There’s plenty to get disgusted about in the story of a Colorado female inmate who was awarded $1.3 million in damages for two years’ worth of sexual assaults by a male guard. As this report in the Denver Post recounts, federal judge David Ebel blasted the Colorado Department of Corrections…
In his first few weeks as Secretary of the Interior, former Colorado Senator Ken Salazar was fond of sporting his cowboy hat and declaring that there’s a new sheriff in town — even though the work at hand didn’t lend itself to quick draws, as explained in my feature “The…
Nobody and no property, it seems, are immune from the housing crisis. According to this report in the Denver Business Journal, one of Colorado’s most distinctive residences was headed for foreclosure this spring, and then it wasn’t. Built in the 1960s by the late, visionary architect Charles Deaton for his…
It’s been a long, strange trip for former Westword cover boy Rick Rosner, who debuted in these pages in 1986 as a roller-skating stripper/waiter who also happened to be the second-smartest man in America, according to Omni magazine. Since those innocent days, Rosner’s penchant for exhibitionism has tended to overshadow…
Three Colorado professors wanted to know more about gun violence in America — the social and cultural forces driving illegal gun use, how criminals view their gats, how they use them and why. So they did something few criminal justice researchers have ever bothered to do. They asked the thugs…
One of the strangest sentencing hearings ever to unfold in Denver’s federal court came to an end Wednesday, after five days of often-bewildering testimony. Convicted last year on 23 counts of fraud and failure to file tax returns, alternative fuel pioneer Bill Orr was facing up to twenty years in…
An Arapahoe County judge has issued a scathing order calling for a special prosecutor in a sexual assault case, while at the same time describing the local district attorney’s excuses for failing to pursue the controversial case for the past nine years as “unpersuasive” and unreasonable. Judge Carlos Samour Jr.’s…
California filmmaker Stephen Auerbach had his work cut out for him when he decided to make a documentary about the Race Across America four years ago. Although well-known in elite biking circles, RAAM may be the most undercovered and punishing sporting event around — a 3,000-mile race from the Pacific…
That annoying, low-pitched whine you hear is the bipartisan complaining from Colorado lawmakers, true blue and beet red, all bent out of shape and quaking in their Crocs over a simple little suggestion from the Obama administration to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. That would mean turning its inhabitants…
There’s an unusual and somewhat drawn-out sentencing hearing unfolding in federal court this week, as U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock ponders what to do with William Orr, an inventor and promoter who spent decades developing patents for an octane-boosting, emissions-reducing gasoline blend — only to run afoul of the Environmental…
The photo at right was taken by Lakewood police when they entered John Beech’s home last August 1. It shows the 53-year-old retired Coors manager’s will, keys, car titles and other important documents all neatly arranged on a kitchen table and waiting for someone to process after his body is…
John Francis Beech had a date with destiny last summer. He counted down the days on a calendar in his garage, crossing out each day leading to the final Sunday in July, on which he’d scrawled the word “OUT.” But first he had one last bit of business, one final…
Republicans rallied the troops in the Senate this morning and managed to block the much-delayed confirmation of David Hayes, Ken “New Sheriff in Town” Salazar’s choice to serve as his top deputy at the Department of the Interior. In a crucial test of whether the new administration’s bold break with…
“Over the River,” the plan by husband-and-wife artists Christo and Jeanne Claude to stretch almost six miles of silvery fabric over the Arkansas River between Canon City and Salida at a cost of around $50 million, has plenty of supporters. Congressmen, college presidents, Chamber of Commerce types and sundry art…
You got to love the way officials in this state think. According to this item in the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Department of Corrections has decided to ban visitors and volunteers from state and private prisons for at least a week, describing the move as a “precautionary” step to…
Most Americans probably don’t know that Canada has replaced Saudi Arabia as our primary source of imported oil. And fewer still have any idea that much of the Canadian oil, refined into gasoline at places like Suncor Energy’s plant in Commerce City, is some of the nastiest stuff on earth,…
Probably no other member of the Obama Cabinet has racked up as many frequent-flier miles over the past three months than former Colorado Senator Ken Salazar. As the new sheriff in town at the Department of the Interior, he’s been taking his agenda on the road — presiding over offshore…
Last week, a bill to end the death penalty in Colorado squeaked through the House of Representatives by one vote; it reaches a Senate committee on Wednesday afternoon, April 29. The abolitionists maintain that execution is too costly and time-consuming and that the money could be better spent funding a…
The push to ban the death penalty in Colorado might actually be going somewhere this year — but the same can’t be said for comprehensive sentencing reform. Under pressure from district attorneys and Colorado Attorney General John Suthers (chief apologist for the Owens-era lock-’em-up approach), Democratic lawmakers backed off Senate…
The last time Chad Laughlin saw his buddy Dylan Klebold, the two almost smashed into each other in the parking lot of Columbine High School. Laughlin was driving his Mistubishi Galant, headed off-campus with a friend for lunch. Klebold, wearing his black duster, was barreling into the lot in his…
Tom Tancredo cut short a planned speech on immigration at the University of North Carolina on Tuesday after a group of protesters sparked what the former congressman has described as a “small riot.” Tancredo’s appearance, at the invitation of a student organization called Youth for Western Civilization, was greeted with…
Without much fanfare, more than 2 million acres across the West became wilderness when President Barack Obama signed the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act two weeks ago. On April 9 Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and several members of Colorado’s congressional delegation celebrated the deal with a ceremony at…
