In June, Bill Lee lost all of his reindeer — a tale told in this week’s cover story, “Santa is Grounded.” But the mall Santa from Idaho Springs has a reason to be grateful this week: Two of his reindeer are back, thanks to a friend who purchased them from…
The University of Colorado has released four documents in response to more than thirty open records requests filed by the media. Three are heavily redacted and the fourth is a log of which buildings accused Aurora theater shooter and former student James Holmes entered using his campus ID. That record…
For a time, the North Pole existed in the Colorado mountains. On a ranch in Idaho Springs, a man with a white beard and twinkling blue eyes kept twelve reindeer. There was a Dasher and a Dancer, a Prancer and a Vixen. At Christmastime, the man donned a plush red…
This week’s cover story, “Santa is Grounded,” tells the tale of Bill Lee, a mall Santa from Idaho Springs whose twelve reindeer were seized as part of an animal cruelty investigation. A judge has since ruled the law under which Lee’s animals were taken unconstitutional, and some wonder whether they…
November has been a violent month in Capitol Hill. To start, there was the stabbing death of Ryan Haldeman, 28, near Pub on Penn on November 2. Two days later, 47-year-old Ronald Smith was shot to death outside The Hive. And on November 16, 30-year-old Jonathan Michael Hammond was shot…
Gayle Jetchick of the Havana Business Improvement District has waited years for Aurora’s old Fan Fair building to turn into something — anything! — else. Last night, her wish came one step closer to reality, when the Aurora Urban Renewal Authority (which is made up of city council members) voted…
Thirty-eight claimants will soon receive a portion of the $5.3 million raised through the Aurora Victim Relief Fund, according to an announcement by Governor John Hickenlooper’s office. As per a protocol developed by fund “special master” Ken Feinberg, those who lost family members in the Aurora theater shooting and those…
The University of Colorado is no longer subject to a gag order related to the case of accused Aurora theater shooter and former student James Holmes. Judge William Sylvester has ruled that it’s now up to the university to decide what information to release. In another motion made public today,…
Earlier this week, we got a tip about a strange city policy from a citizen who’d worked as an election judge. As a temporary employee, the city gave the tipster its official drug and alcohol policy. Most of it was standard — no drinking or drugging on the job –…
Update by Michael Roberts: At a hearing yesterday, Judge William Sylvester, who’s overseeing the prosecution of Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes agreed to postpone a hearing slated for this morning due to his “condition;” see our original coverage below. Now, reports have surfaced that the alleged killer tried to…
Claudia Folska, the subject of our recent feature story “Fare Treatment,” won her race Tuesday for a seat on the Regional Transportation District board of directors, besting three opponents. Folska, who is blind and uses RTD to get around, will represent District E, which includes parts of Denver, Aurora, Greenwood…
It was after 10 p.m. that a woman wearing a blue dress and a donkey mask came up to us and put her snout, through which her eyes were visible, up against our face — so we were peering at each other through a tunnel of plastic hot with her…
Colorado has a new Medicaid pilot program that will cover the cost of acupuncture, massage therapy and chiropractic services for 67 people with spinal cord injuries. As explained in our feature story, “Body Movin’,” the program’s chief architect is a determined thirty-year-old named Chanda Hinton Leichtle, who was paralyzed by…
The economic development news out of Aurora this year hasn’t been great. The high-profile deal to build a 1,500-room hotel hit a big snag when developer Gaylord Entertainment restructured its company. But Yuriy Gorlov of the Aurora Economic Development Council says that while blockbuster deals are welcome, it’s smaller-scale projects…
Governor John Hickenlooper’s office has received 52 claim forms from victims of the Aurora theater shooting, three of which are duplicates, says spokesman Eric Brown. Yesterday was the deadline for victims to turn in forms to claim a portion of the approximately $5 million that was donated to the Aurora…
Science Fiction Land could have been huge. Proposed in 1979, the idea was to build a huge theme park in Aurora with a holographic zoo and a 1,000-lane bowling alley attended by robots. The park was to also serve as the set of a $50 million sci-fi flick called Lord…
Twelve more people have been identified as victims of the July 20 Aurora theater shooting. Recently released court documents show that prosecutors are charging alleged shooter James Holmes with 24 more counts of attempted murder — two for each new victim — bringing the total charges against him to 166…
At the moment, Chanda Hinton Leichtle’s back resembles that of a stegosaurus. Thin stainless-steel needles stand sentry on either side of her spine as she lies on a padded table facing the wall. It’s a position the small, feisty thirty-year-old can’t get into on her own: When she was nine,…
The fourteen-year-old boy who accidentally shot nine-year-old Chanda Hinton Leichtle in 1991 thought the rifle was unloaded. It wasn’t, and the bullet severed her spinal cord and left her paralyzed below the chest. This week’s feature, “Body Movin’,” tells how Hinton Leichtle became an advocate for people with spinal cord…
In September, prosecutors in the James Holmes case filed a notice in court about a complicated situation they believed they’d fixed. A witness in the case who knew Holmes from the University of Colorado agreed to let police download texts Holmes sent from her iPhone. (The witness’s name is redacted…
A new study disparages Colorado for requiring little civics education — something it ties to a poll showing that young people don’t understand voting laws, such as whether a photo ID is required to vote. (It isn’t in Colorado.) But the study, done by the Massachusetts-based Center for Information and…
Lawyers on both sides of the James Holmes case will meet on October 25 as scheduled, but the bulk of their agenda will be postponed, Arapahoe County District Court Judge William Sylvester ruled today. Attorneys for the accused Aurora theater shooter asked to delay the hearing to have more time…
