DENVER - After a week-long search, police finally nabbed an armed and dangerous man accused of shooting his girlfriend and a Good Samaritan who came to her aid.
Jesus Alberto Garcia-Chavez was arrested Friday afternoon, after barricading himself inside the Western Motor Inn at 4757 Vasquez Boulevard. He refused to come out and kept police at bay for several hours.
Garcia-Chavez, 32, is a suspect in a domestic violence incident that ended in a double shooting early Sunday morning.
Witnesses say Garcia-Chavez was holding his girlfriend against her will. They ended up in Wheat Ridge.
She escaped at 3:29 a.m. October 2, ran to a nearby house and frantically knocked on the door.
“I heard screaming for help,” said Brian Geer. “The alarm went off.”
“It sounded like a war,” said Brian’s wife, Sheri. “It was so loud. We went from sleeping and silence to war, really.”
After Geer woke up, he ran outside, noticed a pickup parked in the street and a man trying force the woman into the truck.
He said the woman had already been shot and that he ran over to help her.
The Good Samaritan told Denver7 that the gunman “said something to the effect of, ‘oh, you want shot too,’ and pulled the trigger.”
The bullet hit Geer in the hip.
“It went through my femur, kind of circled around the joint and lodged in the lower abdomen,” he said. “The doctors said there no need for surgery right now, as long as I do what I am supposed to do,” which is not put any weight on it.
After shooting two people, the gunman took off.
The confrontation was caught on Geer’s security camera. The video shows a man dragging the woman away from their front door. You can hear her scream and struggle to get free.
It also shows Mr. Geer running out the front door and toward the victim and the gunman.
He says he can’t help but look at the video every day.
“It actually gets scarier every day,” he said, pointing to his wife and their two year old son.
He can’t help but wonder if there had been a different ending.
“This little guy and this lady, I don’t ever want to leave them,” he said.
When asked if he’s having second thoughts about running out to help, he jokingly replied, “Today I would, I’ve got a d**n bullet in me.”
Then he added, “No, I don’t think so, I guess it was a reaction.”
He also said, “When someone’s screaming for help, you’re not thinking because they’re just screaming for help.”
Mounting medical bills
When asked if he thinks the gunman meant to kill him, Geer replied, “I don’t want to speculate on what his thoughts or intentions were. I know he wasn’t delivering a gift, so his intentions weren’t good.”
Geer said doctors told him, he won’t get back to 100 percent, but will be “real close.”
He said he has moments where he feels good, and then has his “baby moments” where he sounds like somebody else.
He said it will likely be another 8 to 12 weeks before doctors decide what to do with the bullet in his abdomen, but he’s trying not to think about it.
As medical expenses mount, a friend of the family decided to set up a go-fund-me account. Here is the link: https://www.gofundme.com/2spmd8c
Geer said he’s been anxious the last few days waiting to see if police could track down the suspect and make an arrest.
He’s breathing easier.
“She’s okay,” he said, referring to the other victim. “I’m okay and they’ve got him, so today’s a good day.”
Suspect’s past
Garcia Chavez has a history of arrests involving violent crime -- including assault, menacing, weapons violations and drug trafficking.
He also has two outstanding warrants for false imprisonment and assault.
A source told Denver7 that suspect had been deported in the past, but returned to the U.S. “two or three years ago.”
He is being held on first-degree assault, three counts of kidnapping, domestic violence, felony menacing and two counts of possession of a weapon by a previous offender.
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