The gunfire jolted people awake in the wee morning hours Friday at the Carriage Motor Inn on East Colfax Avenue.
In Room 18, Brian Rogers jumped out of bed and then hit the floor.
Good thing, because a bullet busted through a window, tore through the bedsheets and slammed into a wall with a piece of fabric still attached.
“It would have hit me dead in the head,” Rogers said.
Next door, in Room 17, Doug Meroney peeped out the window and watched men take cover behind his black and silver Mini Cooper as they fired guns. He thinks he saw two people but he didn’t stand there long enough to know for sure.
“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,” Meroney said. “I thought it was my air conditioning shorting out.”
In all, Rogers, Meroney and others who heard the gunfire estimate 20 or more shots were fired.
When Aurora police arrived at the motel at 9201 E. Colfax Ave. shortly after the 4:06 a.m. shooting they found two adults and a juvenile lying in different areas of the courtyard. All three had gunshot wounds.
All three underwent surgery and were expected to survived, the police reported. No one has been charged. The police said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the shooting. They did not release any further information.
Police were on scene for about six hours. Afterward, puddles of blood had dried on the pathway outside rooms and in parking spaces next to bullet-riddled cars.
The Carriage Motor Inn is home to people down on their luck, and those trying to come back up.
Meroney, who is from Canon City, said he picked the motel because it was what he could afford. He was in Aurora because he had back-to-back appointments at the VA hospital in Aurora, and space there for out-of-town veterans was full.
He picked the Colfax motel even though is wife had urged him to avoid the busy street with a bad reputation. He choked back tears as the reality of what had happened set in. Nearby, his beloved Mini Cooper had two bullet holes in the driver’s side door.
“I knew I shouldn’t do this,” Meroney said. “I’m a smart enough guy.”
Meroney said he heard a volley of shots, a pause and then more shots. When the shooting stopped and police arrived Meroney saw someone lying in a pool of blood behind a car.
A hotel resident named Keith, who declined to give his last name, said he heard more than 30 gunshots in the parking lot.
“It sounded like there were two different sets of gunshots,” Keith said. “There was a lower pop and a louder one, like someone was firing back. There were a bunch.”
He said he had been staying at the Carriage Motel for a couple of months, paying $290 a week for a room with no air-conditioning or microwave.
“I know there are a lot of drug users who stay here,” Keith said.
After police left and a tow truck hauled off a green SUV, Rogers, who has lived at the motel since June, stood outside his room waiting on his brother to help him move out.
He had called his boss at a Brighton car wash Friday morning and was given the day off to find another place. He planned to return to work on Saturday.
“I know it’s bad,” Rogers said. “I’m going to have to move to another hotel somewhere else.”
