A Colorado man is accused of killing a mourner at the cemetery after the victim allegedly threatened to vomit on a friend’s grave.
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According to Fox 31, 22-year-old Ryan Trujillo-Falcon fatally shot 20-year-old Geano Eugene Chavez as well as pistol-whipped an unidentified woman while they were at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. They were honoring a friend, who died as a result of gun violence.
“These people were all known to each other,” Jefferson County Sheriff’s spokesperson Jacki Kelley told the media outlet. “They went there together to visit the gravesite of someone that they all knew, who had just had a birthday.”
While in the cemetery Chavez got into an argument with an unnamed woman just before 11 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 17. This was just before the cemetery was set to close for the evening.
As the argument continued, Chavez stated he was feeling sick to his stomach. Trujillo-Falcon told him to go to the street outside the cemetery, but Chavez replied that he was going to “throw up on the grave next to him.”
The grave happened to be their friends’ and this escalated the fight even further. Trujillo-Falcon eventually lost his cool, hit the woman over the head with the butt of his gun, and then he shot Chavez. The man succumbed to his injuries and died at a nearby hospital.
The woman who was hit by the gun was also treated and released from the hospital.
Authorities Speak Out About Ceremtery Shooting
Meanwhile, Jefferson County Sheriff’s spokesperson Jacki Kelley shared more details about what exactly led to the shooting in the Colorado cemetery.
“This is the first for me in my career that we’ve been dispatched to a cemetery that was in reference to the shooting of a person who ended up dying,” Kelley explained. “The cemetery is a place that comforts people. Oftentimes, it’s a place to go visit someone that you’ve lost, but it’s not typically a place of violence, so very unusual.”
Trujillo-Falcon allegedly told the authorities he didn’t have a legal concealed carry permit. However, he said he began to carry the firearm after the friend whose grave the trio was visiting. The friend died in a shooting two years ago.
He has been charged with first-degree murder and second-degree assault. He is being held on a $1 million bond at the Jefferson County Jail.
Chazen’s family member Jacqueline Chavez started a GoFundMe to pay for the funeral expenses. “His death was sudden and unexpected, occurring during an altercation while visiting a friend’s grave,” Jacqueline stated. “His life was taken by a person he called a friend. No, Geano was the definition of a true friend.”