A year ago this month, a homicide outside Players Club in Adams County anchored a roundup of eight slayings or attacks at Colorado strip joints. And the violence connected to such venues didn’t end there. In recent months, there have been two more incidents at metro-area strip clubs, with the latest, at Dandy Dan’s on South Federal Boulevard, resulting in a first-degree murder charge against Jared Chavez.
The first avalanche death in Colorado circa 2018 took place on Sunday, January 21, during a weekend that saw the most significant winter storm of the season in a relatively snow-starved period hit large sections of Colorado. The incident, which took place between Red Mountain Pass and the Town of Silverton in an area known to locals as Sam’s Trees, serves as a tragic reminder about the importance of safety, as spelled out in ten tips from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center about how to avoid being killed in such a slide.
On the eve of his first anniversary as commander-in-chief, Donald Trump is already the worst president in U.S. history according to University of Colorado Boulder history professor Thomas Zeiler, among a team of CU historians who shared their picks for the ten poorest U.S. presidents of all time with us for a post published just prior to Trump’s inauguration last year. But Trump supporters have a very different and infinitely more positive view of the Donald’s performance, including Steve Barlock, who led the now-president’s 2016 campaign effort in Denver and is currently running as a Republican for governor of Colorado.
News that a Houston-area grand jury had been looking into a sexual assault accusation against wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders is something of a gift to the Denver Broncos, the franchise for which he’s played since 2014. Speculation has been rife that the team was looking to dump him for economic reasons, even though jettisoning the fan favorite would have almost certainly stirred controversy. Now, however, getting rid of Sanders despite him dodging an indictment in the Houston case can be spun as team executive John Elway and company taking a stand against the sort of bad off-the-field behavior that’s led to the Broncos racking up 49 arrests since 2000, a total that’s tied for the most in the NFL over that span.
Last year, the Great Love Debate declared that Denver was the worst city for dating in the country. But the dating app Hinge is much more upbeat about hooking up in the Mile High, as evidenced by its list of the ten most eligible singles in Denver circa 2018.
Amazon has just announced the twenty finalists for HQ2, a second headquarters for the giant company that’s expected to create 50,000 new jobs and result in a $5 billion investment for the winner. And Denver made the list, besting more than 200 other applicants.
From January 18 to 21, the annual conference of the Washington-based Gay Christian Network will take place in Denver; get the details below. According to Isaac Archuleta, GCN’s interim executive director (who’s from Denver), the gathering will give gay Christians living in less welcoming places the opportunity to gather in a warm and inclusive environment with other folks like them.
On January 19, 2017, the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, we listed the ten worst American presidents of all time as chosen by members of the CU Boulder history department and interviewed Professor Thomas Zeiler, a key part of the group, about Trump’s odds of joining this roster. A year later, we checked in again with Zeiler in an effort to gauge The Donald’s progress in regard to this dubious potential achievement, and the prof says Trump has reached the peak in record time. According to Zeiler, Trump is already the lousiest chief executive ever elected in the U.S., and he sees no way for his status to rise during the remaining three years of his current term.
As we’ve reported, Erika Lee, widow of Loveland Ski Area employee Adam Lee, who was killed last month beneath the Magic Carpet lift, a conveyor belt used in beginner ski lessons, has been frustrated by the dearth of information released to date about the circumstances of the tragic incident. But the first major study of the accident, just released by the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board, raises as many questions as answers. The report reveals that there was nothing mechanically wrong with the lift even though Lee spent more than an hour beneath it. The device only stopped after crushing Lee to death.
Today, January 17, a hearing continues in Adams County court to determine if a fifteen-year-old accused of killing ten-year-old Kiaya Campbell in June 2017 will be tried as an adult. Such efforts have been attempted at least fourteen times in Colorado over recent decades, and the results are decidedly mixed no matter what decision was ultimately made.
As we’ve reported, rent prices have been moderating in Denver and its neighboring communities during recent months, following a long period in which rental costs continued to go up and up and up in the Mile High City’s red-hot housing market. As recently as last month, year-to-year rent increases in Denver were ranked among the highest in the country. So it comes as a shock to discover that two bedrooms in Denver proper are now more affordable than comparably sized units in eleven other metro-area places.
