The concerns of Denver Broncos fans about quarterback Trevor Siemian and kicker Brandon McManus, among others, weren’t exactly put to rest by the squad’s 16-10 victory over the Oakland Raiders yesterday, October 1. But the whining done by Raiders Nation on Twitter during and after the contest, as seen in the twenty memorable tweets on view below, made the victory taste plenty sweet anyhow.
In a year that’s been filled with tragic climbing deaths in Colorado, the latest strikes close to home. Henry Gholz, a 66-year-old from Fort Collins who recently retired from an impressive position with the National Science Foundation, died on Saturday, September 30, in a fall from the Batman and Robin route up Batman Pinnacle at Rocky Mountain National Park.
Today, September 29, Denver mayor Michael Hancock formally unveiled a draft document of Denver’s new proposed five-year housing plan. “Housing an Inclusive Denver,” accessible below, aims to address the have-nots as well as the haves in the go-go economy of today’s Mile High City. Despite the apparent good times, Hancock acknowledged that “people are being squeezed out.”
Two months ago, family members of Marvin Booker, who died in Denver’s main jail during a July 2010 excessive-force incident that led to a $6 million settlement, appeared at a press conference to demand that Denver District Attorney Beth McCann begin a new investigation into the tragic incident. Now, McCann is referring what she calls a “limited aspect” of the case to the Denver Grand Jury. And while McCann’s office isn’t divulging any specifics, the panel will almost certainly look into reports of a missing Taser that Booker’s loved ones see as evidence of a potential criminal coverup.
A new study ranking the most expensive Zip Codes in Colorado shows that the vast majority of them are in the vicinity of Denver and Boulder. Only three Zip Codes out of the top fifty fall outside that area, and all of them can be found along the Interstate 25 urban corridor.
Two years after we told you about Melvin Lewis’s arrest for punching his girlfriend amid an argument in which she killed a dog, he’s back in the news again. This time, he’s accused of stealing from bags at Denver International Airport, where he worked, and his specific focus is said to have been guns.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado has filed a lawsuit against two Aurora police officers who allegedly ordered a man eating a muffin at a local coffee shop to leave because he was black and wore a hoodie.
Aurora theater shooter James Holmes has been on the move within the prison system since a 2015 attack on him by Mark “Slim” Daniels, who apologized in a letter to our Alan Prendergast for being unable to send the man who killed twelve people and injured seventy others at the Aurora Century 16 theater on July 20, 2012, to “Satan’s lake of fire.” Now, for the first time in more than a year, we finally know his location. At present, he’s being held at the United States penitentiary in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.
As we’ve reported, tempers flared at a September 22 football game between the Weld Central High School Rebels and Denver’s Manual High School Thunderbolts over claims about the display of a Confederate flag made by Manual principal Nick Dawkins, among others. Weld Central reps subsequently denied anything like this actually happened, and now, Dawkins has signed on to a letter released just shy of 9 p.m. last night, September 26, that absolves the visiting team and blames unidentified spectators for trying to bring in a flag. However, the document, on view below, doesn’t address other assertions made by Dawkins about injuries to Manual players and the alleged use of racial slurs by some members of the Rebels.
The past few months have been insane for the new KS 107.5 morning show combo of Tony V, Cedes and DJ Chonz. But the story behind their radio team-up is even crazier, as is clear from the following three-way interview, in which they tell the highly unusual tale in greater detail than ever before.
Thanks to Denver’s red-hot housing market, Mile High City home values are currently higher than they were at their pre-recession peak, although perhaps not by as much as some frustrated home buyers might have expected. But while Colorado as a whole has experienced a similar boom, there are plenty of places in the state where homes are worth considerably less than they were a decade and a half ago.
As we’ve reported, organizers of the Denver 420 Rally have been prohibited from applying for a Denver event permit for three years as a result of complaints about security and cleanup issues at this year’s edition, and their priority status with the city was rescinded. Attorney Rob Corry, representing lead planner Miguel Lopez and his team, formally appealed that decision at a marathon session on September 19, and while the hearing officer has up to thirty days to issue a ruling, the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation has already sent Lopez an application for the 2018 event. He sees this development as a positive sign even though a line inserted into the document reads, “Due to the pending appeal, DPR reserves the right to cancel any dates or reservations.”
