A 10-year-old girl was shot in the upper arm early Thursday after a bullet tore through the wall of her Colorado Springs apartment during a confrontation over a string of car break-ins. Police arrested 25-year-old Keiyon Banks, who now faces charges including attempted murder and felony menacing after officers say he fired multiple rounds before fleeing on foot.
According to the Denver Gazette, Colorado Springs police were dispatched around 2 a.m. to the 300 block of Shadow Ridge Grove, near Garden of the Gods Road and North Nevada Avenue, after two residents confronted a man allegedly trying to break into parked cars in their apartment complex parking lot. During that confrontation, the man retrieved a gun and fired multiple rounds before running off, the outlet reports. One of those rounds passed through an apartment wall and struck the 10-year-old girl in the arm; she was transported to a hospital, where she was treated for her injury.
Drone Locates Suspect Within the Complex
Officers launched a Colorado Springs Police Department drone to help track down the suspect, and a drone pilot spotted a man matching the description walking through the apartment complex before communicating his location to responding officers on the ground, per the same account. Officers ultimately found the suspect, later identified by police as Banks, hiding inside an apartment in the nearby complex.
The rapid location of a fleeing suspect fits a broader pattern across the region. The Colorado Springs Police Department expanded its Drone as First Responder program in February 2026, adding seven additional drones citywide to provide faster aerial surveillance during active calls, according to a Colorado Springs Police Department announcement. Under the department's Real-Time Crime Center program, aerial drones have reached active scenes in as little as 27 seconds during 2026 emergency deployments, giving officers immediate visual intelligence before ground units arrive, the department has said. El Paso County agencies have leaned on similar drone technology throughout 2025 and 2026 to track fleeing suspects and locate people hiding in residential neighborhoods, as Hoodline reported when detailing how a Texas fugitive was found hiding in Stratmoor Hills last month.
Charges Carry Steep Potential Penalties
Banks faces multiple charges including felony menacing and attempted murder, police say. Under Colorado law, attempted first-degree murder is charged as a Class 2 felony one level below the completed offense, carrying a presumptive prison sentence of 8 to 24 years — and up to 48 years under extraordinary aggravating circumstances — along with fines reaching $1,000,000, according to the Sawyer Legal Group. Separately, menacing becomes a Class 5 felony under Colorado statute when committed with a firearm or deadly weapon, a charge that requires knowingly placing another person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury and carries a penalty of 1 to 3 years in prison plus fines between $1,000 and $100,000, per Prager Law.
A Backdrop of Falling Vehicle Crime
The confrontation unfolded even as vehicle-related crime has been sliding across the region. City figures released by Colorado Springs officials show vehicle burglaries fell 32% and motor vehicle thefts dropped 42% in 2025 compared to the year before — roughly 1,600 fewer stolen vehicles citywide, according to the City of Colorado Springs. Statewide, car thefts fell 36% through May 2026 compared to the same period the previous year, marking four straight years of mid-year declines, the Denver Gazette reported separately in June. Even so, a July 2026 report from the Common Sense Institute estimated that elevated vehicle theft rates still cost Colorado families roughly $201 million a year in higher auto insurance premiums, adding about $84 per household annually — a financial pressure that has left some residents on edge about break-ins even as raw crime numbers fall.
The shooting adds to a string of recent overnight incidents at Colorado Springs apartment complexes. Just two days earlier, Hoodline reported on gunfire that triggered a shelter-in-place order at another eastern Colorado Springs complex, and days before that, Hoodline covered a case in which a homeowner fired on an intruder who was later jailed on a $25,000 bond. It remains unclear whether Banks will face additional charges beyond attempted murder and felony menacing, and the girl's current recovery status has not been detailed beyond her hospital treatment.
