Denver teenager shot while trying to sell car

Surveillance video of a reported shooting in Denver, Colorado on November 14th, 2023.

DENVER, (KDVR) — A Denver teenager is still in the hospital after he was shot while selling his car Tuesday morning.

18-year-old Marco Soledad says he was simply trying to better his family’s lives when he agreed to sell his 2001 Mercedes Benz to someone on Facebook marketplace. 

“I was just trying to sell the vehicle to get a better vehicle for us in the wintertime, and a better vehicle for my lady and my son,” said Soledad.

Soledad said he agreed to meet the buyer outside his aunt’s house — near Vassar Avenue and Hooker Street — on Tuesday morning for a test drive. 

After agreeing on a price, Soledad says he went to the back of the car to get his belongings. 

“I went to the back of the vehicle, and I was grabbing my son’s base plate to his car seat,” he said. “And he turns on the car and starts to drive off, but I hop up on the car, and I hear a gunshot.”

Surveillance video from a neighboring home shows Soledad stumbling to the curb, where he called for help. 

“I looked at my leg, and it was just gushing blood everywhere, and it wouldn’t stop,” he said. “I was fighting myself to not go to sleep.”

Soledad was taken to Denver Health, where he spoke with Fox31’s Evan Kruegel on Wednesday.

Denver Police say no arrests have been made and the car — a 2001 black Mercedes Benz E-320, with tinted taillights and no license plate — has not been located.

Soledad says the car has damage to the front left side and a broken left-side rear window. He described the suspected shooter as a white male in his 20s or 30s. 

“That’s just crazy what he did to me, knowing I had a family of my own,” he said. “That I could have lost my leg, or maybe bled out from how much I was bleeding. He could have left my son without a dad.”

If you have any information, you’re asked to contact our partners at Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 303-913-7867.