Ben Kelley sits back on his front porch and looks out across the street at the row of new townhomes, the field of weeds, the boarded-up crack den, the ad for luxury duplexes, and fumbles for the words to describe his neighborhood. He adjusts his baseball cap, which he wears…
Columbine, Friend of Crime? I’ve written to you guys before to congratulate you on your investigative reporting and was moved to write again after reading Alan Prendergast’s “Doom Rules,” in the August 5 issue. The sympathy-and-blame-fest the rest of the media enjoyed for months after the Columbine shootings made me…
It was early last September when Raymond Gutierrez heard the helicopter circling overhead. He was washing dishes. The way Raymond lives, washing dishes takes some time, and he often lets them pile up for days. Pushing aside the cloth that covers the doorway, he walks outside his one-story stone house…
There were a lot of things Melissa Sowder didn’t like about Columbine High School. The bullies, for instance. They were football players, mostly. They shoved her friends in the halls and threw snowballs or bottles at them on the way home. Sometimes they shoved her, too. Who needed it? “Teachers…
A Sentence or a Question It was an outcome with which no one was entirely pleased. On July 30, Boulder judge Frank Dubofsky sentenced Michael Furlong to twenty years’ probation for criminally negligent homicide in the January death of his wife, Deanna (“Dead Reckoning,” July 15). As part of his…
As the condo craze hits Uptown, one of its major players, Triton Development, again finds itself wearing a bull’s-eye. Condo owners in a new 24-unit Triton project known as the Washington Condominiums, at 1747 Washington Street, are grumbling about delays that have lasted for almost a year and have come…
The right to arm bears: No, the world doesn’t need any more Beanie-esque lions, tigers or bears, but don’t tell Virginia Davis. She has sold 2,500 Columbine Remembrance Bears from her two stores, Celebrations in Aurora and Dee’s Neat Little Store in Littleton. The adorable teddies retail for $23.98 a…
A white sun burned down on more than 350,000 sweat-speckled art fans; vivid colors painted the streets. Aromas from 26 restaurants rode the hot summer breeze, pushed by the sounds of musicians in the distance; more than 200 artists sat quietly while their works were examined with critical eyes. Denver…
A Swift Kick Regarding Harrison Fletcher’s July 29 “Boot Hell”: Axis Commercial Realty says it followed a Cherry Creek property owner’s lead in booting “parking scofflaws headed for Starbucks.” What it does not mention is that the greedy little private boot bastards actually sit around watching to nail people for…
The night before her deportation hearing, Magali Brunson drank a few glasses of wine with her landlady, two of her landlady’s three daughters, the grandmother of those daughters, an old friend of the landlady’s family from back home in Nebraska, and several female friends who’d stopped by to find out…
Jan Bach used to be the queen of the trailer park. She’s lived in a mobile home for the better part of two decades, and for much of that time she’s worked as a trailer-park manager. Bach knows what it’s like to own her own home but to have to…
The middle-aged man lives in Kansas. It’s early 1997, and he recently finished parole for a sex offense he committed years ago, but he responds to a sex ad in a local publication. Within a few months, he’s trading letters with a Colorado woman named Ann. Ann is into the…
A Riddle runs through it: What a bargain! More free entertainment courtesy of Sam Riddle, the $250-an-hour man when he worked for the secretary of state’s office and the $200-per-bond man after his arrest July 16 for disobeying a lawful order and resisting police authority. Riddle’s not due in Denver…
On Sunday, when Colorado returns to using its own employees to check the backgrounds of prospective gun buyers, the state will become the first to drop the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NIX) since the program began last November. The decision–made by Governor Bill Owens amid a swirl…
In the wee hours of the morning, an electronic signal beams out of the heavens and splashes into satellite dishes mounted on 12,000 schools across America. Later in the day, hundreds of TV monitors within each school switch on automatically and students’ eyes lift to the screen in unison to…
Earl Dodge could use a drink. That is, if he believed reports that a daily alcoholic beverage or two drastically reduces the risks of coronary artery disease. But Dodge, who is recovering from multiple bypass surgery, is the last guy to have a cool one for his health’s sake. “Alcohol…
Pity poor Montreal. In that northern outpost, you can hear the vendors pouring Molsons up in the third deck while everyone waits for hockey season to begin. And Baltimore. On the shores of Chesapeake Bay, another expensive chemistry experiment has blown up in manager Ray Miller’s face. While Will Clark…
Right Schwing Hey, Dan: This may seem like a naive question, but where in New York can one take a friend for a discreet lay? Central Park? The city appears to be specifically designed in order to prevent privacy (most frustrating: the Ramble). My place or hers? We are each…
Ted Carpenter is a sore winner. “I find it depressing that the Denver Art Museum did what they did and the press either protected them or stood aside,” he says. Underlying that blanket statement is a peculiar saga that says a lot about the way museums and collectors did business…
Sam on Wry In regard to Patricia Calhoun’s July 22 column, “The Answer to a Riddle,” I’m glad to see that Sam Riddle is taking some heat! I’ve heard Tom Martino and Peter Boyles speak their minds about Sam, but it was nice to see a lengthy and thoughtful editorial…
In northwest Denver, you wake up, rub the sleep from your eyes and straggle toward Common Grounds at 32nd Avenue and Lowell Boulevard. There you wave to a friend, breathe in the aroma of espresso and order a muffin or scone and a large coffee. You grab a table, scan…
This two-story house in a cozy subdivision just northeast of Boulder, with its bountiful flower garden, shutters and gables, and a kid-sized bike propped up on the broad front porch, doesn’t seem like the home of a starving child. But for the first five months of her son’s life, Sharon…
