Richard Sanchez shot and killed by 13 year old boy following verbal altercation on RTD Denver bus on account of 60 year old man’s legs blocking the aisle.
Define senseless? A 13 year old Denver boy has been accused of shooting and killing a 60 year old man, on account of the victim’s leg blocking the aisle.
The teen was arrested Thursday afternoon on suspicion of first-degree murder, the Denver Police Department said in a news release Friday.
The victim was identified as 60 year old grandfather, Richard Sanchez. The man was killed only a few blocks away from his home while riding an RTD bus after he allegedly got into an argument with a teenage straphanger, according to Fox 31.
13 year old boy shoots & kills grandfather on Denver bus
Officers responded to a shooting on a Transdev bus near the intersection of South Federal Boulevard and West Mississippi Avenue at 6:41 p.m. Saturday and found the victim with a gunshot wound.
Sanchez was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A second person was hurt and treated at the scene and did not require hospitalization, police said.
Less than a week after the killing, police arrested a 13-year-old suspected in connection to Sanchez’s murder on Thursday.
Police believe the argument between the alleged killer and Sanchez started over the elderly man blocking the aisle with his leg.
‘At this stage of the investigation, it appears there was a verbal exchange between the suspect and victim about the victim’s leg blocking the aisle on the bus, and the suspect then shot the victim,’ the Denver Police Department told the KDVR.
‘Nobody was there with him during his last breath.’
But there’s more.
The grandfather’s family was not informed he was killed until they went to police the following Monday to report him as missing.
‘It’s been hard because we didn’t know where he was at, and the whole time, he was at the hospital, and they didn’t contact us,’ Sanchez’s grandson, Joseph Chavez, told the outlet Tuesday.
‘Nobody was there with him during his last breath.’
Chavez said his grandfather’s senseless killing has left him ‘really heartbroken’ and that the whole situation ‘feels unreal.’
‘He was always happy. He was a really happy dude,’ Chavez said of his grandfather.
At least 178 passengers reported being assaulted or injured while using RTD transit during 2021 and the first two months of 2022, according to RTD records shared by Fox 31.
As of 2023, Denver averaged 6.0 homicides per month.