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…
Back in January, our Chris Walker reported about snowboarder Seth Beckton’s claim that someone had pushed him off a chairlift at Aspen Highlands ski area. The following month, Thomas Proesel was arrested in the incident. But there’s been an unexpected twist in the case. Pamela Mackey, Proesel’s Denver-based attorney, says that…
It’s rare that Westword reprints a feature story from another publication. But this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning article, “An Unbelievable Story of Rape,” was so good that we had to share it with our readers. As a joint project of ProPublica and the Marshall Project, much of the article recounts the…
In November 2015, two female deputies with the Denver Sheriff Department filed a lawsuit alleging that Denver County Jail is a house of horrors for female guards. The complaint suggested that profane verbal abuse, sexual harassment and intentional masturbation are common occurrences at the facility and argued that female deputies are “discouraged…
The decade-long legal battle over one of Colorado’s most infamous death-penalty cases keeps getting stranger. First came the abrupt removal of Arapahoe County District Judge Gerald Rafferty, who presided over the trials of defendants Robert Ray and Sir Mario Owens — a move contested by Owens’s attorneys, who believed Rafferty…
The Denver District Attorney’s Office has formally charged Brett Sisman with sexually assaulting a woman he met using the dating app Tinder. The incident allegedly caused so many injuries to the victim that they were documented by as many as one-hundred photos. This is the second time in just over…
On June 19, 2014, a shooting at a Red Rocks show featuring Nas, Flying Lotus and Schoolboy Q shocked the music community here and beyond — especially after law enforcement announced that Schoolboy Q’s sports-utility vehicle had been specifically targeted by the gunman. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, speculation…
JonBenét Ramsey is on the current cover of The Globe, alongside a screaming headline about “Chilling New Evidence!,” a subhead referencing the “real reason beauty queen was MURDERED!,” and photos of “two suspects arrested.” Case closed? Not quite. As we’ve been reporting, it’s been nearly twenty years since the JonBenét…
On Saturday, July 16, I was heading to Angelo’s CDS & More on East Colfax in search of vinyl 45s for my jukebox when I heard chanting. “Black lives matter! Black lives matter!” Moments later, I found myself in the middle of well over one-hundred people moving down Colfax, many…
