken to a hospital.

“The children at the trailer were uninjured by the suspect and are now with relatives,” the statement said.

The Denver Post quoted neighbor Yenifer Reyes as saying she was awakened by the sound of gunfire and heard sirens before witnessing police take children out of the home and put them into a squad car.

“They were crying hysterically,” Reyes told the Post.

Family, friends and children were celebrating a birthday inside a trailer at the Canterbury Manufactured Home Community, a mobile home park of largely Latino residents in southeast Colorado Springs, about 70 miles (110 km) south of Denver.

Police disclosed few details about the victims other than that one was the girlfriend of the shooter and another was the person celebrating a birthday.

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Freddie Marquez, 33, said his mother-in-law was one of the victims and that he was at the party but left around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Some time after midnight, he received a call from the son of one of the women at the party, who was crying on the phone.

“Somebody came in and shot everybody,” Marquez said, relating what he had been told on the phone.

Police said the identities of the dead would be released at a later date once the coroner officially identified them. Officers at the scene on Sunday told reporters there would be no further information released until Monday.

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The massacre was the latest in a resurgence of mass shootings in the United States after such occurrences seemed to recede during the height of coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

Among the incidents this year was one in Boulder, Colorado, where a 21-year-old man has been charged with killing 10 people in a March 22 shooting spree at a supermarket about 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Denver.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Colorado Springs, and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Peter Cooney)