Witness statements and photo lineup identification recently led to the arrest of a Pueblo man accused of shooting a 10-year-old girl during an altercation over a stolen bicycle.
Michael Santistevan, 41, was arrested by police July 18 and charged with three counts of attempted second-degree murder.
Fortunately, the victim suffered only minor injuries and is recovering.
According to an arrest affidavit authored by Pueblo police, Scott Jaramillo called police on July 7 and reported that his 10-year-old daughter had been shot in the back shoulder.
Jaramillo told police that he and his two children were out looking for a stolen bicycle belonging to one of his two kids, which had been stolen several times from their apartment. They noticed a bicycle similar to the child’s outside of an apartment in the 1000 block of Constitution Road, Jaramillo told police.
Jaramillo told a man inside the apartment that if he found out that the bike belonged to his kid, there would be a problem, according to the affidavit. He said as they were leaving in his vehicle, the man fired four to five shots, striking the vehicle and his child in the back shoulder.
Jaramillo identified the man as being 35 to 45 years old with a bald head and no shirt on. A single bullet fragment was found in the rear passenger seat and the victim was transported to a hospital for treatment.
“It was the fifth time the bike had been stolen,” Jaramillo told the Chieftain. “I’m tired of the thievery, it’s getting old. Every chance they got, they’re stealing something, and I’m just tired of it.”
In the past, thieves have even cut bike chains to steal the bikes, he said, though he clarified that the previous thefts were seemingly unrelated to each other or to the July 7 incident.
His daughter’s injury was superficial, he said, and she is recovering well.
Following the shooting, officers contacted two people inside the apartment, one of whom stated her brother, Santistevan, and several of his friends frequent the apartment. But the woman said she did not know if any of them were at the apartment at the time of the shooting. She declined to comment further on the case to police, according to the affidavit.
Another witness at the scene stated that she had seen a green SUV drive up on the lawn, and heard the driver yelling about a bike. The witness stated several people were inside the apartment when a man inside looked out the front window and then the front door. The man, who she described as a Hispanic man with black shorts, allegedly pointed a gun out the front window and fired several shots toward the SUV.
Police noted that there were several bicycles outside the apartment, none of which belonged to Jaramillo’s child.
Five spent casings from a .380 caliber firearm were recovered from outside of a southeast bedroom of the apartment and a box of live .380 cartridges was also found, along with a 9mm handgun and magazine, and a box containing various shotgun ammunition, according to the affidavit.
On July 8, Jaramillo was presented with a photo lineup showing six photos of individuals in no specific order.
He immediately picked out Santistevan as the man who shot at the vehicle and stated he was 75% confident in the choice.
On July 10, a witness contacted police and told them that on the day of the shooting, a friend had contacted her and told her Santistevan had jumped out of the back window of the apartment and ran to her apartment, stating he needed to get out of the area following a shooting.
Santistevan allegedly admitted to the shooting as he was upset about a man who came looking for a bike, according to the affidavit.
The friend was contacted by police and told them that Santistevan had entered her apartment, and then jumped out of her two-story living room window facing Troy Avenue and fled on foot.
She told police that Santistevan was wearing a “fisherman hat,” shorts, and a muscle shirt along with a cross-body bag. Security camera footage from the apartment showed a man matching that description at the apartment at approximately 10:29 a.m. on July 7, according to the affidavit.
Jaramillo told the Chieftain that while his daughter wasn’t badly injured, things could have been worse.
He said he’s happy that the man who shot her was given serious charges for the offense and hopes Santistevan gets the maximum punishment allowable under the law.
As for the repeated thefts, Santistevan said he now keeps all of his family’s bikes inside their residence, including two new bikes that were donated to his daughter after the shooting.
More Pueblo crime news: Pueblo man convicted of vehicular assault for drunk driving incident on New Year’s Eve
Questions, comments, or story tips? Contact Justin at jreutterma@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formally known as Twitter, @jayreutter1. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: How Pueblo police tracked down an attempted murder suspect
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