In recent months, we’ve been inundated with allegations of police officers breaking bad in a big way. Note the seven Denver cops to get in trouble in 2014, another Denver officer who blamed his DUI on an imaginary friend, and an ex-cop from Walsenburg accused of dealing heroin. The latest…
Last summer, we told you about a fatal crash following a Grand Lake 4th of July fireworks display for which Lucas Ackerman had been accused of vehicular homicide, a felony, as well as driving under the influence. But what initially seemed like a straightforward case has become unexpectedly complicated. Earlier…
We’ve been reporting about a triple shooting at Red Rocks last week in which hip-hop artist Schoolboy Q was the likely target. Two Westword writers were caught in the delays that followed the incident, including our Bree Davies, who says she didn’t get out of the area until 2:30 a.m…
Update: Last week, we told you about a lawsuit accusing Colorado Department of Corrections personnel with allowing mentally ill inmate Christopher Lopez to die while they watched; see our previous coverage below. Now, attorney David Lane has released a 47 minute video that compiles shocking footage from Lopez’s final hours…
In April, when we posted about what was reported as the second attack on sex offender Zachary Meints in nine days, we noted that the Boulder Police Department didn’t believe there was a threat to public safety “perhaps due to their theory that Meints was specifically targeted, or maybe because…
Editor’s note: Backbeat contributor Bree Davies was at Red Rocks last week when shots were fired at an SUV whose passengers included Schoolboy Q. This is her story. When I left the Flying Lotus/Nas/Schoolboy Q show last Thursday night at Red Rocks, nothing seemed particularly out of the ordinary. My…
As we’ve reported, authorities looking into last week’s triple shooting at Red Rocks now believe the target was likely Schoolboy Q, one of the show’s headliners. He was uninjured, but three other people joining him in a bullet-riddled SUV were hurt. Now, investigators are looking at a possible connection between…
Early this morning, a man opened the door of his Denver home and was greeted in the most unpleasant way imaginable — by a bullet to the chest. At this writing, the man is said to be in critical condition but is expected to survive. Here’s what we know thus…
Update: Randy Bender’s last Facebook profile photo features him posing alongside a gravestone. Now, however, Bender himself is dead, the victim of a shooting at an extended stay motel about which we reported last week; see our previous coverage below. Police don’t believe Bender was a victim of a random…
Update: On Friday, we offered an early report about a triple shooting at Red Rocks following a concert by Nas, Flying Lotus and Schoolboy Q — a story that was expanded upon on our Backbeat blog. Since then, authorities have confirmed that bullets struck an SUV in which Schoolboy Q…
James Holmes’s attorneys are accusing state prosecutors of discouraging Aurora theater shooting victims from talking to them, according to a motion filed this week (and on view below). They argue that prosecutor Lisa Teesch-Maguire sent an e-mail to victims with the message that efforts by Holmes’s attorneys to contact them…
Editor’s note: Click to see the latest update about the Red Rocks shooting on our Backbeat blog. According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, three people were shot following the Nas-Flying Lotus-Schoolboy Q concert at Red Rocks last night — a trio who were found in a vehicle on 6th…
No denying that Idaho Springs’ Haley Stanfield, twenty, has suffered a terrible loss — the death last month of her fifteen-month-old son, Logan Borchik. But she now stands accused of attempting to turn her grief into vengeance by hiring Logan’s father to kill her current boyfriend, who is said to…
Michael Clapper, 24, made headlines in 2011 after being at the center of Occupy Denver’s eviction from Civic Center Park — a police action that ended in flames, arrests and Tebowing. Now he’s making news of a different, and particularly vile, sort. He’s one of two men arrested and charged…
Prostitution arrests seldom make headlines — unless the person busted allegedly was taking part in this activity knowing that he or she has HIV/AIDS. Joshua Harker is the latest person accused of this crime, and he’s hardly the first. In recent years, at least two other people have been charged…
Our June 12 cover story, “The Fatal Moment,” reviews the shifting evidence and contradictory witness accounts that sent three Denver men to prison for life after a fatal 1992 drive-by shooting. Following 22 years of good behavior, Eric Lightner and brothers William and Brian Lee hope to eventually see their…
A few months back, we told you about the murder of Aspen socialite Nancy Pfister and the shocking arrests of William and Nancy Styler, an ex-doctor and his wife in their sixties who were renting Pfister’s home. Now, all charges have been dropped against Nancy Styler — but thus far,…
Yesterday, we told you about a fatal shooting at a Lakewood motel in which clues are scarce. Neither is there a surplus of info available about a previous murder outside the El Shaddai International Ministries. However, the Denver Police Department has released a series of photos depicting persons of interest…
Last month, we told you about the officer-involved shooting of Isaac Vigil, who pulled a gun and opened fire after being busted and transported to a police station. When he was hit, he’s said to have declared, “I have meth up my ass!” Given the presence of Vigil’s weapon, there…
In May 2012, we posted about the nineteen most wanted murder suspects in Denver. Well, we recently checked back to see how many members of this group has been captured, and the answer is: zero. Not a single one of these alleged killers has been rounded up in two-plus years,…
Update below: On Tuesday, the Westminster Police Department put out an alert for Lea Chali Porter, a nineteen-year-old from the Pueblo area who’d been reported missing five days earlier after a visit to north metro. At this writing, Porter has not yet been found. However, Christopher Waide, a friend of…
Update: The Aurora Police Department has identified the victim of a fatal shooting outside a Taco Bell on June 4; see our previous coverage below. Mark Chalfant, nineteen, was a multi-sport athlete looking forward to a bright future when his life suddenly ended — and the three suspects in the…
