Update: A surprising twist in the story of a once-missing Johnstown teen who said she’d been kidnapped and held against her will. David Calderon, the 38-year-old man busted in connection with the case, is not being charged with a crime at this time — although he’s not entirely off the…
In sharing preliminary 2012 crime states, the Aurora Police Department faces an interesting dilemma — how to process the July 20 massacre at the Aurora Century 16, which led to a dozen deaths and scores of injuries. APD data shows major crimes in the community went up slightly if the…
In cover stories like “Welcome to Arapahell,” Alan Prendergast has written about Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers’ frequent use of the “big bitch,” aka habitual criminal charges that can double or triple an offender’s sentence. Chambers is now gone, replaced by Dave Young, but she landed a big-bitch trophy…
How do you help young children cope with a terrible tragedy? A first-grade teacher in Aurora has come up with a way. Every day after recess, the kids in Megan Anderson’s class at Peoria Elementary sit on the classroom’s alphabet rug and talk about the kind things they’ve done that…
Dustin Canup, twenty, and Sareena Morrison, eighteen, can’t be accused of trying to victimize a sympathetic person. After all, the target of their alleged crime was a pedophile thought to have arranged a creepy tryst with a six-year-old girl. But that doesn’t mean the pair are off the hook; they’re…
Attorneys for accused Aurora theater shooter James Holmes have asked a judge to delay a hearing at which they hope to question Fox News reporter Jana Winter about her sources. Back in July, Winter reported that Holmes sent a notebook “full of details about how he was going to kill…
The 1996 killing of six-year-old beauty-pageant regular JonBenet Ramsey is arguably Colorado’s most famous unsolved murder case — one that continues to fascinate a significant percentage of the public more than a decade and a half later. For proof (something in short supply when it comes to the incident), look…
Last week, Denver Police officer Robert Motyka was shot amid a police chase in which one suspect was killed and four others were arrested. Now, the Denver DA’s Office has released one of this quartet but charged the other three — Chuck Montoya, Jude Montoya and Michael Valdez — with…
Last September, Crocs co-founder George Boedecker pleaded not guilty in a DUI case the previous month that, according to a police report on view below, he initially blamed on a “batshit crazy” Taylor Swift. Well, never mind. Boedecker has now admitted his guilt in the matter and been sentenced for…
When a defendant pleads not guilty by reason of insanity in Colorado, the burden falls on prosecutors to prove otherwise. A bill sponsored by state Representative Frank McNulty would shift the responsibility to the defense, so that a defendant who pleads insanity would have to prove it “by clear and…
On Sunday, a Colorado Springs “juvenile male” said to be playing with matches set his bedroom on fire, after which he was arrested for fourth-degree arson. Unusual? Less so than you might think. Last year, the city saw 39 significant fire incidents involving minors and twelve arrests requiring the resources…
We recently wrote about a legislative push in Colorado to allow permitted employees to carry guns in schools — one of a handful of gun-related bills already making headlines at the start of the new session. We’ve since heard from Jeff Bollinger, a school superintendent in Sheridan Lake, who supports…
What does a dog named Nuzzy have to do with the arrests of Bryan Carver and Michael Byrd on a potpourri of charges involving drugs and weapon possession by previous offenders? The answer has to do with Nuzzy’s collar — after which Carver and Byrd were the ones getting collared…
In March 2011, the town of Hugo, in Lincoln County, was shaken by the murders of Charles and Laura Clagett, an elderly couple who’d lived in the area for years. Soon, their great grandson — later ID’d as Greg Smith, a few weeks shy of seventeen — was arrested and…
A stolen vehicle. Two armed robbery attempts, one of them successful. And a police chase prior to an arrest. That’s a full day for anyone — but especially for a twelve year old, busted yesterday along with a wizened cohort, age sixteen. What happened? Here’s how the cops describe it…
As the debate around gun policy and mental health heats up in Colorado and across the country, Representative Claire Levy, a Boulder Democrat, is pushing forward with a bill that she says would help keep weapons out of the hands of the wrong people. The legislation would establish real-time data…
Update: Earlier today, we shared the arrest affidavit naming Samuel Carter, one of two Boulder cops charged in the shooting of a Mapleton neighborhood elk on New Year’s Day; see our previous coverage below. Now, the City of Boulder has announced that Carter and cohort Brent Curnow, who also faces…
A year ago, the Colorado Progressive Coalition relaunched its Racial Justice Hotline. The goal was to collect stories and statistics about racial profiling and police misconduct in the hopes of changing the culture of policing — which, as evidenced by the story of Alex Landau, who was beaten by police…
Justice for the family of Marvin Booker may have to wait. On Monday, Booker’s brother, sister-in-law and cousins stood in front of the statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. in City Park and expressed their disappointment that the civil lawsuit they filed against the city and the sheriff’s deputies whose…
Derrick Martin’s team, the New England Patriots, fell to the Baltimore Ravens in a brutal AFC Championship Game loss on Sunday — but it’s hardly the worst thing that happened to him and those he loves on that day. During the evening, the Aurora home of this Colorado native was…
The judge in the James Holmes case will allow Holmes’s defense attorneys to subpoena a New York-based Fox News reporter who first reported that the accused Aurora theater shooter sent a notebook “full of details about how he was going to kill people” to a University of Colorado psychiatrist. The…
Last night, speakers at the reopening of the Aurora Century theater, the scene of a July 20 rampage, decried violence in the city. But just a few hours later, a woman was shot to death approximately three miles away. Look below for the basics about the community’s latest homicide…
