Thornton High School senior Samuel Opoku, a two-time Colorado Poetry Out Loud champion, has made it to the final round in Washington, D.C. — again — and will be aiming for bardic glory as the national recitation contest concludes tonight. And not just glory. The winner of the event, sponsored…
The sweet plea deal struck by former Arapahoe County sheriff Pat Sullivan for meth possession and soliciting prostitution, which netted him a sentence of thirty days in jail and probation, has been widely criticized for its leniency. But no one is probably in a better position to appreciate the break…
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management can no longer “remain studiously ignorant of material scientific evidence” indicating that castrating wild stallions is a problematic and possibly illegal way of managing the herds, a federal judge has ruled in the long-running battle over the fate of America’s wild horses…
Phil Anschutz didn’t get to the top of the moguldom heap by thinking small. The billionaire Quest founder has built his sprawling empire on audacity as well as savvy, and his latest venture — which involves wooing the NFL back to Los Angeles — may be the most ambitious of…
The Republican House leadership’s successful effort to block passage of a civil unions bill yesterday, orchestrated by Speaker Frank McNulty, could well have aftershocks stretching to the fall elections. And lawmakers who opted for inaction may be facing much more than the wrath of liberals and activists committed to the…
A lengthy administrative battle over a 42-unit apartment complex, to be built on the corner of a historic block of grand single-family homes on the south end of Capitol Hill, appears to be just about over. But opponents of the 777 Emerson Lofts say the review of the ever-evolving project…
After nearly five days of testimony in a lawsuit brought by Troy Anderson, a prisoner who’s been in solitary confinement for twelve years, a Denver federal judge was strongly urging Colorado Department of Corrections officials to fix the harshest conditions at the state’s supermax prison — before he has to…
Yesterday the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced that it would remove 22 proposed oil and gas parcels in the scenic North Fork Valley from a summer lease sale, opting instead to “conduct additional analysis…based on public input.” And the public that’s been deluging the BLM with input — objections,…
Here at the Criminal Affairs Desk, we’ve tried to aid the rehabilitation process by offering newly convicted felons some insiders’ advice for that difficult transition to life behind bars. We’ve provided former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio with tips on maintaining personal hygiene and avoiding snitches and bewildered newbies help in…
Statehouse veterans know that the easiest way to squash a bill they don’t like isn’t to kill it outright but to send it out for serious “study” — to some lonely subcommittee or outside agency, where it will languish and eventually die a slow, agonizing death from neglect. Senate Bill…
Even under the best of circumstances, the act of robbing a convenience store for the sake of a handful of singles in ready cash has to be one of the dumbest crimes imaginable, just on a simple risk-to-benefit scale. But for absolute desperation, nothing beats jacking a 7-Eleven at three…
At her parole hearing last summer, Jennifer Reali insisted that she’s a different person from the 29-year-old, ninja-clad assassin who ambushed and killed her lover’s wife, Dianne Hood, outside Hood’s lupus support meeting in 1990. The parole board didn’t entirely agree, but there’s no question that the soundtrack to Reali’s…
Call it the latest legal frontier in the city’s cab wars. A recent Colorado Court of Appeals decision, reinstating a severely injured Denver Yellow Cab driver’s lawsuit against the company’s insuror for allegedly failing to offer him adequate insurance, may open the door for similar claims by other injured drivers…
The first thing Amy Smith has to explain to skeptics is that she isn’t a Scientologist. You don’t have to belong to an oddball religion to question American medicine’s heavy reliance on psychoactive drugs to treat everything from mild depression to schizophrenia. In fact, members of a growing consumer revolt,…
Last year a federal review panel heard some amazing excuses from corrections officials about why their jails and prisons have exceptionally high rates of sexual assault. One sheriff even claimed inmates were faking stories of rape in order to get cookies from researchers…
It’s a story too common in recent months: horses found emaciated on a Colorado ranch and seized by authorities in a last-ditch effort to save them. Half a dozen horses were discovered in a state of severe neglect on a ranch near Bailey in February. One of them, a colt…
This week’s cover story, “The Columbine Effect,” reports on the controversy over a proposed television miniseries based on the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School — and the effort by CHS grad Sam Granillo to complete a documentary focused on the survivors’ stories, dealing with the shock and long-term trauma…
This week’s feature, “The Columbine Effect,” reports on the controversy over a proposed miniseries about the shootings at Columbine — and the way filmmakers have made use of the tragedy to advance various agendas of their own. But references to Columbine in indie films and documentaries, however upsetting to survivors…
In 1919 rancher J. Frank Norfleet got swindled twice by a roving group of slick con artists, who cleaned him out of $45,000 with a fake stock-exchange scam similar to the “Big Con” operation in The Sting. But rather than embrace defeat, Norfleet became the “boomerang sucker.” He spent the…
This week’s feature, “The Columbine Effect,” explores the enduring fascination indie filmmakers seem to have with the attack on Columbine High School thirteen years ago — and the agendas advanced (gun control, bullying prevention, etc.) in their fictional and not-so-fictional interpretations of the tragedy. The latest entry in the field,…
On a Tuesday night on the cusp of spring, when a young man’s fancy turns and the cruelest month looms just days away, you could do worse than head to Lakewood to hear great verse declaimed at the seventh annual Poetry Out Loud state finals. Declaimed, emoted, and embraced –…
The news first surfaced in the Hollywood trade press last month: The Lifetime cable network is developing a miniseries about the 1999 school shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Based on a best-selling book about the tragedy, the project involves a team of heavyweight producers whose collective film…
