Marijuana home grows may be “the new meth houses,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. In a June report, the DEA’s Denver division compared residential marijuana grows in Colorado to “the meth houses of the 1990s” and warned of the potential threats and nuisances of home-growing operations. “Marijuana grows often…
Last week, we told you about a fatal police shooting in Westminster — the second officer-involved metro-area shooting in two nights. (The previous one took place in Lakewood and resulted in the death of suspected car thief Robin Barber.) Now, Adams County authorities have identified the man killed in the…
In recent years, we’ve reported about alleged bias-motivated crimes in which the victims have been foreign-born (including a Moroccan native attacked at a Denver hookah bar in 2012) or gay (a man was assaulted in 2014 after disparaging remarks were made about his sexual orientation). But the arrest affidavit for…
As seen by the reaction of our readers to the story of artist wannabe Casey Nocket, who admitted to vandalizing Rocky Mountain National Park and other federal lands with dubious painted illustrations and then Instagramming the results, most Coloradans take purposeful damage to our natural wonders very personally. Understanding that,…
In his wheelchair, Hasan Jones rolled into the courtroom for his sentencing hearing Thursday, August 18, for the death of two-year-old Ny’ari Hines. The hearing at Arapahoe District Court finalized a plea deal that avoided a child abuse trial that neither hardened gangbangers nor hardened prosecutors seemed to have the stomach…
In the late spring of 2015, a home in Greenwood Village was utterly destroyed after Robert Seacat, a suspected Walmart shoplifter, took refuge inside and refused to come out for nearly twenty hours. In the wake of this bizarre episode, the trio that had been living in the residence — John Lech,…
It’s been a rough past few months for the venerable PT’s strip clubs in Denver — and things just got rougher. Early yesterday morning, a shooting took place outside PT’s II, 8315 East Colfax, following a promotion dubbed #selfiesaturday. One man died in the incident, and no suspect information has…
In July, we told you about the death of 23-month-old Jayvion Johnson, as well as the arrest of his mother, Candice Lampley, and her boyfriend, Delonta Crank, in the tragic incident. Early word suggest that the child had suffered serious burns, and a just-released autopsy report has confirmed it. Jayvion…
In 1994, Colorado enacted the toughest and most far-reaching statutes to combat domestic violence to be found anywhere in the country. While many states have since increased penalties for various forms of spousal abuse, none have modeled their laws on the Centennial State’s particular scheme, which requires arrest and prosecution…
The circumstances of the sexual assault committed by former University of Colorado Boulder student Austin Wilkerson are unique (and distressing). But the outcome — Wilkerson will spend no time in prison for his crime — was all too familiar. An example: In speaking about the sex assault case against Air…
George Brauchler, DA for the 18th Judicial District, is frustrated that Doyle Carmack got no jail time for his sixth DUI conviction — an outcome he associates with a 2015 felony DUI law that has no mandatory minimum provision and is, in his view, inconsistent “with the other sentencing portions…
In April, as we’ve reported, a Denver police officer, Technician Jeffrey Motz, shot and killed Dion Damon, a man wanted for bank robbery, as he sat in his car near the Denver Art Museum. Damon was unarmed at the time of his death, but Motz said the suspect made a “threatening-type…
For any pet lover — hell, for any thinking, feeling human being — the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals video focusing on Thornton’s Jurassic Pets is difficult to watch. The description of the clip, first posted in December 2014 (two months after PETA shared the footage, plus witness…
After Denver Police detectives left the interrogation room, the suspect they were questioning about a murder began to mumble to himself. At least, that’s what a video recording of the interrogation suggested. The problem was that detectives could not hear exactly what the man was saying under his breath; the…
In 2011, Matthew Weatherspoon made headlines in Denver for stabbing his girlfriend’s bulldog puppy — in self-defense, he insisted at the time. Now, Weatherspoon is back in the news — this time for mistreating a human being. According to the 18th Judicial District DA’s office, he was the first person to go…
Last year, Governor John Hickenlooper signed into law a bill that made DUIs a class 4 felony under certain circumstances. Among them: The violation must occur after three prior convictions for DWAI, DUI or DUI per se and the offender’s blood alcohol content has to be at least .15 —…
Oh what a difference a few months make. In early September, running back Montee Ball was a member of the Denver Broncos squad that would go on to win Super Bowl 50. Now, however, he’s a free agent without an NFL job, as well as an arrestee charged with battery…
At this writing, a search is ongoing for nineteen-year-old Darius Ratcliff. The reason: He’s suspected of killing one person, Cristian Martinez, 21, and wounding three others at a house party at a house party in the Baker neighborhood. The incident reportedly took place at around 11 p.m. on Friday, November…
The weekend shooting at 18th and Market, which killed one person and injured another, took place in a parking lot that’s long been known by Denver police as the worst place to be during let-out for area bars and clubs. Plenty of drivers would agree. Multiple cars in the lot were…
As Friday night, July 29, was giving way to Saturday morning, July 30, the Denver Police Department responded to the latest shooting in Lower Downtown — one that left one man dead and another one injured. The location — a parking lot near 18th and Market — was no doubt…
Today, a federal judge ordered that former Evergreen resident John Hinckley be released from the Washington, D.C.-area hospital that’s been his official home since he who was found not guilty by reason of insanity for trying to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981. More than three-and-a-half-decades after Hinckley’s failed murder bid, most people…
Lisa Polansky first saw the infamous “confession video” in fragments — a fifteen-minute segment on one old VHS tape, twenty minutes on another. The kid is in a small interview room with his mother and two Denver homicide detectives. Then the mother vanishes and there are three detectives. Even with…
