Brandon Booth, a Geo Group employee at Aurora’s immigration detention center, was arrested after police say he shot a woman in the foot near the facility on Thursday night. Aurora police said the shooting followed a verbal confrontation after a weekly protest outside the 1,500-bed center.
Police said Booth faces attempted-murder charges and was later booked into the Adams County jail on suspicion of attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, felony menacing and unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon. The woman’s injury was not life-threatening, and the second woman was not injured.
Aurora police response
Multiple Aurora police and SWAT officers were already on scene to monitor the protest when the shooting happened in the 3100 block of North Nome Street. Officers tied a tourniquet around the victim’s leg and later detained Booth near East 37th Avenue and Havana Street, less than two miles from the detention center.
Gabby Easterwood, an Aurora police spokeswoman, said Booth fled after the shooting in his Chevrolet Tahoe and was pulled over before his arrest. The police account places the arrest close to the facility, after the confrontation moved from the sidewalk to the street.
Booth's statement to police
Booth told police he had worked there for three years and said the women called the employees race traitors, Nazis and other derogatory terms commonly used against employees at the Geo facility. He told investigators the women said they would run the employees' license plates to find where they lived and where their children attended school, and that they would have people at his kids’ school.
He told police that threat drove his anger level to “a 15 out of 10.” Booth also told investigators that he did not think the threats were viable or that his children were in immediate danger, and that he acted impulsively. Police said he withdrew a personally owned pistol from a cross-body bag, walked into the middle of the street and fired because he wanted to scare the women, not injure them.
Geo Group leave
After the shooting, Booth told police he realized he had done “some dumb (expletive)” and drove away after saying he was “a better shot.” Geo Group said on Friday, “This individual has been placed on unpaid administrative leave, and we will fully cooperate with law enforcement.”
Chief Todd Chamberlain called the shooting “a tragedy on all fronts.” The case now centers on the criminal charges Booth faces, his account that he meant to scare the women, and the open question of what prompted the weekly protest outside the Aurora detention center.