The number of deaths in Colorado related to heroin and other opioids have skyrocketed of late, with the recent fatal overdoses of celebrity sons Eric Bolling Jr. and Max Barry in the Denver-Boulder area underscoring the magnitude of the situation. Against this backdrop, author David Sheff and his son Nic Sheff, the respective author and subject of Beautiful Boy, a best-selling book about Nic’s addiction to methamphetamines, will co-headline a fundraising event for Arapahoe House, one of the state’s largest drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation centers, on Wednesday, September 27; get the details below. In advance of the appearance, David spoke with Westword about his personal experiences and the challenge of making progress on such a vexing issue.
Reports that Colorado Springs-based Phil Long Dealerships sacked Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller by canceling his endorsement agreement with the firm because he took a knee during the National Anthem along with more than thirty teammates prior to a September 24 game against the Buffalo Bills were amended when sources came forward to say the pact had actually expired months ago; see our previous coverage below. But the story is more complicated than that. Turns out the Long folks did ask two local TV stations to stop airing ads starring Miller following his demonstration.
Days after the end of a public-comment period about proposed changes in how sexual-misconduct accusations are handled on college campuses, the Department of Education, headed by the controversial Betsy DeVos, has announced that it is retracting two Obama-era documents that provided guidance in this area. A University of Colorado Denver expert in the field tells us this development won’t immediately alter how schools deal with such matters, but it suggests that the future could bring policy changes that will be sweeping and potentially problematic.
Friday, September 22, was a rough day for Denver Public Schools. First, a number of East High School students joined assorted parents at a protest prompted by the de facto ouster of principal Andy Mendelsberg and assistant principal/athletic director Lisa Porter in regard to their handling of videos showing cheer team members being forced into splits. Then, that evening, claims about a Confederate flag at a football game between the Weld Central High School Rebels and the Manual High School Thunderbolts resulted in charges of racism and alleged in-game injuries to three Manual players that may have been related to bad blood stirred by the controversy.
Your Denver Broncos laid an egg large enough to contain a T-Rex in a 26-16 loss to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, September 24. But on Twitter, much of the conversation about the squad’s first road defeat of the season, following home wins over the Los Angeles Chargers and Dallas Cowboys, revolved around a jaw-dropping unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty against superstar Von Miller during the fourth quarter of the contest, when the outcome had still not been determined. See our picks for the twenty most memorable tweets here.
David Flores doesn’t mind if stories linger online about his 2010 arrest for bank robbery. He was definitely guilty of committing the crime, as he readily admits. But what pisses him off is that those articles portray him as an idiot who was literally caught red handed after trying to use stolen currency stained, along with his fingers, by a dye pack that exploded as he made his getaway. He insists that the truth is a lot more complicated, and a lot less dumb.
OyZhana Williams is suing three members of the Aurora Police Department over a 2015 incident during which she was roughed up and had her head stomped in the parking lot of a hospital where her boyfriend was being treated for a gunshot wound, apparently because a cop lauded for heroism during the aftermath of the Aurora theater shooting didn’t like the way she dropped her keys. The violent exchange was captured on a video that’s on view below.
Denver continues to grow at a crazy pace, with transplants aplenty causing the city’s population to swell. Now, a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data reveals the ten cities that have contributed the most new Denverites in recent years. And while many of them are major metropolises from across the country, the top of the roster is dominated by communities in Colorado.
Today, The Green Solution is one of Colorado’s largest marijuana dispensary chains, and it’s expanded into four other states so far, with big plans for future growth. But co-founder and CEO Kyle Speidell, who recently spoke to us about the launch of Blazin’ Hit Radio, the ambitious new online home of former KS 107.5 favorites Larry and Kathie J, who are hosting a welcome-back party for listeners on Friday, September 22 (details below), notes that TGS is, at its heart, a family affair. Indeed, he and his three brothers have helped develop the operation over the past seven years into what seems poised to become a signature cannabis business from coast to coast.
Given the horrific damage wreaked upon Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico by recent hurricanes, those of us who reside in Colorado may think we’re relatively safe from Mother Nature at her most extreme compared to most places in the country. But a new study suggests that we’re living in a dream world. The figures show that five counties in Colorado, mostly along the urban corridor, are at very high risk of housing damage from natural hazards, with Denver listed as the sixth most imperiled major city in the country by this standard.
