Women’s Shelter Resident Shoots 1 Fatally, Injures 7
DENVER — A resident in a battered women’s shelter waiting to be counseled “stood up with a mean look on her face and started shooting” at random with a pistol today, killing a woman and injuring seven other people.
The assailant, Juanita Whitaker, 40, then barricaded herself in the basement of the shelter operated by Volunteers of America until police talked her into surrendering more than an hour later.
A woman in her 20s, reportedly shot in the head, died in the operating room at St. Anthony Central Hospital, next door to the shelter in downtown Denver, police said.
Another woman and a man were shot and five more people suffered other injuries of undetermined nature, officers said.
Whitaker apparently had been living at the shelter since about Nov. 23, when she filed a sexual assault complaint with police. Police believe that she was despondent because the case had been dropped.
Whitaker’s roommate, Carla Eilth, said Whitaker had been a “happy but shy” person. She also said Whitaker had been very nervous Tuesday night and kept pacing the apartment.
Eilth said that when she got up today she went to the shelter counselor’s office and saw Whitaker sitting with other women, waiting to be counseled.
“Juanita apparently couldn’t wait any longer,” Eilth said.
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