In June, we told you about two men who were questioned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a carnival connected with Glenwood Springs’ Strawberry Days festival. One of those men, Julio Alvarez-Cortez, has now filed a lawsuit against the officers involved, including Carbondale cop Alvaro Agon…
Update by Michael Roberts: Muriel Keer, the 39-year-old mom (and alleged drug abuser) being investigated for child abuse resulting in death, was prostrate with grief after emergency personnel couldn’t revive her nine-month-old baby, found lifeless in a bathtub. But while the boy breathed his last, police say she was tapping…
Fake terrorists will attack the Denver metro area tomorrow in what will be the largest emergency response exercise these parts have ever seen. Called Operation Mountain Guardian — or OMG, for short — it will include imaginary disasters at four locations: Park Meadows Mall, Smedley Elementary School, Denver Union Station…
Trees need lots of things to grow: dirt, water, sunlight. And in the case of now-Governor John Hickenlooper’s ambitious plan to plant a million trees in metro Denver by 2025, they also need cold, hard cash. As such, the tree-planting initiative, called The Mile High Million, is hosting its first-ever…
The Denver Zoo is the greenest zoo in the country, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which awarded the zoo its first-ever (and aptly titled) Green Award. So what makes the Denver Zoo so environmentally friendly? One of the reasons has to do with elephant poop. Mounds and…
Tom Boasberg, Denver Public Schools superintendent, is a much-scrutinized man. In addition to often serving as the target of petitions and publicly aired grievances, he’s also evaluated each year by the school board. This year, the board will present its annual evaluation at a special meeting Thursday at noon. Crafting…
A jury has found Robert Walters, 25, guilty of murdering his girlfriend, Brittney Brashers, in November 2009 by beating her to death. The jury found him not guilty, however, of soliciting the murder of his then-wife, Elena Walters, whom he was cheating on with Brashers. Prosecutors had alleged that Walters…
Last year, we wrote about a new radio series sponsored by Denver Public Schools to teach English to Spanish-speakers. More than 3,000 tuned in and 220 completed the course. Now it’s returning for another year…
Tonight, Stacy Davidor Smith will take her crusade to delay the start of public school in Denver until September to the school board (which will also be taking feedback on its proposal to prevent board members’ overspending). Smith plans to present nearly 3,500 signatures gathered on two separate online petitions…
This morning, jurors heard two versions of what happened to Robert Walters’s girlfriend, Brittney Brashers, on the night she died. In closing arguments, the prosecution argued that Walters beat Brashers to death and then faked a car accident to cover it up. However, defense attorney Fernando Freyre said that scenario…
West High School has a new addition to its airplane hangar. (How many of you knew West even had an airplane hangar?) Yesterday, the U.S. Air Force Academy donated a jet engine to DPS’s Aircraft Maintenance Program, which is offered through the Emily Griffith Technical College but taught at West…
Denver Public Schools board members — and their credit cards — have been making headlines ever since Education News Colorado uncovered that more than one overspent their $5,000 annual budget, with Westword cover subject Andrea Merida leading the pack. This week, the board is poised to take the next steps…
Last night, the Department of Environmental Health board approved Denver’s first legal syringe exchange, which will be run by the Colorado AIDS Project. But the Harm Reduction Action Center, which serves injection drug users and has been at the forefront of legalizing syringe exchanges in Colorado, was not approved…
Those of you addicted to reality television (hello! guilty!) will be familiar with the MTV show Made, which takes awkward teenagers and transforms them into the prom queen. Last month, CMT debuted an adult version, and next week’s episode features a stay-at-home mom who wants to be made into a…
Shaun Kaufman and Colleen Collins, husband-and-wife private detectives and Westword cover subjects, don’t just serve lawsuits to biker dudes named Billy and find bullets buried on 800-acre ranches. They also write books, and their first, How to Write a Dick: A Guide to Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of…
This week’s cover story, “The Plot Thickens,” tells the story of husband-and-wife private detectives Shaun Kaufman and Colleen Collins and the time they followed a no-good cheating spouse to the bar at Sushi Den, which he was using as his own personal love den. But not all of their cases…
Update below: Today — gloriously breezy today! — Denver Public Schools students will finally get a respite from the oppressive heat that has marked the end of August. And since most city schools don’t have air-conditioning, many parents and school district officials have been left wondering: Should school start in…
Andrea Merida, Denver Public Schools board member and Westword cover subject, has been making headlines once again. Education News Colorado was the first to report this week that Merida had overspent her $5,000 DPS-boardmember budget by more than $7,000. More than $4,000 of the $12,637 she spent from July 2010…
Shaun Kaufman turns his 1996 sky-blue Toyota Corolla into a neighborhood in Englewood full of older houses. The one he’s looking for has a stone facade and a patchy lawn. Wind chimes dangle from the underside of the low roof. Wasps buzz around the wind chimes. Kaufman, half of the…
Shaun Kaufman and Colleen Collins are a real-life husband-and-wife team of private detectives. The couple are also authors, having recently completed their first book together, How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths. Their journey to becoming dicks themselves has been…
Testimony began yesterday in the trial of Robert Walters, an Iraq war veteran charged with killing his girlfriend, Brittney Brashers, and then putting a hit on his wife so she couldn’t testify against him. The case against Walters was the subject of our story, “Dead End.” The first major witness…
The voice on the other end of the phone was calm, in control. That part wasn’t unusual. Women who call the offices of Highlands Investigations & Legal Services, Inc., often sound unbreakable. If only that were true. This one used an even tone, but it disguised a fire raging in…
