DENVER — Police made an arrest in connection with a second-degree homicide case in the Green Valley Ranch neighborhood in Denver.
Lin Li, 18, was arrested at a Blackhawk hotel Saturday. The victim, an adult male, was found shot to death in the backseat of a Lexus SUV in a parking lot in Green Valley Ranch on Saturday morning. The victim’s identity has not been released.
According to court documents, the victim owned the Lexus but was riding in the back of the SUV when he and six other men, including the suspect, stopped in the parking lot after leaving a nearby house party that had just been busted up by police.
Witnesses told police that the victim, sitting directly behind the suspect in the parked SUV, called Li “a b—ch” as the men discussed what to do next, according to an affidavit. That prompted the suspect to reply to the victim something to the effect of “I’m not like the rest of these kids out here. I’ll kill you,” the affidavit read.
After the exchange of words, witnesses told police that Li began striking the victim in the face with a semi-automatic handgun when the gun went off, the affidavit read. The bullet struck the victim in the head, according to the documents. Li then pointed the gun at the five other men and told them “he’d shoot them too if they talked about what they’d just witnessed,” authorities wrote in the affidavit.
The five men took off on foot after the shooting. Witnesses told police they believe that the shooting was accidental and that Li was only trying to hit the victim with the gun.
Investigators later traced the suspect’s phone to a hotel in Blackhawk where he was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder. No other charges have been filed at this time.
