Editor’s note: This is the latest profile in Kelsey Whipple’s ongoing series highlighting local political activists. When Eleanor Dewey dropped out of Aurora’s Grandview High School her sophomore year, the decision was an easy one. As a young trans woman who felt no connection to her coursework, her peers and…
At 2 p.m. today, the Colorado Personhood Coalition will hold a press conference at a very pointed location — a local Planned Parenthood office — to tout the beginning of a petition drive for the latest version of a Personhood resolution. And campaign reps including Kristi Burton Brown, the face…
Update below: When Occupy Denver members mark the group’s six-month anniversary next week, they’ll focus on accomplishments. One example: Protesters recently interrupted and shut down a live Fox 31 broadcast with complaints of subpar previous coverage. From there, as you’ll see in the video below, the F-bombs fly, with reporter…
Last night, police arrested three Occupy Denver/Thunderdome protesters on the corner of 14th and Broadway after an attempt to film one officer ended in threats of violence and the protesters being pepper-sprayed in the face. Corey Donahue and Patrick Marsden, both Thunderdome cooks, are currently in jail on suspicion of…
Last week, one Occupy Denver protester self-identified as having scabies. The skin infection, created by mites inside the skin, is spread through close contact, leaving city officials concerned about health in Civic Center Park and protesters worried about repeated visits from police and Public Works employees. Yesterday, approximately fifteen police…
Pro-choice activists, legislators, physicians and faith leaders gathered on the west steps of the Capitol Monday in a “Rally to Protect Women’s Health.” The event was a spin-off of Pro-Choice Lobby Day, as well as a response to local and federal fetal personhood proposals…
The issue of foreclosures is one the Colorado Progressive Coalition has remained involved with for two and a half years — though many of its members can put that number to shame. So as House Bill 1156 nears the chamber’s economic and business development committee hearing tomorrow, CPC, Moveon.org, Metro…
A federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge conducted in Aurora over seven days last week and early this week resulted in the identification of twelve immigrants subject to deportation, ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok says…
Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler claims he’s under unwarranted attacks by media and Democratic leaders like Rick Palacio, who recently accused Gessler’s proposed voting policy as an attempt at voter suppression. Palacio connected Gessler’s legislations to the 1965 civil rights movement, during which advocates protesting for African-American voting rights…
Today, approximately a hundred advocates of women’s health took to the Capitol as part of Pro-Choice Lobby Day. The event, held in Denver annually for more than a decade, brought the Protect Families Protect Choice Coalition together with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to train supporters as citizen advocates…
After months of waiting and sifting through discovery, Mercer Lewis, 21, became the first Occupy Denver activist to take his case in front of a jury yesterday. After the trial, Lewis, who was found not guilty on the charge of obstructing a street or passageway, had a great deal to…
Today is the last in a seven-day “surge” being conducted in Aurora by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Their supposed target? Deportable aliens who have been arrested, or those issued court summonses who are fugitives or who have been previously deported or convicted of crimes. It’s the summonses part that’s causing…
Nearly twenty years after Denver’s much-hyped “Summer of Violence” triggered a harsher approach to juvenile offenders statewide, lawmakers are wrestling with two reform bills — and a new report contends that Colorado’s system for moving juvenile cases into adult court isn’t working and doesn’t provide adequate protection for teen defendants…
The Thunderdome, the original kitchen and symbol of Occupy Denver, has launched no shortage of projects since a frequent police presence encouraged its members to distance themselves from the organization in November. Along with a weekly radio show and the ongoing construction of three mobile food carts, the Thunderdome has…
In a 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, African-Americans and other minority citizens secured the right to vote. To honor their efforts, Colorado Democratic lawmakers, faith leaders and march veterans are urging citizens to utilize their voting rights by participating in tonight’s Democratic Caucus. But they are…
Visitors to Occupy Denver’s website will notice that the local chapter of the national movement has increased its online persona in recent months. Accompanying its newly redesigned site is a push for more extensive coverage of the group’s events that includes more frequent actions and educational opportunities, as well as…
Update: Immigration and Customs Enforcement has revised an earlier statement that ICE is screening traffic summonses in Aurora to identify undocumented immigrants who are fugitives, have been previously deported or have been convicted of crimes. The revised statement, sent two hours after the original, says ICE is screening court summonses,…
The 16th Street Mall was temporarily shut down Wednesday, when Occupy Denver staged a march against the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is a conservative nonprofit that favors large corporations, demonstrators said, and its membership includes over 2,000 state legislators. The protest under the banner of “Shut Down the Corporations”…
It sits on the couch of his Washington, D.C. apartment: A black bag, still filled with supplies that could help President Barack Obama in a pinch: Tide stain remover, newspapers, papers, medicine. And even though thirty-year-old Reggie Love is Obama’s former “body man,” not his current minder, he could be…
Local immigrant advocates aren’t exactly elated at the news that the Obama administration plans to phase out a controversial program that allows local law enforcement to act as immigration officers. “At the end of the day, there’s another elephant in the room,” says Justin Valas, of the Colorado Immigrant Rights…
In January 2008, the night before the presidential election, Gilbert Ortiz received his first strange phone call. The following morning, the Pueblo county clerk and recorder would receive thousands repeating the report, but his relative caught him first. She asked why he had changed her polling location the night before…
Update: In the wake of Saturday’s Fuck the Police march (see photos below), assorted media outlets, including the Denver Post, shared reports that urine-filled balloons had been hurled at the event, which resulted in five arrests. But Denver Police spokesman Lieutenant Matt Murray, who was on the scene, says he…
