The person who died after crashing into a tree while skiing at Winter Park Resort yesterday, February 15, has been identified as Alicyn Mitcham, a seventeen-year-old from Colmesneil, Texas. She is the fifth person to die at a Colorado ski area this season.
Sure, Tom Brady just won his fifth Super Bowl with the New England Patriots. But even though he’s now retired and can claim a mere two NFL titles, former Denver Broncos superstar Peyton Manning is still winning 2017 thanks to his starring role in a slew of hilarious commercials, including one delivered during last night’s edition of the hit ABC sitcom Modern Family for gazebos and sheds.
Jeanette Vizguerra is well-known to Westword readers as a symbol of the fight for immigrant rights thanks to her years-long struggles to stay in this country with her four children; three of them are U.S. citizens, while the fourth is a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Now, Vizguerra is taking on the same role nationally. Media outlets ranging from Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program to National Public Radio are covering her entry into sanctuary at Denver’s First Unitarian Church in an effort to avoid deportation.
The delay in approving a contract extension for University of Colorado Boulder head football coach Mike MacIntyre has everything to do with domestic-violence accusations against Joe Tumpkin, one of his assistants.
Coverage of a new Realtor.com post about the ten U.S. cities with the fastest-growing suburbs, which ranked Denver at number one, has focused on Montbello, one of the most vibrant yet most misunderstood sections of the metro area. The result has been plenty of confusion.
Jeremiah Hooker, 28, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder last year. Now, however, he has been convicted of a much less serious charge: tampering with evidence. Prosecutors say he was guilty only of trying to hide a gun in a gopher hole after what is now believed to have been a tragic accident among friends.
What are arguably the two most shocking crimes to take place in Denver during this still-young year followed over the next couple of weeks, and both had RTD connections. Against this backdrop, we reached out to spokesman Scott Reed to ask how RTD is responding to these two shootings.
In the period leading up to Valentine’s Day, the Internet spits out list after list about the most romantic places across the country. But “Is Virginia for Lovers? Geographic Variation in Adult Attachment Orientation” stands out from the pack.
Believe it or not, it’s been five years since then-Durango High School student Sydney Spies was thrust into the national spotlight, making appearances on the Today show and numerous other outlets after her senior pictures were rejected for inclusion in the DHS yearbook after being deemed too sexy. And she’s got plenty to say about the experience and everything that’s followed.
The man who died skiing at Breckenridge on Friday, February 10, has been identified as Ricardo Cohen, a 26-year-old from Mexico City. The accident took place on Volunteer, an expert run off the resort’s renowned Peak 9.
If passed, a new bill will create a Colorado domestic violence fatality review board and mandate that agencies throughout the state gather and share details about fatal and near-death domestic-violence. The result, state senator Lucia Guzman believes, will be a more complete picture of this particularly horrific crime. “After we have that,” she says, “we can hopefully move into a prevention mode.”
Nathan Valdez, the nineteen-year-old wanted for the killing of Tim Cruz, 32, at the 12th and Sheridan light-rail station on February 7, has been taken into custody. He is being held on suspicion of first-degree murder.
How many hit-and-runs are there in Denver? We analyzed Denver Police Department traffic-accident data for the first six days of February, and by our count, a staggering 99 hit-and-runs took place over that span, including 22 of them on a single day.
This week, the Colorado Department of Human Services, in conjunction with Governor John Hickenlooper’s office, formally requested that the General Assembly allocate more than $6 million annually from the state’s marijuana-tax cash fund for a new program that would offer help to chronic drug users as opposed to criminalizing them. Art Way, senior director for criminal-justice reform for the national Drug Policy Alliance and director of the organization’s Colorado chapter, which worked closely with state agencies in crafting the proposal (it’s on view below), sees the impact of this approach as potentially revolutionary for those struggling with addictions to heroin and other heavy narcotics.
The confirmation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General in the administration of President Donald Trump was touted by Senator Cory Gardner, who voted to confirm the former Alabama senator shortly after doing likewise for new Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a donor, along with her family, of nearly $50,000 to the Colorado Republican. But the news isn’t being cheered by Colorado’s other senator, Democrat Michael Bennet, or marijuana-industry representatives fearful that Sessions, a vocal pot hater, will soon order a crackdown on cannabis sales in Colorado and beyond.
This week marked the death of legislation that would have allowed cyclists to treat red lights and stop signs as yields at intersections with no oncoming traffic. Because the so-called “Idaho stop” bill failed to escape the state senate’s transportation committee, bike riders who roll past stop signs even when the route’s clear will be breaking a state law that’s already filled with plenty of oddities and quirks.
During a court hearing marked by tears and frustration, Brooke Higgins, now seventeen, was sentenced following guilty pleas in adult court for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and in juvenile court for solicitation to commit murder as part of what the 18th Judicial District DA’s office calls “a plot against Mountain Vista High School” circa December 2015. As district attorney George Brauchler told us in our previous coverage, on view below, this unusual combination of juvenile and adult charges was pressed so that prosecutors could publicly release their evidence against Higgins, and they’ve done so. Her arrest affidavit, also shared here, details what Brauchler and company see as practical plans for a Columbine-style attack and what Higgins’s family and supporters view as the dark fantasies of a troubled, drug-abusing teen who never meant to hurt anyone.
Yesterday, Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s controversial pick to head the Department of Education, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate only after Vice President Mike Pence cast a tie-breaking vote. As such, every “yea” was key, including the one delivered by Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, a persistent cheerleader for the selection who just happens to have benefited from the newly minted Education secretary’s largesse.
Rebekah Joy Wallin has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the disturbing March 2016 death of Bethannie Johnson, the three-year-old niece of her live-in girlfriend, Shanna Gossett. When asked by the judge in the case why she had decided to enter this plea, Wallin gave a simple answer. “Because I’m guilty,” she said.
CW2’s Tom Green has announced that he’s leaving Daybreak, the morning-news program he’s anchored for fifteen years, at the end of May. And he’s doing it on his own quirky terms.
The February 1 press conference about the arrest of Joshua Cummings in the execution-style killing of RTD security officer Scott Von Lanken took place on an upper level of the Denver Police Department administration building. Afterward, I rode an elevator toward the ground floor with DPD public-information officer Doug Schepman and another man. As we descended, the man asked, “Do the elevators here always smell like weed?” Schepman laughed. “Some days, it’s worse than others,” he said.
Stalking or sexual assault victims living in a rental apartment where the crime took place aren’t legally allowed to break their lease even if they live dangerously close to the perpetrator in question. Individuals in this situation are forced to choose between financial ruin and being traumatized again and again in a residence where their physical safety and mental well-being are at risk.
