If passed, a new bill will create a Colorado domestic violence fatality review board and mandate that agencies throughout the state gather and share details about fatal and near-death domestic-violence. The result, state senator Lucia Guzman believes, will be a more complete picture of this particularly horrific crime. “After we have that,” she says, “we can hopefully move into a prevention mode.”
Nathan Valdez, the nineteen-year-old wanted for the killing of Tim Cruz, 32, at the 12th and Sheridan light-rail station on February 7, has been taken into custody. He is being held on suspicion of first-degree murder.
How many hit-and-runs are there in Denver? We analyzed Denver Police Department traffic-accident data for the first six days of February, and by our count, a staggering 99 hit-and-runs took place over that span, including 22 of them on a single day.
This week, the Colorado Department of Human Services, in conjunction with Governor John Hickenlooper’s office, formally requested that the General Assembly allocate more than $6 million annually from the state’s marijuana-tax cash fund for a new program that would offer help to chronic drug users as opposed to criminalizing them. Art Way, senior director for criminal-justice reform for the national Drug Policy Alliance and director of the organization’s Colorado chapter, which worked closely with state agencies in crafting the proposal (it’s on view below), sees the impact of this approach as potentially revolutionary for those struggling with addictions to heroin and other heavy narcotics.
The confirmation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General in the administration of President Donald Trump was touted by Senator Cory Gardner, who voted to confirm the former Alabama senator shortly after doing likewise for new Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a donor, along with her family, of nearly $50,000 to the Colorado Republican. But the news isn’t being cheered by Colorado’s other senator, Democrat Michael Bennet, or marijuana-industry representatives fearful that Sessions, a vocal pot hater, will soon order a crackdown on cannabis sales in Colorado and beyond.
This week marked the death of legislation that would have allowed cyclists to treat red lights and stop signs as yields at intersections with no oncoming traffic. Because the so-called “Idaho stop” bill failed to escape the state senate’s transportation committee, bike riders who roll past stop signs even when the route’s clear will be breaking a state law that’s already filled with plenty of oddities and quirks.
During a court hearing marked by tears and frustration, Brooke Higgins, now seventeen, was sentenced following guilty pleas in adult court for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and in juvenile court for solicitation to commit murder as part of what the 18th Judicial District DA’s office calls “a plot against Mountain Vista High School” circa December 2015. As district attorney George Brauchler told us in our previous coverage, on view below, this unusual combination of juvenile and adult charges was pressed so that prosecutors could publicly release their evidence against Higgins, and they’ve done so. Her arrest affidavit, also shared here, details what Brauchler and company see as practical plans for a Columbine-style attack and what Higgins’s family and supporters view as the dark fantasies of a troubled, drug-abusing teen who never meant to hurt anyone.
Yesterday, Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s controversial pick to head the Department of Education, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate only after Vice President Mike Pence cast a tie-breaking vote. As such, every “yea” was key, including the one delivered by Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, a persistent cheerleader for the selection who just happens to have benefited from the newly minted Education secretary’s largesse.
Rebekah Joy Wallin has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the disturbing March 2016 death of Bethannie Johnson, the three-year-old niece of her live-in girlfriend, Shanna Gossett. When asked by the judge in the case why she had decided to enter this plea, Wallin gave a simple answer. “Because I’m guilty,” she said.
CW2’s Tom Green has announced that he’s leaving Daybreak, the morning-news program he’s anchored for fifteen years, at the end of May. And he’s doing it on his own quirky terms.
The February 1 press conference about the arrest of Joshua Cummings in the execution-style killing of RTD security officer Scott Von Lanken took place on an upper level of the Denver Police Department administration building. Afterward, I rode an elevator toward the ground floor with DPD public-information officer Doug Schepman and another man. As we descended, the man asked, “Do the elevators here always smell like weed?” Schepman laughed. “Some days, it’s worse than others,” he said.
Stalking or sexual assault victims living in a rental apartment where the crime took place aren’t legally allowed to break their lease even if they live dangerously close to the perpetrator in question. Individuals in this situation are forced to choose between financial ruin and being traumatized again and again in a residence where their physical safety and mental well-being are at risk.
Rent prices in Denver have been rising of late after leveling off in many locations. But the costs in the Mile High City seem reasonable in comparison with those at the priciest Colorado ski towns. Fortunately, though, better deals can be found in resort areas a little further from the beaten path.
It took a year, but an arrest has finally been made in the murder of Agate’s Ed Butler. Joe Robert Love, a 26-year-old from Colorado Springs, is currently in custody in El Paso, Texas for a slaying solved with assistance from video footage showing the suspected killer eating a candy bar and spinning in place at the scene of the crime.
A civil-rights lawsuit and motion for a preliminary injunction have been filed in relation to protests at Denver International Airport against President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order about immigration, which bans all refugees from entering the country for 120 days, indefinitely restricts U.S. entry by Syrians, and forbids visits by citizens of seven nations (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) for ninety days.
If you’re mentally ill and in crisis in Colorado, you can be legally put in jail for 24 hours even if you haven’t committed a crime. Moreover, an attempt to change this rule last year was driven by law enforcers who wanted the hold time for innocent sufferers to be extended, not eliminated. A task force assembled at the behest of Governor John Hickenlooper came to a very different conclusion. In a report on view below, the group called for so-called M-1 holds to end and provided some ideas about how to make it happen.
Dan Williams has been sentenced to two years of probation for shooting and killing two bear cubs outside his Evergreen home in September 2015. However, his punishment in the court of public opinion has been much worse.
On February 9, former University of Colorado Boulder defensive coach Joe Tumpkin is scheduled to appear in Adams County court for a preliminary hearing related to multiple counts of assault related to domestic violence accusations. But thanks to an exposé in Sports Illustrated, CU Boulder is already on trial in the court of public opinion over its handling of the Tumpkin matter, and the fallout is capable of undermining a program that took more than a decade to recover from a recruiting scandal whose ripples recently revealed a past sex assault investigation targeting new Broncos head football coach (and former CU Boulder assistant) Vance Joseph.
Did Joshua Cummings, who’s now been formally advised of a first-degree murder charge naming him in the execution-style slaying of RTD security officer Scott Von Lanken, ask for a beer at the conclusion of his initial court appearance?
Is subscribing to a newspaper an essential part of good citizenship, particularly during a period when we are inundated by fake news? In a recent column, Chuck Plunkett, editorial page editor for the Denver Post, argues yes.
A new study of Denver police shootings between 1983 and 2012 concludes that approximately 47 percent of them were questionable, 18 percent were problematic and just 35 percent were what co-author Robert Durán considers to be legitimate.
A new study lists Colorado as one of the ten best states to retire, and the reasons why it performed so well have as much to do with dollars and cents as excellent lifestyle options.
