FEDERAL HEIGHTS, Colo. — A woman in Federal Heights says she feels lucky to be alive after a man fired several shots into her apartment Wednesday night. She is accusing her apartment complex of inadequate maintenance and security that's made her feel continuously unsafe.
Kayla Santana said her front door has not properly locked since June, and she has felt vulnerable since, culminating in the shooting Wednesday.
Santana says she had been talking to a man on Tinder, who came to her apartment Wednesday evening. After he left, she noticed money missing out of her bag, and sent him a text message to confront him about it. He then came back up to her front door, pulled out a gun and started firing, Santana said.
“He just started shooting, all that stuff. And I just didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I just basically laid on the floor because I didn’t know what else to do.”
Several bullets penetrated her door and wall, even hitting the hot water tank in an interior closet. Santana dropped to the floor as the shots began, crawled to her bedroom and called police. All the while, she hoped that her attacker wouldn’t try to open the front door, because she knew he could easily open it despite being locked.
Santana says she has been calling and writing management at the Tuscan Heights apartment complex since June, reporting the broken lock and deadbolt on her front door. She says she's found the door kicked in and belongings missing on prior occasions, and attempted to fix the lock with a friend’s help after her requests for service went unanswered.
“I’ve been telling them to fix the door. I’ve messaged them on the online portal. I went to the front office. They said they were going to do it. They haven’t done it. They never fixed it at all,” Santana said. “They don’t do nothing. Like literally, other people’s stuff gets robbed up here.”
Calls from Denver7 to both the Tuscan Heights office and to corporate owner Greystar’s Denver office went unanswered, as did an email to Greystar’s corporate media relations team.
The Federal Heights Police Department confirmed it responded to the apartment complex Wednesday night and is looking for the suspect.
Santana says she will be moving into a new apartment complex at the beginning of February, and will spend the remaining time with friends where she will feel safer.
“I’m just trying to get out of here, for sure,” she said. “I just want to go already.”
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