Last night, January 16, Denver Post CEO/publisher and Digital First Media executive vice president Mac Tully announced that he will resign from his positions effective January 31. His announcement to staff, included below in its entirety, follows the reintroduction of a paywall at the paper for the first time since the Aurora theater shooting trial and the ongoing move of most newsroom journalists from the Post’s longtime downtown Denver headquarters to a printing plant in Adams County.
As we’ve reported, the Denver Post has put up a paywall over its content for the first time since the Aurora theater shootings trial. This change roughly coincides with most occupants of the paper’s newsroom moving out of Denver, to the Post printing plant in Adams County, and editorial page editor Chuck Plunkett, who penned a weekend column about the two subjects, believes the paywall is making plenty of staffers feel better about relocating.
At this writing, the weekend bust of Denver Broncos receiver Carlos Henderson on marijuana charges has not yet been entered into the NFL Player Arrest Database, a resource that aims to catalog all baller bookings since 2000. When the information about Henderson is added, the Broncos arrest number will hit 49, tied for the most of any team in the entire National Football League over that span.
According to lawyers for Dr. Teresa Brigance, who was seriously injured by a ski lift at Keystone, a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against her essentially offers blanket immunity for resorts in regard to anyone hurt or killed at a Colorado ski area even if negligence was the cause.
Attorney Rob Corry has now filed a second complaint in regard to the Denver 420 Rally. He’d previously sued the City and County of Denver on behalf of rally co-founder Miguel Lopez, who lost his priority event status and was banned from putting on the event during the next three years for allegedly violating his permit by leaving Civic Center Park trashed. Now, he wants injunctive relief on behalf of another client, Michael Ortiz, who was initially granted a permit for April 20 only to have his application denied by Allegra “Happy” Haynes, Denver’s Parks and Rec director, and given instead to Euflora, a dispensary chain with very different plans for the gathering.
Upon learning that Denver Broncos receiver Carlos Henderson was arrested yesterday, January 14, on a marijuana charge, most NFL fans will likely assume that such busts are common for members of the team, given Colorado’s reputation as a cannabis mecca. But no: According to a comprehensive database of NFL players in trouble, Henderson is the first Bronco in more than seventeen years to be taken into custody for an alleged weed violation.
Ten days after a double murder outside a bar on one of RiNo’s hottest blocks, no arrests have been made and no suspects have been identified. But the Denver Police Department is hoping to change that and is asking for the public’s help in identifying the killer or killers of two fathers, Guillermo Ornelas and Jose Herrera-Cabral.
On December 28, forty-year-old Loveland Ski Area employee Adam Lee died from crushing chest injuries while working on the Magic Carpet, a motorized beltway used to teach kids how to ski. More than two weeks later, Erika Mackey Lee, Adam’s wife, says her grief has been compounded by a lack of information from the resort about the circumstances that led to his death.
Yesterday, President Donald Trump inadvertently presented a dilemma for U.S. media outlets, whose executives had to decide how they should report about him calling certain African nations “shithole countries” during a January 11 meeting with senators over immigration policy. In the end, many national outlets went into the shithole with Trump, while plenty of local TV stations, including numerous ones in Denver, did not.
As we’ve reported, George Brauchler, 18th Judicial District DA and candidate for Colorado Attorney General, opposed Amendment 64, the 2012 measure that legalized limited recreational marijuana sales in the state, and he doesn’t think its passage has done anything to eliminate violent crime associated with pot. As AG, however, Brauchler says he would defend the state’s cannabis laws against threats from the likes of Attorney General Jeff Sessions while at the same time using a new strategy to attack the proliferation of illegal grows across Colorado, many of them allegedly associated with foreign drug cartels.
This week, the Denver Post put up a paywall around the vast majority of its material for the first time since April 2015, when the paper opened access to all of its digital and mobile content so that more readers could see its coverage of the Aurora theater shooting trial. Now, the only way folks who’ve grown accustomed to reading the Post online for free during the past two-years plus can see all the articles they’d like is by paying to subscribe to either the electronic or print edition of the publication.
