AURORA | Police say they’ve arrested a 17-year-old girl accused of fatally shooting a 14-year-old girl and injuring two other teen girls during a July 6 party at a central Aurora park area.
The suspect was not identified because she, too, is a juvenile.
Arapahoe County coroner officials earlier identified the slain girl as 14-year-old Kamiaya Keyera Cleveland.
The suspected shooter faces one charge of first-degree murder, 10 counts each of attempted first-degree murder and attempted first-degree assault, and one count each of felony menacing, illegal discharge of a firearm, tampering with physical evidence and unlawful possession of a firearm by a minor, police spokesperson Joe Moylan said in a statement.
The girl was arrested Aug. 9 while being held by police in another jurisdiction on an unrelated charge, police said.
Police were called to a park area in the 1400 block of South Uravan Street at about 9:15 p.m. July 6 after reports of gunfire and a shooting. The area is called Highland Hollows Park, a green-belt area southwest of Buckley Space Force Base.
“The investigation to date has determined numerous minors attended a party at a park” in the Aurora Highlands neighborhood, police said in a social media post in July. “There was a fight followed by shots fired.”
The injured girls, two age 14 and one age 15, were rushed to local hospitals. Cleveland died there from her shooting injuries, police said.
Local anti-teen violence activists lamented that a teenage girl was fatally shot and two others injured at the party.
Three local Black community leaders on a live social-media broadcast talked about Cleveland’s death, and societal problems that led to the shooting.
Youth violence prevention activist Jason McBride, speaking on the Brother Jeff live Facebook show, said the lives that young teens live now are worlds apart from that of people who were teens in the 1980s.
McBride is a prominent metro violence intervention specialist and has worked with teens in the community for several years at the Struggle of Love Foundation.
“I was at home playing Atari,” McBride said about being a teen years ago.
“Now, I’m at a party at a park a night with no lights,” he said, referring to the Saturday shooting in a remote Aurora park.
McBride said parents and the community need to intervene in the lives of children across the region to address youth who are increasingly desensitized to violence and death.