Wrong place (cracktown) wrong time (1:45am)......
Bar shooting kills 1, hurts NFL player
Four others also hit after CU-CSU postgame event
Diann Small, outside Denver’s Best All Sports Bar and Grill on Sunday afternoon, tried to help a man who was fatally shot early Sunday morning in the club’s parking lot. ‘I watched him die,’ Small says.
By Sheba R. Wheeler and George Merritt, Denver Post Staff Writers
A masked gunman opened fire in a parking lot outside a north Denver sports bar early Sunday morning, shooting one man to death and wounding five other people, including a Colorado State University graduate who plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Police, who were still searching for a suspect and a weapon, said the shooting at Denver's Best All Sports Bar and Grill, 3800 Walnut St., appeared to be random. It was unclear whether the victims knew one another.
Christopher Wilford, 28, was pronounced dead Sunday at Denver Health Medical Center.
Police said the wounded, none of whom sustained life-threatening injuries, included Steelers linebacker Joey Porter, bar co-owner Kendal Johnson, Samantha Long, Evette Marshall and Jeffery Dixon.
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Long, who was shot in the arm, was in fair condition at Denver Health Medical on Sunday. Johnson, who was shot in the chest, was recovering at home. Marshall was shot in the shoulder, witnesses said; her condition was unknown. The locations and conditions of Porter and Dixon could not be determined.
"We have no motive at this time," said Sonny Jackson, Denver police spokesman. "Mr. Porter was not with the other five victims. It doesn't appear as if (Porter) was the intended victim."
Porter, a 26-year-old CSU graduate, was struck in the left buttock and the bullet lodged in his right thigh, Steelers coach Bill Cowher said in an afternoon news conference aired on 9News' website. No vital organs were hit.
Cowher said Porter was resting in an unidentified Denver hospital Sunday, and the team is hoping to fly him back to Pittsburgh today.
Porter, whom Jackson described as an innocent bystander, was believed to have been in town for the CU-CSU football game. He is a five-year NFL veteran who was selected to last season's Pro Bowl as an outside linebacker.
Shots were reported at 1:47 a.m. Sunday, 17 minutes past closing time at the bar.
"I don't know where the bullets came from," said Kendal Johnson, who owns the bar with his brother, Terry Johnson. "I was getting people to exit the parking lot, like I do every Saturday night."
After the CU-CSU game, about 175 patrons had attended a party that included dancing, food and pool, bar manager James Greer said Sunday. The club was rented out by a private party, said Terry Johnson, who declined to identify the renter.
A flier for the party called it "the official showdown after-party" and promised appearances by several pro football players, including Porter. It was believed to be Porter's first time at the bar.
No confrontations had taken place inside the bar, which had stopped serving drinks at 1:30 a.m., Greer said. As usual, Greer said, security guards and police officers on routine patrol were escorting the last few party-goers to a parking lot enclosed by a wooden fence and a metal gate.
Security included two uniformed police officers, Kendal Johnson said. It was mainly a college crowd, he said.
"We had a real orderly crowd - cool, calm and collected," said Greer, who added that he was told about the shooting when he returned to work Sunday. "Porter was just a patron like everybody else, having fun. I don't know if he was a target, and I doubt if he was. We were letting people outside the bar, and everybody except for the employees was outside. Then something went wrong."
Gunfire erupted from the parking lot, witnesses said. Greer said witnesses told him that they saw a person wearing a black hood, black mask and black clothing shoot either through or over the fence. Security guards tried to herd panicked patrons back inside the bar.
Kendal Johnson was shot in the chest. Witnesses said a bullet went through him and struck one of the women.
"It was pretty unbelievable. I saw people running around. I think there was a lot of shock," said Diann Small, a 50-year-old certified medical assistant and a former bartender who was in the parking lot of the sports bar during the shooting. After the shooting, she said, she put pressure on some victims' wounds to stop the bleeding and tried to calm others.
While waiting for the ambulance, Small knelt next to Wilford and felt for his pulse. He appeared to be shot in the chest, she said.
"I watched him die," Small said. "He lived till right before the paramedics got there. ... Maybe this young man might have lived if the ambulance would have gotten there faster."
She said it took the ambulance 15 to 20 minutes to reach the scene.
Porter apparently did not know he had been shot, said Small, who said she saw him come into the bar after the shooting.
"All of a sudden he stopped and he said, 'Man! Have I been shot?"' she recalled. "Then he pulled his pants down, and you could see the blood. I guess he wasn't sure."
The bar, which has been open since May, was becoming known as a family establishment where people from the neighborhood often brought their children, Greer said.
He added that he was planning to install surveillance cameras this week, even before the shooting, Greer said.
He speculated that the incident might have been precipitated by something that occurred before patrons arrived at the bar, which is expected to reopen Tuesday.
"I got questions just like you do," Greer said. "It could have happened anywhere. I don't know why, but last night it happened here."
