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The shooting of former Broncos player Josh Reynolds and his friend while they were chased by a dozen conspirators across Denver last year was not motivated by Reynolds’ status as an NFL player, the Denver District Attorney’s Office said this week. Reynolds, who played for the Broncos at the time but is now with the New York Jets , and one of his friends were shot in the Oct. 18 attack , which prosecutors in court filings called a “calculated and carefully coordinated assassination attempt on three unarmed and defenseless men.
” “This premeditated attack unfolded over the course of multiple hours, spanned nearly 10 miles and involved as many as a dozen synchronized conspirators, riding in four different vehicles and firing between five and eight guns in excess of 30 separate times,” prosecutors wrote in a March court filing. Asked about prosecutors’ characterization, Matt Jablow, a spokesman for the Denver District Attorney’s Office, said that despite the filing, the word “assassination” was not “an appropriate way to describe the shooting.” The attack was not politically motivated, and Reynolds was not targeted because of his “public persona or presence,” Jablow said.
The wide receiver was with two of his childhood friends at the time of the attack. One of those friends, a 26-year-old man from Texas, told The Denver Post on Tuesday that he doesn’t know why the trio was attacked. He thinks the suspects — who told investigators they had a prior conflict with the trio — mistook them for someone else.
“That was our first month living in Colorado and we got shot at by 15 different people, I don’t know how to even explain that,” the friend said, speaking on the condition of anonymity over concerns for his safety. “..
.I don’t think the cops know, I don’t think (the suspects) know, I don’t think we know why we got targeted. I think it was just, they got the wrong guys and they missed.
” The Oct. 18 incident started when Reynolds and his two childhood friends visited Shotgun Willie’s, a strip club in Glendale, just after midnight. Luis Mendoza, 42, arrived about 45 minutes later, entered the club and then watched Reynolds and his friends until the trio left the club around 2:45 a.
m., police alleged in an arrest affidavit. Mendoza then joined with other people in as many as four vehicles and followed Reynolds, who was in a Ford Bronco, court records show.
The drivers chased Reynolds and his friends on Colorado Boulevard, Interstate 25, East Hampden Avenue and back onto I-25, where dozens of rounds were fired into the Ford Bronco, prosecutors have said. “I don’t see why they would be wanting to shoot at us,” the friend said. “If they wanted to rob us, as deep as they were, they could have simply robbed us.
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It was mistaken identity.” Jablow did not answer questions about the motive for the attack. Around 3:10 a.
m. near I-25 and East Belleview Avenue, Reynolds and his companions abandoned the Ford Bronco — which was disabled by gunfire — on the side of the interstate and ran. All three called 911 minutes later near South Quebec Street and Union Avenue, according to an arrest affidavit.
Reynolds was shot twice, in the left arm and the back of the head. One of his friends, at the time a Colorado pro-rugby player, was shot in the back. The second friend was wounded by shattered glass but was not shot.
The three friends don’t talk about the attack now and have tried to move on, the friend who spoke with The Post said. “As much as everyone wants motives, we don’t know,” he said. “It’s just unfair.
And now you’re questioning why this happened, and why I live a good life, but bad things still happen. I haven’t always been a great person, but I’ve always had a humble heart, lived right, lived by a code. And I definitely don’t think I deserved it.
But I don’t care to question it. At this point, I’m alive, my friends are alive. I’m happy.
” At least five men have so far been arrested and charged in connection with the shooting. Shawn Kane, 26, Burr Charlesworth, 42, Dirk Lisica-Lange, 32, Daniel Olivarez, 31, and Mendoza are each charged with attempted murder, assault and related counts. “Mr.
Mendoza has pled not guilty and we look forward to challenging the state’s accusations against him,” attorney Jake Lilly said in a statement Tuesday. Attorneys for the four other men either declined to comment or did not return requests for comment Tuesday. In court filings this spring, Denver prosecutors sought to delay sharing discovery — that is, providing defense attorneys with the evidence in the case — because they said doing so might hinder the ongoing investigation and reveal to the defendants who among them was cooperating with prosecutors about the shooting.
Investigators had active arrest warrants for “several” other alleged participants at the time, the filing stated. “Given the obvious coordination at play, and the overwhelming degree of lethal force employed, it is absolutely critical to community safety that the remaining coparticipants be identified and taken into custody as soon as possible,” prosecutors wrote in a March motion. “Should any of the currently charged defendants choose to cooperate with investigators, the immediate disclosure of such information would likely be leaked to the other yet at-large participants and serve to frustrate future efforts at apprehension.
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