Brothers sentenced to 40 and 40 years for deadly,

Two brothers who were involved in the 2024 drive-by shooting death of a man outside the Downtown Aquarium in Denver were sentenced to serve decades in prison.

Antonio Vasquez, 21, and Jason Trujillo, Jr., 19, were sentenced on Friday to 40 years and 20 years, respectively, in state prison. Both brothers pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and a number of charges, including first-degree murder, were dropped as a result.

Vasquez, who was 19 at the time of the shooting, fired the weapon that killed 19-year-old Dacien Salazar over two years ago, according to investigators. Trujillo, who was 17 at the time, drove the car.

“Dacien Salazar’s murder was not just a tragedy for his friends and family, it was a crime that shocked countless Denver residents — a shooting in broad daylight in a busy public place,” Denver District Attorney John Walsh said in a statement on Friday. “Today’s sentences ensure that Antonio Vasquez and Jason Trujillo will pay a heavy price for their cold-blooded actions.”

The shooting occurred on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 2024, outside the popular aquarium near Interstate 25 and Water Street.

Given the location of the shooting, and before police knew if it was random or targeted, a large police presence was seen at the aquarium soon after the 911 calls came in.

Salazar was taken to the hospital but later died of his injuries, according to Denver police. After the shooting, the brothers took off southwest, toward the REI store, and investigators worked to develop information about the suspects.

Salazar was at the aquarium with two other people. The three left Pueblo earlier in the day and got to the aquarium around 2 p.m. that day, a witness told investigators. They left about an hour later, and as they were walking back to the car they came in, a black Chevrolet sedan pulled up and a person, later identified as Vasquez, was in the back seat with a black ski mask on and started shooting.

Salazar was the only person struck by gunfire that afternoon.

One of Salazar’s friends told police that Salazar “had a lot of people that were after him.” That person’s name was redacted in a 10-page arrest report, as was the rest of the paragraph after that claim.

One person interviewed by police told a detective that they saw threats against him on Facebook, made by Trujillo and three other people, whose names were redacted. Screenshots of the threats were also fully redacted in the arrest report.

Forensic investigators say they matched the ammunition used in a shooting in Pueblo, allegedly involving at least one of the suspects, to the one used to kill Salazar. Many details surrounding the Pueblo shooting were redacted, but the report says that .223-caliber rifle ammo was recovered from both scenes.

Court records don’t show any criminal cases out of Pueblo for either brother, aside from a 2022 traffic ticket for Vasquez.

Investigators went through traffic camera footage near the shooting and found the car that matched wintesses’ description and saw it had a temporary license plate. Detectives traced the ownership of the car back to a Pueblo address and then honed in on a cellphone that pinged cell towers in Pueblo, Littleton, and Denver during the time before, during, and after the shooting.

They traced the movement of the car and phone to a hotel — although the exact hotel’s name is redacted from the arrest report — and got security camera footage, which detectives say showed Vasquez and Trujillo leaving and returning to the hotel before and after the shooting.

They were arrested in early May, formally charged on May 8 — both as adults — and held on a $1 million cash-only bond.