Inset: Orest Schur (Aurora Police). Background: The street where Schur discovered teens allegedly trying to steal his car (Google Maps).
A Space Force sergeant who shot at two teenagers fleeing after he apparently caught them trying to break into his car will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars.
An Adams County, Colorado, judge sentenced Orest Schur to 54 years in prison on Friday, the 17th Judicial District Attorney”s Office announced – 36 years for second-degree murder, 18 years for attempted murder. The 29-year-old was convicted of both charges in June.
The shooting occurred after 11 p.m. on July 5, 2023, near Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora, Colorado. Residents on the 19400 block of East 59th Place heard a car alarm going off and saw two people dressed in all black “attempting to break into” a Hyundai Elantra, the Aurora Police Department said in a news release the next day. Schur, the owner of the car, “confronted” the pair, causing them to speed away in another “suspected stolen vehicle.”
Armed with a gun, Schur got into his Elantra in pursuit of the teenagers – “rather than calling police,” the district attorney’s office noted. He then fired several shots into the rear of the vehicle, and it crashed about four blocks away. As the duo ran from the car on foot, Schur continued firing, prosecutors said, and both teenagers were hit.
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Xavier Daniel Kirk, 14, was found unconscious nearby with gunshot wounds to his back and head, and though he was “rushed” to a nearby hospital, he was pronounced dead. The other teen, a 13-year-old boy and the driver of the vehicle, was shot in the back but ran to a nearby relative’s house and eventually was hospitalized and treated. He survived.
While Schur initially told police that he had been fired upon by the teens, a forensic investigation found no evidence of any other weapons or guns other than Schur’s. He had fired 11 shots in total.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Schur was a technical sergeant at the time assigned to Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora. His wife is said to have told authorities that her husband had weapons training and had served two tours in Afghanistan.
17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason was harsh in his assessment of Schur’s actions.
“This was vigilante violence at its worst and now a young man is dead,” Mason said. “The defendant took the law into his own hands, chasing down a fleeing vehicle and opening fire on its occupants. A 14-year-old boy will now never grow up because of the defendant’s actions. I’m grateful to the Aurora Police Department for their investigation and to my team at the DA’s Office for securing justice in this case.”
