Cops's Shooter, A Serial Escapee, Still On The Lam

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Daril Cinquanta joined the Denver Police Department in 1970. A year later, a man named Lawrence Pusateri shot him in the abdomen, but the rookie cop survived.

Nearly 20 years after his retirement, Daril Cinquanta is still an old-school cop.

In his basement, there are more than 1,000 discarded mugshots from his days with the Denver Police, 108 bullets of varying calibers, thumb cuffs, and scores of clipped newspaper articles.

He also has the uniform he wore on the day he was shot, and it serves as a the constant reminder of the morning of Oct. 3, 1971.

Daril, as he wrote to AMW, had just gotten "a twist and chocolate milk and was headed to look for the paperboy to get a free paper" when he saw a "guy sitting shotgun in a car with two females at the curb."
 
An even though Daril was only a rookie, his instinct told him that "this guy was a 'bad guy.'"

His gut feeling proved him right minutes later. After asking the man to step out of the car, the thug -- who claimed his name was Luis R. Archuleta -- shot him in the stomach and fled.

Daril crawled to his car and radioed for help.

Cops: Shooter Was No Rookie

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Lawrence Pusateri was an escapee from a California state prison when he shot Daril Cinquanta.

Only two months after the shooting, Denver P.D. learned that Luis R. Archuleta, Daril's shooter, was really Lawrence Pusateri, an escapee from a California state prison.

Police learned that after shooting Daril, Pusateri fled to Mexico where he was arrested for a drug crime. Pusateri was deported back to the United States and convicted and sentenced for shooting Officer Cinquanta.

On June 6, 1973 Pusateri was admitted into the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City, Colo.

By that time Daril had fully recovered and was back working the streets of Denver.

But on Aug. 15, 1974, cops say Pusateri faked an illness in order to be taken to a hospital in Pueblo.

Cops say that when he and another inmate arrived there, they asked to go to the bathroom. But when they came out, they had a gun and were able to escape.

Pusateri hasn't been seen since.

The One That Got Away

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Daril Cinquanta caught more than 1000 criminals during his 20 years working at Denver P.D. Now, 19 years after he retired, he would like to see the man who shot him, Lawrence Pusateri, behind bars.

In his career, Daril Cinquanta received about 200 commendations, as well as the department’s highest award, the Medal of Honor.

The local press called him “Supercop.”

He was known for making more than 1,000 arrests and building a huge net of informants. And in 1990, he retired leaving behind quite a legacy.

Daril Cinquanta still writes longhand, in careful, cursive letters.

“I was not an ordinary policeman,” he tells AMW. “I knew early on that I was going to be real good at this job. I considered myself a ‘crime fighter.’ I was very controversial, but a major case maker.

“The thing I liked most was the chase, catching bad guys and solving crimes,” he said.

Yet the one case he’s never closed is that of Lawrence Pusateri, a.k.a. Luis Archuleta, the self-styled Chicano militant who shot Daril in 1971, when he was still a rookie.

Daril is currently writing a book with stories of his time at the Denver Police Department, and he hopes AMW viewers will help him write his last chapter: the arrest of Lawrence Pusateri.