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EDITORIAL: Early release for a cop killer? Thank Colorado’s…
Defense Attorney Fernando Freyre, left, talks with Raul Gomez-Garcia in court in 2006 during day two of the Raul Gomez-Garcia trial in Denver District Court.
Raul Gomez-Garcia already has cheated the hangman. Now, the convicted cop killer, gang member and illegal immigrant might cheat justice.
And once again, Colorado’s offender-friendly, “justice reform”-minded legislature is to blame.
Gomez-Garcia could walk free on parole — decades sooner than anticipated — after shooting to death a Denver police officer and wounding another in 2005, then fleeing to his native Mexico.
It was a crime that could have gotten him the death penalty, still in effect in Colorado at the time. But Gomez-Garcia never had to face it. After his grandmother turned him in to authorities in Mexico, they refused for two years to extradite him until Denver prosecutors agreed not to seek death.
He got 80 years in prison, instead — but could wind up doing scarcely more than the 20 years he has served.
His lawyers have applied for his parole through a state Department of Corrections’ program aimed at juvenile offenders. It allows convicts whose crimes were committed when they were minors to undergo training preparing them for outside life and then qualify for early parole.
Gomez-Garcia was an adult at the time of his crimes. But he got lucky once again. Ruling Democrats at Colorado’s General Assembly — in the midst of their ongoing crusade to soften sentencing; “decarcerate” prisons, and decriminalize wide-ranging offenses — amended the program in 2021 to allow felons who were up to 21 years old when they committed their crimes to become eligible.
This travesty of justice in the making came to light when the widow of the slain officer was notified recently by an email from the Corrections Department that her husband’s murderer was applying for the program, which could lead to his early parole from the Limon Correctional Facility.
“I don’t think people realize it takes you back to day one,” Kelly Young told a Gazette reporter Monday. “My girls and I, we are all anxious, fearful and upset. It brings us back to the day it happened and it’s so so unfair.”
As recounted this week in The Gazette’s news coverage of the saga, Young’s late husband, Denver Police Detective Donnie Young and fellow Detective John Bishop, were working off-duty security at a baptismal party in Denver on an evening in May 2005 when Gomez-Garcia crashed the event.
The detectives escorted him out, but he returned around 1 a.m. and shot them from behind — Young twice in the back and Bishop once. Gomez-Garcia then walked up to Young and shot him in the head, killing him.
If Gomez-Garcia makes it into the program, it will be up to Gov. Jared Polis to approve his early parole. You’d think it would be an easy call.
Gomez-Garcia, who had entered the country illegally in the first place, was a sworn member of the notorious MS-13 gang — he even had the number 13 carved into his hair during his court appearances — and he brazenly told law officers after he was taken into custody that he was glad he killed the cop he said had embarrassed him in front of his friends.
This nightmare never would have resurfaced for Kelly Young if lawmakers hadn’t expanded the law four years ago. House Bill 21-1209 — signed by Polis — was the handiwork of then-Sen. Pete Lee, D-Colorado Springs, then-Rep. Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, D-Denver, and then-Rep. Lindsay Daugherty, D-Arvada. Only Daugherty is still in the legislature, now serving as a state senator.
Polis, who is said to have his sights on a presidential bid, can’t erase his signature from the 2021 bill, of course. But it’s within his power to make sure Gomez-Garcia isn’t back on the streets anytime soon.
the gazette editorial board
Mar 19, 2025
Reprinted EDITORIAL: Early release for a cop killer? Thank Colorado’s Legislature | Editorials | denvergazette.com