The battle to overhaul Colorado’s civil forfeiture law provided a few sparks in an otherwise dull legislative session. It was a classic clash of principles, pitting law-and-order types who view forfeiture as a powerful weapon in the war on drugs against defenders of constitutional rights and the sanctity of private…
Bastards. Idiots. Liars. Crooks. Bastard idiot lying crooks. Douglas Bruce doesn’t mince words. Charm and cajolery are not his strong suits. The state’s foremost anti-tax activist has been known to accuse state legislators of being both exceedingly greedy and hopelessly stupid, to question their sanity as well as their honesty,…
In the digital age, it’s a simple matter for a police agency to record incoming calls for help. Every 911 call, from the most trivial to the most urgent — say, a call from a frantic cafeteria worker at a local high school reporting gunfire and three victims down –…
When a public official takes on duties that appear to be at cross purposes, it’s said that the job requires him to wear “many hats.” If that’s the case, then Dave Thomas sports more headgear than a marching band. As three-term district attorney of Jefferson County, Thomas is the lead…
Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling once described Lou Pai as “my ICBM.” But like a lot of other talented execs whose careers rocketed into hyperdrive at the Houston-based energy giant, Pai turned out to be a secret weapon aimed directly at shareholders. When the wild ride was over, Pai emerged…
The caravan of cars and trucks moves slowly through the streets of San Luis and on to Chama, then heads into the hills. It comes to a stop a few minutes later, where a locked gate bars the road. NO TRESPASSING, the sign reads. And, in smaller print, as if…
“Shame on you.” Like monkeys and reporters, state lawmakers can be a shameless bunch. But that didn’t stop Randy Brown from heaping shame on members of the House Civil Justice and Judiciary Committee last week. After four hours of emotion-charged testimony, including pleas by Brown and other parents to seek…
Four years ago, the race for Jefferson County sheriff attracted about as much attention as a quilting bee in Punkin Center. The campaign, which pitted a powerful Republican county commissioner against a little-known Arvada police commander running as an independent, produced few fireworks and had a predictable outcome. This time…
On a Monday in early January, Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Deputy Jim Taylor was finally brought to account for the strange and disturbing story he’d been telling about the Columbine massacre for nearly three years. Summoned that morning to a meeting with internal affairs, Taylor admitted that the story was, in…
Robin Darbyshire is the first to admit that she hasn’t led an exemplary life. The bad checks, the multiple arrests and convictions, the Texas parole violation — they’re all a matter of record. So when the 41-year-old woman was arrested in Nevada last spring on an outstanding warrant for theft…
Last summer, a local executive spotted Annabel Bowlen at Denver International Airport. The two had crossed paths before, at various social functions, and they quickly struck up a conversation. The executive inquired about Annabel’s husband. She replied that Patrick Dennis Bowlen, owner of the Denver Broncos, was feeling blue. “Pat’s…
Last week’s dismissal of most of the lawsuits against police and school officials stemming from the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School left frustrated victims’ families contemplating a wide range of responses, from legal appeals and legislation to renewed calls for a grand jury to investigate possible police misconduct. If…
A year before the shootings at Columbine High School, Eric David Harris already had the plan worked out in his head. He knew what time to attack the school in order to kill and maim the most students. He knew where he and fellow gunman Dylan Klebold, alias “V” or…
This all started around 65 million years ago, when a large carnivore died badly in the wilds of what is now eastern Wyoming. But no human paid any attention to the big fellow’s demise until one day in the summer of 1995 — the day two men lugged a box…
The developers had money, business leaders and most of the town’s elected officials on their side. But last week, the citizens of Berthoud decided to stick with their beleaguered growth cap, rejecting a proposed exemption that would have allowed for massive development of a 4,200-acre parcel of land along the…
Confused? So are we. Parents, teachers, kids — everyone involved in public education in Colorado, it seems, eagerly awaited this fall’s release of the School Accountability Reports (SAR). Pushed by Governor Bill “No Excuses” Owens, the reports represent the first statewide effort to evaluate schools objectively, using student scores on…
Even in these troubled times, respect for the law sometimes depends on who’s wearing the badge. Last week, voters in rural Costilla County ousted controversial sheriff John Mestas in a special recall election by a count of 664 to 608. Vowing to clean up the county, Mestas was elected three…
For the past eighteen months, ever since Columbine families filed nine lawsuits against him and his agency, Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone has refused to talk to reporters about the school massacre. When other county officials deign to comment on the police response to the attack, they invariably parrot the…
The Fire Last Time They dreamed of fire. It would be a cleansing fire, fueled by propane, gasoline, gunpowder, homemade napalm — and their own savage hatred. Explosion after explosion, building to a conflagration that would settle all arguments and consume hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives. At first, when the…
Go to GoTo.com, an Internet search engine that provides “sponsored” search results for America Online, Lycos, AltaVista and many other World Wide Web heavyweights. Type in “Scientology,” and you’ll get dozens of hits linking you to sites devoted to the Church of Scientology International. This is what you’ll find most…
After nearly two dozen surgeries in twenty years, Nyla Bailey thought she knew what doctors could do about her excruciating pain, which wasn’t much. They could make her feel worse, certainly. They could anger and humiliate her, labeling her a hysterical female — or, as one skeptical internist put it,…
Joseph Adams has flashbacks sometimes. In those moments, he practically relives the time he spent in a prison cell in Kuwait, the beatings and interrogations, the terrible feeling of not knowing when or if he would see his family again. But the bad memories are only part of it. They…
