WESTMINSTER, Colo. – A 23-year-old man is being held at the Adams County jail for a shooting in Westminster Thursday afternoon that left a boy dead and injured three other people. Police say the shooting appears to have been a road rage incident.
Jeremy John Webster, 23, was booked into the jail at 1:39 a.m., according to jail records. That was more than 10 hours after the shooting happened at an office park near 80th Ave. and Sheridan Blvd. in Westminster.
In addition to the jail records and confirmation from the Westminster Police Department, Colorado Bureau of Investigation records show Webster was booked for investigation on counts of first-degree murder after deliberation with intent, first-degree murder extreme indifference, first-degree assault and criminal attempt to commit a class one felony. A source with knowledge of the investigation also confirmed that Webster is the suspect in the shooting.
Westminster police said they’ve learned that Webster did not know any of the victims or have relationships with any of them. “It appears as if this incident stemmed from a road rage,” Westminster Police Department Investigator Cheri Spottke said in a news release Friday.
Police said Thursday night they believed they had the person responsible for the shooting in custody. That notice came after a “person of interest” was taken into custody around 5:45 p.m. near Castle Rock who was driving the vehicle police suspected had been involved.
Westminster police said Friday that photo lineups were still being done with several witnesses.
The shooting left the boy dead and his mother and another of her sons with “life threatening injuries,” police said Thursday. The woman and her son were still in critical condition Friday morning, police said.
Another man with no relation to the woman or the boys was also injured in the shooting but is expected to survive his injuries, police said.
The family of the woman and her sons issued the following statement via Westminster police Friday afternoon: "Please respect our family's privacy in these troubling times."
The family is not releasing photos or doing interviews at this time, Spottke said.
Warrant: Webster admitted to shooting
A search warrant for Webster’s car obtained by Contact7 investigator Jace Larson gives more details about the case. It says that Webster waived his Miranda rights when interviewed by Westminster police Thursday night and admitted to shooting the four people with his Glock 19 handgun.
The search warrant says that one of the victim’s sons who was not injured in the shooting told officers that his mother and Webster had some sort of altercation near the intersection of Sheridan Blvd. and Turnpike Drive.
According to the warrant, Webster then followed the woman and her three children to the parking lot of the office complex at 5150 80th Ave. and parked his car behind theirs. The boy said his mother snapped a photo of Webster’s license plate before she got out of the car.
Witnesses described a brief argument between Webster and the woman and she and her three children got out of the car. As they argued, witnesses saw Webster pull out a handgun and shoot the woman “multiple times,” according to the warrant.
She fell, and Webster then turned to two of the boys and shot them both multiple times, the warrant says. He started to walk back toward his car, then turned around and shot one of the boys again as he was on the ground. The third child was able to run away from the scene without being shot, according to the warrant.
The boy who died in the shooting was 13 years old, and the other injured boy is 8 years old. Their mother is 41 years old. Denver7 is not identifying any of the victims at this time at the request of police.
After shooting the three, the warrant says that Webster made eye contact with a man who was in a different vehicle—a pickup truck—with his daughter. The warrant says that Webster then walked toward the man’s truck and fired at it multiple times, hitting the man in both arms. He was able to reverse out of the parking lot and his daughter was not injured.
The woman’s son who was not injured in the shooting, who is 12 years old, was able to tell police about the road rage incident and about the photo of the suspect’s license plate his mother took, and officers were able to track the vehicle to Webster, and eventually to I-25 north of Castle Rock.
After waiving his Miranda rights and admitting to the shooting, Webster also told police he “has mental health issues and just started a new prescribed medication today,” according to the affidavit. He said the medication and the box for the handgun were at his house. Those claims about his mental state and medication have not been independently confirmed beyond what the search warrant states.
Jail records indicate that Webster is scheduled to make his first court appearance Monday morning.
KMGH investigative reporter Jace Larson contributed to this report.
