AURORA | Aurora Police are crediting new technology and a change in how it investigates shootings for solving a January drive-by shooting in northeast Aurora that has resulted in a suspect facing attempted murder charges.
Police say Brayan Enriquez-Munoz, 18, fired four shots Jan. 22 into a house in northeast Aurora, with four people inside. None were injured.
Investigators say Enriquez-Munoz sped away from the scene. Police said the house was targeted in the shooting.
Last year, Aurora police refashioned its investigations units and created a Gun Violence Suppression Team, police spokesperson Joe Moylan said. “The team’s previous mission focused on investigating nonfatal shootings involving victims who sustained a gunshot wound,” Moylan said in a statement.
Police said that protocol has changed, and the new investigative direction is already producing results.
“By consolidating all nonfatal shootings into a single investigative pipeline, we are improving case solvability, identifying criminal patterns and repeat offenders, and strengthening our ability to protect the community from future harm,” Deputy Chief Mark Hildebrand said in a statement.
He said this recent arrest can be credited to coordination of city and private security cameras and making police resources available to pursue an investigation into the shooting despite the lack of injured victims.
The Gun Violence Suppression Team received its first case under the expanded protocol when investigators responded to a report of a drive-by shooting Jan. 22 into an occupied house in the 1700 block of Payne Way.
The preliminary investigation led to residential security camera footage, which showed a black Ford Focus drive up to the house about 1:45 a.m.
The driver stopped and fired two shots into the house, which had four people inside, police said. No one was injured during the shooting.
About 15 hours later, Aurora police responded to a local hospital after officials there reported a walk-in gunshot wound.
The patient, Enriquez-Munoz, was driven to the hospital in the same black Ford Focus from the shooting on Payne Way, investigators said.
Enriquez-Munoz admitted to officers that he inadvertently shot himself while at his home in the 1900 block of Iola Street. A .40-caliber handgun was later recovered from the residence.
Investigators were able to confirm the same handgun was used in both shootings, Moylan said.
Utilizing city-owned and residential security camera video, as well as Flock Safety license plate reader and cellphone data, investigators determined Enriquez-Munoz was in the 1700 block of Payne Way when the residential shooting occurred, police said.
A review of Enriquez-Munoz’s cellphone data also revealed that about an hour after the Payne Way shooting, he asked an artificial intelligence cellphone app how to conceal fingerprints from a firearm and what potential charges he could face for firing a gun at a person’s house.
Enriquez-Munoz was subsequently arrested Feb. 5 and now faces four charges of attempted first-degree murder.
Police said he was released from jail in lieu of a $25,000 bond.
Thank you APD for getting this trash off our streets. Hopefully this idiot gets to spend the rest of his worthless live behind bars. You can bet this is not a lone wolf either, so let’s do our best to help APD find anyone else associated with this guy and get them behind bars with him. We need to make our streets safer. Hopefully our lazy liberal new City Council members will wake up and realize people like this are what are bringing our city down. Quit protecting these people! They cannot be rehibilitated and they cannot become productive members of society. When will you liberal nutjobs figure that out?? We need more prison cells because you cannot turn trash into gold.