Gaspar Gomez-Colmenero was a 23-year-old Hispanic / Latino male from Mesa, Arizona, who was killed by gunfire on August 2, 2015. Online homicide and gun-violence databases list him by his full name and record that he died in Mesa on that date, categorizing his death as the result of gun violence and grouping his case among firearm-related homicides in the city and state.
Public case summaries note that he died in an incident described broadly as a shooting, without providing a detailed narrative of what led up to the gunfire or where, within Mesa, the confrontation occurred. These entries focus primarily on confirming that he was killed by a firearm, his basic biographical details, and the date and place of his death, while emphasizing that publicly accessible records offer only limited information about the circumstances of the incident itself.
One of the few indications about police action in the immediate aftermath of the shooting comes indirectly from the way his case is documented in online memorials. A national gun-violence remembrance site lists a news item titled “1 dead, 1 in custody in Mesa shooting” among the external sources associated with his name, suggesting that early media coverage reported one person killed and another individual taken into custody by officers in connection with a Mesa shooting that day. However, the memorial listings and case summaries that are currently indexed do not reproduce the original article or name the person who was reportedly in custody, nor do they describe any charges, court proceedings, or ultimate case outcome tied to that arrest. As a result, from the publicly available online material it is not possible to determine with confidence who the suspect was, what role that person was alleged to have played in the shooting, or whether prosecutors ever pursued or secured a conviction. Some case-tracking sites explicitly flag his death as unsolved in their records, underscoring that no clear resolution is reflected in open-source databases.
In the weeks after his killing, the available information shifts from the sparse case details to the community’s efforts to honor his memory. Obituary and funeral notices describe how his family organized an all-night vigil at their home on August 20, 2015, followed by a funeral Mass the next day at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Phoenix, with burial at Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery. Online guest books and memorial pages invite friends and relatives to share memories, post messages, and light virtual candles, and gun-violence remembrance sites show that numerous candles have been dedicated in his name over time. Taken together, the online record paints a picture of a young man whose life was cut short by a shooting in Mesa and whose family and community responded with vigils, religious services, and ongoing memorial tributes, even as public case databases provide little clarity about who was responsible or how the criminal investigation has progressed.
