Crime & Police

Late August 7, Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen confirmed that the body of seven-year-old Jordan Vong had been found.

Scarcely eighteen months after Colorado prison authorities began distributing 19,000 “free” electronic tablets to state prisoners, the devices have been confiscated because of “unforeseen security issues.”

The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office has instituted a new protocol that allows people who had been taking Methadone and the like to help them kick their habit to keep doing so while they’re behind bars.

Colorado sex offender Travis Joe Benson was arrested in Greeley after falling into a trap set for him by members of Hunted & Confronted, a recently formed Facebook group whose mission involves bringing justice to “overage adults who pose a threat to society.” Afterward, most members of the press dubbed the crew vigilantes, but founder Jesse Weeks, 28, rejects that description.

The crazy tractor chase through downtown Denver starring suspect Thomas Busch on July 20 was a one-of-a-kind crime. So it’s only appropriate that prosecutors have taken a unique approach to explaining the rationale behind the whopping 23 charges that have now been filed against him.

Last week, Ricky Lee Harnish, the man convicted of killing Tammy Lani’s sister, Holly Andrews, when she was just sixteen years old, became a free man. He’s out of prison after just nine years “without parole or registration or anything,” Lani reveals.

According to new data provided by the Denver Police Department, dozens of these weapons are stolen in the Mile High City every month, adding up to hundreds over the course of a year.

On July 22, the short life of Thomas LaPerch came to a brutal end after he succumbed to injuries he sustained during a fight with another inmate while imprisoned at the Colorado State Penitentiary in Cañon City.

A federal judge is criticizing the University of Colorado Boulder for its actions regarding Pamela Fine, who filed a lawsuit last year over abuse allegedly suffered at the hands of former assistant football coach Joe Tumpkin. But he’s also ordered CU Boulder and its employees to be dropped from the complaint.

Zara Ahmed survived the Aurora theater shooting. But as a Somali-American, she must now confront the Trump administration travel ban.

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ 81st annual conference is slated to take place in Denver beginning on Sunday, July 22. The event will be attended by hundreds of judges and court personnel from across the country on the front lines of societal crises representing every size, shape and description, including the opioid epidemic, human trafficking and separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Activists emphasized that race must be part of the discussion.

Auviauntea Lescan Mique Evans is wanted for first-degree murder in connection with the July 1 stabbing of high school football star Reese Grant-Cobb.

There may or may not be a special place in hell for terrorists, but there is a special place in Colorado for them — a place for jihadists, conspirators, failed suicide bombers, and more. Its name is H Unit.

Police accountability advocates balk at Mayor Michael Hancock’s selection process for the new police chief that they say merely gave the appearance of public engagement.

A jury has found Christian Gulzow guilty of second-degree murder in the 2017 slaying of Brian Lucero in the parking lot of Torchy’s Tacos, near 11th and Broadway, and its members reached this conclusion without any help from me. I can now reveal that I was subpoenaed in the case but didn’t wind up testifying.

Supporters traveled from around the country to Bismarck, North Dakota, on Monday only to find out that Red Fawn’s June 25 sentencing hearing was being rescheduled due to a judge’s illness.

According to Denver Police Department data, the number of assaults in the Mile High City as a whole is up 9.5 percent during the first part of 2018 compared to the same period last year. But the scope of the problem varies widely from place to place, as seen in our analysis of assault statistics for all 78 official Denver neighborhoods.

No one has been arrested in more than 40 percent of the 32 Denver homicides from January 1 to June 1, including seven of nine in January alone.

From January 1, 2010 to the end of February 2017, nearly half of 312 homicides that took place in Denver didn’t result in an arrest. Moreover, the victims in cases either closed without anyone being taken into custody or still unsolved were overwhelmingly black or Hispanic.

Today, FBI agent Chase Bishop, who became a national laughingstock after he accidentally shot Thomas Reddington while executing a back flip at Mile High Spirits Distillery during the wee hours of June 2, turned himself in to the Denver Sheriff’s Department. He was promptly arrested and is currently being held on suspicion of second-degree assault.

This week, Elisabeth Epps, co-lead of the Denver Justice Project, is raising funds for what she’s dubbed the Juneteenth/Father’s Day Bail Out, an initiative that aims to pay bonds for low-level male offenders who can’t afford to do so in time for them to spend the upcoming holidays with their families or loved ones.