As we’ve reported, gun sales are booming in Colorado and beyond in the wake of mass shootings in Colorado Springs and San Bernardino. Indeed, December sales figures show that background checks in Colorado have nearly tripled in less than twenty years. And now, if a new bill becomes law, owners could…
“Don’t get out of the car unless we say so.” Those were the cop’s orders to Rebecca Meyers, a Jefferson County child-welfare caseworker who was waiting to make a home visit. From the driver’s seat of her car, she watched as at least a half-dozen officers went up the street…
Dear Mexican: Hey, I was wondering why it is that Mexicans are said to have low risk for heart attacks, considering they eat lots of beans, animal intestines and other strange foods like pig’s feet and cow tongue. Could there be some mysterious magical healing power in all these cultural…
Speeches made at City Park and Civic Center Park before and after today’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Marade were interrupted by protesting activists. The upheaval culminated in a speech at the podium by Black Lives Matter 5280 co-founder Amy Brown, who made an address directly to Mayor Michael Hancock…
A proposal that could ban “street-side” panhandling may appear on Denver’s ballot in November. On Friday Gregory Stross, the attorney for the Denver Safer Streets Initiative, fielded questions from David Broadwell of the Denver City Attorney’s Office regarding language in the proposed ordinance that would make it “unlawful for a…
Dear Mexican: I’m trying to get my family tree together. My family is from San Julian, Jalisco. Both of my grandparents were part of the bracero program. What is the agency or institution where they hold the list of names of Mexicans who were part of the program? I would…
Dear Mexican: I’ve been following a show called You’re the Worst since it started on FX last year. It features a character named Edgar Quintana, an awkward and troubled Iraq War vet who happens to be Mexican-American. I think this must be the only such character regularly featured in series…
Support for the death penalty continues to decline dramatically across the United States, according to a new report released by the abolition-inclined Death Penalty Information Center. The number of new death sentences imposed in 2015 was a third less than the number in 2014, while the number of actual executions dropped…
Dear Mexican: How come all the Mexicans who came here two or three generations ago look like “almost-white” people, while the ones coming now look like those little guys who live naked in the Amazon and kill things with blowguns? No Indios Need Apply Dear NINA: Chalk the phenomenon up…
Growth and development, newcomers and Mile High rent dominated much of the conversation in the city in 20015. But there were also lighter, funnier and just plain weirder stories, too. Here are some of our favorite strange but true events involving public servants. Find the rest of our Year in…
As the cold weather hangs on, the discussion is heating up about Denver’s homeless. Many of the most heated comments have been about those who were left out in the cold this Christmas after their possessions were removed by Denver police officers. Says Marion: What the DPD is doing is NOT…
Frequent visitors to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science may have noticed something different about the facility’s entrance area this holiday season. Since the beginning of December, the museum no longer has any signs posted that ban handguns on its premises. That’s because early this month, the museum’s Board…
Many philanthropic organizations spend the days leading to the holidays donating their time and resources to those in need — but one local non-profit made headlines for its choice of charitable gifts. Wearing sweatshirts that said, “I helped 1,000 people get high for Cannamas,” members of Cannabis Can handed out…
There are some unavoidable ironies in Facing the Wind, the large-scale photographic exhibit looming over passengers at Denver International Airport this holiday season. Trudging between interminable security lines and packed airplanes, the weary traveler can gaze upon splashy color images of wild mustangs at play in the vast open spaces…
The Colorado caucus system might be the least understood political process in the state — and that’s saying something. “Precinct caucuses are meetings of registered electors within a precinct who are members of a particular major political party,” explains the Colorado Secretary of State’s web page. “The purpose of precinct…
We’ve received many, many responses to “Stoner Hill,” our cover story about a refuge for homeless youth in Denver, as well as “Homeless in Denver: The Cold, Hard Facts Behind Six Myths.” Jeanie Anderson sent this account of discovering that her father was homeless. When I was young, I lived…
Last week, during the first major snowstorm of the season, Denver Police Department officers began rousting people from their tents and lean-to shelters near the Samaritan House at Park Avenue and Lawrence Street around 6 a.m. The cops told everyone to get into shelters — shelters that had been too…
Dear Westword: I want to start by saying I’m a Chicano. Now, I don’t understand why you allow Gastavo [sic] Arellano’s article in your publication. He is a racist. First, he has a negative cartoon of a Mexican. Just look at it. Just because his last name is Arellano does…
Kerri Peek woke up in her Aurora motel room at 7:30 a.m. Monday and had soon managed to spill Cocoa Puffs and milk down her bra, break her favorite coffee mug, spill chicken soup in her Crocs — and collect some “crazy hate” that accused her of being a fake…
Gentle cabrones: Behold my annual Mexican Christmas guide, where I recommend the best Mexi-themed libros for you to give to your loved ones this Navidad. Buy them at your local bookstore or order online, but do buy! F*ck Cancer: The True Story of How Robert the Bold Kicked Cancer’s Ass…
We’ve received many, many responses to “Stoner Hill,” our cover story about a refuge for homeless youth in Denver, as well as “Homeless in Denver: The Cold, Hard Facts Behind Six Myths.” Nancy Wilson, who found herself homeless herself last year, sent this first-person account: Sausage and Salvation The view from the second-floor dining…
Last Friday, on the sixth night of Hanukkah, the Front Range Jewish Voice for Peace chapter gathered a group of Jews, Muslims and Christians to protest the “fear and paranoia” of Syrian refugees and Muslims they claimed was being spread by the Cell: the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab, the world’s only museum dedicated…
