Jimmy Cazares was convicted after prosecutors said he fired 59 shots into Wyler’s Pub and Brew.

GREELEY, Colo. — A Weld County judge sentenced Jimmy Cazares, 33, to 96 years in prison after a jury found he fired 59 shots into a Greeley bar after being removed for fighting.

The sentence, handed down April 15 by Weld County District Court Judge Annette Kundelius, ended the trial phase of a case that began with gunfire at Wyler’s Pub and Brew on Nov. 30, 2024. Prosecutors said one female employee was shot multiple times, including once in the neck, while a second woman stood in the direct line of fire but was not hit by bullets. Both survived, a fact prosecutors said separated the case from a homicide by chance, not by the defendant’s restraint.

Greeley police were called to Wyler’s Pub and Brew in the 2300 block of 27th Street after reports of a shooting late that November night. Officers found a wounded employee inside the business and identified another victim who had been in the path of the shots. Investigators later tied the gunfire to an earlier fight inside the bar. About 40 minutes before the shooting, bartenders had removed Cazares from the business for fighting, prosecutors said. He returned and fired from outside the bar, sending rounds into a local gathering spot where employees and patrons had been working through an ordinary night. At sentencing, one victim described the moment as life-changing. “My life changed forever that night,” the victim said. “I never could have imagined I was being shot at. I firmly believe I died for a brief moment.”

The jury convicted Cazares in February on all charges presented in the case. The verdicts included two counts of attempted murder after deliberation involving a deadly weapon, two counts of attempted murder due to extreme indifference with a deadly weapon, possession of a weapon by a previous offender, possession of an unserialized weapon and criminal mischief. Prosecutors said the criminal mischief count covered damage of more than $20,000 but not more than $100,000. Jurors also convicted him of two drug-related counts. The case centered on the number of shots, the short gap between the fight and the return to the bar, and the positions of the two women prosecutors identified as victims. Officials did not release a full public account of the weapon’s recovery, the defendant’s statements, or the complete forensic evidence presented at trial. What they did make public was the scale of the gunfire and the injuries that followed.

Wyler’s Pub and Brew sits in Greeley, a city in Weld County about 60 miles northeast of Denver. The location in the 2300 block of 27th Street placed the shooting in a commercial area where a bar fight became a criminal case with a near-century prison term. Prosecutors described the business as a local community establishment, language that framed the shooting as an attack not only on two women but on a neighborhood space where workers and customers had expected safety. The sentence also came after a trial that required jurors to consider two different attempted murder theories. One focused on deliberation with a deadly weapon. The other focused on extreme indifference with a deadly weapon. Together, the convictions reflected the jury’s finding that the shooting endangered lives in more than one legally recognized way. The public record released after sentencing did not name the victims.

Deputy District Attorney Lacy Wells and Deputy District Attorney Mikaela Fatzinger prosecuted the case. At the sentencing hearing, Wells told the court that the outcome could have been worse. “It’s only by the grace of God that no one was killed that night,” Wells said. “He gunned down two women at a local, community establishment and clearly has no respect for human life.” Prosecutors said Cazares faced as much as 134 years in prison under the law. Kundelius imposed 96 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections, a term that will keep the focus on prison records and any later appellate filings if Cazares challenges the conviction or sentence. No public hearing date for an appeal was listed in the sentencing announcement. The next procedural steps would move from the trial court record to post-sentencing filings if the defense pursues them.

The hearing also gave victims a formal place in a case whose facts were counted in wounds, bullets and damaged property. The employee who was shot survived wounds that prosecutors said included a strike to the neck. The second victim survived despite being in the line of fire. The victims’ names were not released in the public summary, but their words shaped the final hearing. Wells said the harm continued after the gunfire ended. “Damage didn’t stop when the bullets stopped,” she said. “These victims of this horrific and senseless crime will live with the mental, emotional and physical damage the rest of their lives.” The statement pointed to a record beyond the verdict sheet: a workplace pierced by gunfire, a bartender left with lasting injuries and a second woman forced to live with what prosecutors described as a close encounter with death.

The case now stands at a 96-year prison sentence following the February convictions and April 15 sentencing. Cazares has been ordered to serve the term in the Colorado Department of Corrections, while the surviving victims leave court with the criminal trial completed.

Author note: Last updated May 9, 2026.