Murders in Colorado often have one thing in common: the time of death is within minutes of 2 a.m.
Jason Auguillard, 24
It’s not a fluke and it’s not surprising to police. It’s when bars close up (for now, at least) for the night and intoxicated people must filter out to their cars in the parking lot.
It’s when rising Denver Broncos star Darrent Williams was murdered and many other people with no public name recognition like Jason Auguillard were killed. They are often murdered because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
For many years I’ve worked on Saturdays. I’m the first reporter to arrive in the newsroom and it’s usually very quiet here. I scramble to find out if something newsworthy happened overnight so that I can post a story online.
It’s never startling to learn, once I hear that there was a murder Friday night, that it happened around 2 a.m. These incidents happen both in rough-and-tumble bars where fights frequently break out, and in exclusive clubs where name recognition is necessary to get you through the front door.
On Jan. 1, 2007, I was in the newsroom when the biggest story I ever covered on a Saturday morning happened.
A promising young Denver Broncos player had been shot and killed overnight near a downtown Denver club called Safari.
Darrent Williams and a group of Broncos players had finished their final game of the 2006 season against the San Francisco 49ers less than 12 hours earlier.
Brandon Marshall, who now plays for the Chicago Bears, was there. The occasion was not only New Year’s Eve. It was also a birthday party for Denver Nuggets player Kenyon Martin.
An eclectic group of revelers packed the Safari that night. They included young gangbangers – members of a volatile branch of the Crips street gang called the Tre Tre Crips.
There were angry words exchanged.
A big group of professional athletes and their entourage exited the nightclub and climbed into a rented Hummer limousine.