In newly released body camera video that can be seen here, Colorado State University student Michaella Surat asks Fort Collins police officer Randy Klamser, “What the fuck did I do?” as he tries to arrest her. Klamser tells her, “I don’t want to throw you on the ground” seconds before doing just that.
The Denver real estate market remains red hot, with plenty of homes selling for well above the listed price. But when should sellers to put their property on the market and when should they wait? Denver-specific numbers from a new study reveal the ten best and worst days to make a deal for a house in the Mile High City.
Last night, May 1, the Castle Rock town council voted unanimously to adopt a new animal ordinance that effectively ends the community’s prohibition on pit bulls. Advocates for pit bulls are overjoyed by this turn of events and feel optimistic that the move will trigger new efforts to overturn similar bans in six other Colorado cities.
With the weather improving, more and more cyclists will be hitting the streets of Denver. Unfortunately, in some instances, cars will also be hitting them. But which neighborhoods have been the setting for the most car-versus-bicycle accidents? Westword’s analysis of City of Denver traffic data provides the answers.
According to former Friends of Manual board chair Lainie Hodges, staffers and students were left reeling by news that a Denver Public Schools investigation found that former Manual High School principal Nick Dawkins had violated policies related to “equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination” and “procedures for the investigation of employee complaints of discrimination or harassment.”
Lisa Raville has been seeing more injection meth users taking advantage of the Harm Reduction Action Center’s programs in recent years — “but I’m not sure if it’s a rise or if it’s just a harm-reduction method people have been using for years and years and years.” She speculates that increased participation may be related to a drop-off in “the paranoia of people thinking cops will be sitting out front or that we’re law enforcement.”
According to Denver Police Department data, crime in the Mile High City as a whole is up during the first part of 2018 compared to the same period last year. But the problem is more acute in certain areas than others, as is demonstrated by the following list, which spotlights the specific areas with the most crime reports during the initial three weeks-plus of this month.
Denver has a new rule requiring that all single-occupant public restrooms in the city have gender-neutral signs, and businesses that violate the ordinance may face escalating fines. But Laura Swartz, a spokesperson for the city’s Community Planning Department, thinks that in most cases, a warning will be enough.
The search is on to replace Denver Police Chief Robert White, who formally announced his retirement on April 24, and Nick Rogers, president of the Denver Police Protective Association, the city’s most powerful police union, knows exactly the type of person he’d like to see in the post: “someone who has a tremendous amount of honor and integrity.”
The Harm Reduction Action Center’s Lisa Raville is sharing her four top reasons why people overdose in the hope that increased knowledge will lead to fewer tragedies. In her words, “I’m sick of losing people. A year ago January, we lost seven participants in our program in a two-week period, six to overdose.”
The Cannabist, the Denver Post’s marijuana site, is the latest victim of downsizing at the the newspaper. According a tweet by Jake Browne, who reviewed marijuana for the section and hosted its signature video program, The Cannabist Show, the Post “has cut all editorial staff and will replace them with bots.”
It’s tempting to call the Denver Broncos’ pickup of North Carolina State defensive lineman Bradley Chubb with the number-five pick in the 2018 NFL Draft as an example of dumb luck, and in a way, it was. But it’s more appropriate to say Chubb wound up in orange and blue thanks to the actions of idiots. And those idiots are the people who run the Cleveland Browns.
Last week, Boulder Daily Camera editorial page editor Dave Krieger was fired after self-publishing an attack on Alden Global Capital, his paper’s Machiavellian hedge fund owner, that his publisher spiked. Now, he’s written an unvarnished account of his pink slipping even though he knows that pulling back the curtain on the episode could hurt his chances for a new gig in journalism.
Day two of teacher protests at the Colorado State Capitol, following a boisterous turnout in the same location yesterday, is expected to attract educators from across the metro area and the state. The atmosphere is tense, given the introduction of a bill that threatens to jail teachers who strike and a call for doctors willing to write notes for protesting instructors who may otherwise have their pay docked for attending rallies even if schools are closed in their district. But Amie Baca-Oehlert, vice president of the Colorado Education Association, prefers to keep the focus on the reasons teachers are demonstrating.
A group of scientists who believe the controversial herbal pain reliever kratom is being unfairly vilified in the wake of salmonella-related health warnings came together this week to blast the Food and Drug Administration’s policies toward the substance and criticize Denver’s prohibition of its sale for human consumption, with one expert suggesting that such approaches will inevitably lead to tragedy.
Dave Krieger, a former staffer with the Rocky Mountain News, Denver Post and KOA radio, has been fired from his latest position as editorial page editor of the Boulder Daily Camera after self-publishing an attack on Alden Global Capital, the so-called “vulture” hedge fund that also owns the Post, when his own paper wouldn’t publish it.
The Denver Broncos have made plenty of disappointing first-round draft choices over their history, as we documented in a 2016 list of their ten worst. But just two years later, we have to update the roster to accommodate a bust who’s put arguably the largest stain on John Elway’s legacy as an executive to date.
A post on the popular Nextdoor site suggests that some educators planning to take part in teacher walkout day protests scheduled for Friday, April 27, may have their pay docked for doing so without a doctor’s note and requests that medical professionals who sympathize with their plight volunteer to write one up for anyone in this situation.
Opioid abuse has reached crisis levels in Colorado and the country as a whole in part because more and more people prescribed the medication by their physicians are becoming addicted to it. But this particular problem can’t be pinned on Boulder-based Dr. Mark Strom, who’ll be taking part in a Q&A in conjunction with All the Rage, a new documentary making its Denver debut at the Alamo Drafthouse tonight.
Inspired by the acclaimed movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, the parents of Jessica Ghawi, who was among twelve people killed in the July 2012 Aurora theater shooting, are behind a campaign to use outdoor advertising to shame Representative Mike Coffman and other opponents of gun-control legislation.
We’d like to nominate the Denver Broncos’ game presentation and marketing department for a genius grant after staffers came up with one of the great ideas of all-time: announcing the team’s fourth and fifth round picks for the 2018 NFL draft, slated to take place on Saturday, April 28, live from Casa Bonita, the world’s weirdest Mexican restaurant, complete with participation by cast members such as cliff divers and a costumed gorilla. And it turns out that South Park’s famous, Cartman-centric Casa Bonita episode helped inspire the event, which will be open to the public and is likely to make cameo appearances on the NFL Network’s draft coverage.
With more and more Denver-area school districts choosing to close on April 26 and 27 because of planned teacher walkouts over low pay and poor classroom funding, and protests over teacher pay in places such as Oklahoma raising passions nationwide, two Republican legislators have introduced a bill that could potentially jail striking teachers in Colorado for up to six months. All four Democratic candidates for governor on the June primary ballot are aghast at the notion, with former state senator Mike Johnston, who initially sounded the alarm, leading the charge. But none of the three GOP hopefuls who made the ballot responded to Westword’s question about the measure.
