Shooter ordered to prison

MONTROSE — Gilberto Aguilar didn’t just hurt Yvette Vigil when he fired his gun last October. He hurt Vigil’s children — and his own — the victim’s sister said Monday, when Aguilar was sentenced to three years in prison for felony menacing.

“I just want you to know what you put our family through,” Regina Archuleta said. “You did not see the pain you caused three little boys.

“... You hid like a coward. Her sons sat there for days not knowing who shot the only person they had to care for them. You can’t even look at me today because you are a coward.”

Vigil was near a North First Street parking lot, where a crowd of other people had also gathered last Oct. 28. Aguilar fired a .45 handgun from a vehicle. The bullet hit the ground, then ricocheted and struck Vigil in the thigh.

“That night when you shot me and I laid there not knowing what would happen to me ...” Vigil, who disagreed with the plea agreement tendered to Aguilar, said Monday. “I wish for one minute you could experience those few minutes before I passed out.”

She told Aguilar he had taken away her dream of completing higher education and deeply hurt her family, her children, and his own children.

“Why, as a father, would you do that? I don’t have too much to say to you. You’ve ruined a whole big part of my life. You have a little bit of your life wasted, but you wasted a whole huge part of my life.”

Vigil and her sister told of the effects the shooting had on their entire family. Both women said the police hadn’t helped Vigil quickly enough. The Montrose Police department said previously that whenever there is an active shooting scene, it must be secured and controlled before emergency services can be sent in.

Aguilar was found hiding under a mattress a few days after the shooting. He was originally accused of first-degree assault showing extreme indifference. But the physical evidence ultimately did not support such a charge beyond reasonable doubt, District Attorney Myrl Serra said.

A delayed Colorado Bureau of Investigation analysis of evidence supported Aguilar’s statement that he’d fired into the ground, Serra said. The DA dismissed as “pure fantasy,” however, that Aguilar was somehow defending himself from the mob of people.

There was no doubt Aguilar fired the bullet, Serra said. “But the bullet bounced.”

The case was further hampered by different definitions of what constitutes serious bodily injury. The shooting’s circumstances did not meet the statutory criteria for that.

“I believe Ms. Vigil has some kind of guardian angel and so does Mr. Aguilar. She didn’t get hurt worse, so I can’t do more to Mr. Aguilar,” Serra said.

He pressed Judge Jeff Herron for the maximum sentence allowed for felony menacing — three years in the Department of Corrections, and not the community corrections sentence sought by the defense.

“We cannot have people acting the way Mr. Aguilar acted that night.”

Aguilar apologized to the victim.

“I never intended for nobody to get hurt. I just wish it never happened. I feel sorry for her,” he said. “I regret everything that happened. I can’t change what happened. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. I just want to take care of my kids and pay what I have to pay.”

Public defender Harvey Palefsky said “balance” was needed in the sentence. Aguilar worked hard to overcome his past and stepped up to care for his three children when their alcoholic mother couldn’t, Palefsky said.

“Mr. Aguilar has really no one to blame but himself, but it’s not like he was going about his life in a reckless criminal fashion.”

Palefsky said Herron should consider the whole picture of Aguilar’s life.

Community corrections, Palefsky said, was the best option, because it would allow Aguilar to receive treatment and better pay the restitution owed to Vigil.

Herron agreed the situation was unfortunate, especially for the two parties’ children. But he didn’t agree to community corrections. Vigil had been an innocent bystander that night, Herron said, and Aguilar made a choice to fire his weapon.

“That is an action that can’t be tolerated. ... We’re all very fortunate Ms. Vigil wasn’t injured worse. I cannot allow your lapse in judgment. It’s just not right. It (community corrections) is not enough.”