As kids, we quickly figure out that when we’ve done something stupid, we should immediately blame it on somebody else — and not everyone outgrows that habit. Take the tale of William Thalley and Nicole Fernandez shared by the Denver Police Department. After their thus-far-unnamed three-year-old was shot in the…
View Larger Map Unless I’m very much mistaken, people go to clubs to have fun, not die — yet the latter’s happened several times since we started our Mile High Murder project in late May. No. 5: Security Guard Alfredo Gonzalez-Ramos was slain at the El Chapparal late that month…
This morning, prominent Thornton restaurant owner Dan Tang pled guilty to one count of money laundering for his role in what investigators labeled the “Dan Tang Drug Trafficking Organization.” When authorities took down the drug ring in February 2008, they came away with 24,000 marijuana plants growing in 25 suburban…
The explosion of violence that took place in Westminster yesterday harks back to the days when the law rode horses and gunmen died young ‘n’ purty. As the Westminster Police Department tells it, a thus-far-unidentified man and woman stuck up the First Bank on 120th Avenue, then tried to make…
View Larger Map There’s been a rash of killings in the metro area this week, with the Denver Police Department discovering the fourth a few hours ago. A body was found by a dumpster in the 4300 block alley between York Street and Josephine Street, an area captured in the…
It’s a sad truth that sexual abuse and assault sometimes goes unreported for years. That’s reportedly the case with 62-year-old James C. Bird — and while there are currently four counts of sexual assault on a child pending against him, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office thinks there could be more…
Among those speaking about medical marijuana at last night’s Fort Collins City Council meeting was Fort Collins Police Department Lt. Jerry Schiager, commander of the Northern Colorado Drug Task Force. In his remarks, he used a handful of grabby stats to contradict claims by weed advocates that the proliferation of…
View Larger Map Early this morning, the Denver Police Department responded to a call at 3356 Blake Street, an area captured in the graphic above (if you have problems seeing the image, click “View Larger Map”). There, they found a man who’d been shot to death. No name of the…
Late Monday evening, Raymond Rivera, 48, tried to cross Harlan Street at Alameda Avenue. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it — and the vehicle that struck him didn’t stop. According to the Lakewood Police Department, Rivera was struck by a van driven by 48-year-old Thomas William Boyle, who was later booked…
Channel 7 led its newscast last night with a John Elway story — not exactly a unique occurrence. Number 7 probably didn’t enjoy it much, however, since it focused on Speed of Wealth LLC, an organization that paid Big John to appear at assorted events — and which the Securities…
I thought everyone had seen Hollywood movies in which an armed criminal brazenly sticks up a bank, then races his bags of cash outside and hops into a souped-up vehicle capable of outrunning any cop car that dares to follow. But apparently Dion K. Morgan was movie-deprived, because after allegedly…
The movies teach us that there are good guys and bad guys — and then there are bad guys named Angel, as in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. But two new books by former Colorado prisoners trace wildly divergent paths through the thickets of crime and punishment –…
Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey is psyched. For the past several years, he’s been working with colleagues in the Denver Police Department’s crime lab, among others, to prove the efficacy of a method able to connect DNA not in law-enforcement databases to samples from family members of the scofflaw that…
Whether or not Timothy P. Gonzales is a Talking Heads fan, the “Once in a Lifetime” lyric “This is not my beautiful house!” should have gone through his head last week — at just about the moment the man whose home he’d basically moved into fired a warning shot in…
The Aurora Police Department has released three surveillance-camera clips taken near the Sunrise Restaurant around the time a shooting took the life of Roger William Harris. In a release included with the other videos below, the APD doesn’t say if the individuals seen in these snippets are considered suspects or…
A few years back, violent road rage issues were all the rage — and Travis Neil Smith has been accused of trying to bring them back into vogue in the most lethal way possible. According to the Westminster Police Department, Smith, 26, got into a road-ragey altercation on 120th Avenue…
Two weeks ago today, Anthony Joseph Romero, 29, was arrested following the death of his girlfriend, Jessica Porter, 28, at 1873 S. Clermont Street. Today, the Denver District Attorney’s Office settled on a charge: first-degree murder. Formal charges will be delivered on November 17. In the meantime, look below to…
As you can see by the Associated Press footage above, Balloon Boy parents Richard and Mayumi Heene weren’t forced to do a perp walk when turning themselves in to Larimer County authorities, as their attorney, David Lane, had feared. Instead, the process was orderly and low key, unlike pretty much…
Yesterday morning, a woman was stabbed at an RTD bus stop near the intersection of West Colfax Avenue and Winona Street — and as the Denver Police Department notes, this isn’t exactly the first time something like this has happened. Three other stabbing incidents took place along the West Colfax…
That e-mail blast attorney David Lane mentioned around this time yesterday came through at 12:51 a.m. today. In it, Lane confirms that Richard Heene and his wife Mayumi will enter guilty pleas tomorrow morning regarding the runaway-balloon hoax involving their young son, Falcon. Mayumi will cop to False Reporting to…
It’s my understanding, reached via careful research conducted in the name of journalism, that some prostitutes have specialties beyond the old in-n-out. But if the Denver District Attorney’s Office is correct, the extra offered by Darren Garcia, 29, probably wasn’t appreciated as much as, say, the Dutch Lobster, which sounds…
Some murders get more attention than others, in part because they better fit narratives that make them seem simultaneously out of the ordinary and dramatic in a familiar way. Such is the case with the tragic death of Andrew Gelston Graham, whose body was found on the front lawn of…
