It is a truth universally acknowledged that there are few things more uncomfortable than a high school dance — unless maybe it’s an assembly. But that’s what the Colorado Queer Youth Summit, an annual conference that gathers more than 200 LGBTQ youth ages twelve to 24, occasionally felt like to…
After a year when it was christened the Angriest City in America, Denver continues to be a hub of national (and this weekend, international) activism. Tomorrow through Sunday, Amnesty International USA will bring its 51st Annual General Meeting to the city, with panels and workshops dedicated to some of the…
As witnessed by a Westword item from October, Mayor Michael Hancock and Denver’s business and outreach communities have spent months discussing and debating a push to ban overnight camping on public property. Now that the issue is reportedly scheduled to be addressed in a City Council committee meeting on Tuesday,…
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers is currently in Washington, D.C. for U.S. Supreme Court hearings on the Affordable Care Act. But in his absence, his office registered his objections to Senate Bill 12-163, which would, among other things, make possession of meth a misdemeanor rather than a class-six felony. However,…
Laurie Fitzgerald tried to tell her grandson about Trayvon Martin, about his hoodie, about his family, but it’s hard. So she taught him the basics. When asked why he’s carrrying a poster of the seventeen-year-old Florida student’s face, four-year-old Royce Edwards answers only, “Because Trayvon is dead and his daddy…
Lawmakers have passed a bill that would require the state to review cases of abuse that result in the near-fatality of a child. The bill also requires review of “incidents of egregious abuse or neglect,” a more amorphous category that the state Department of Human Services, which backed the bill,…
On Saturday, at age six months and one day, Occupy Denver rallied downtown to protest police brutality. More than 100 people gathered with signs and chants for one in a handful of protests dedicated to the topic in the past week. Although relationships between Occupy Denver and the Denver Police…
Editor’s note: This is the latest profile in Kelsey Whipple’s ongoing series highlighting local political activists. The worst day of Patty Skolnik’s life lasted 32 months. It started the day her son Michael, a 22-year-old college student, passed out. Doctors found a small dot on his brain, an asymptomatic cyst,…
Today, on Occupy Denver’s six-month anniversary, the organization is separated from its long-time home in Civic Center Park. Regardless of whether you expected the movement to make it this long, the past half a year brought no shortage of eye-opening events and preparation for the future. In order to contextualize…
Tomorrow, Occupy Denver turns six months old — and sometimes it feels as though protest years are like dog years. In the first in two posts marking the date, we look back through our notebooks to track the relationship between police and protesters, which has gone from overwhelmingly supportive (on…
Yesterday, state Republicans killed a bill that sought to make it a felony-level crime to intentionally mislead citizens about voting information during an election. Known as the Fairness in Voting bill, it came under political fire during its tenure in the legislation over accusations that it was an unnecessary effort…
In Denver, sign twirlers live a relatively free life, at least when it comes to the city’s regulations of the profession. As long as they stay off streets and medians and aren’t actually panhandlers, they are obeying the law. But as we explored in our cover story, “Spin City!,” other…
In the nearly six years since Shannon Galpin founded Mountain2Mountain, the Colorado-based nonprofit has created several projects in Afghanistan: Volunteers taught street art, worked with women’s prisons, partnered on a school for the deaf. But in 2012, Combat Apathy, its new educational program, will expand the organization to a a…
Update below: For the first time in months, Civic Center Park is empty. Around 5 a.m., police officers visited the park to close it down, requesting that all protesters who had slept there overnight gather their belongings and vacate the area immediately as they watched. In the hours following, city…
Update: 3:47 p.m.: At this morning’s court date, the bond rates for all five of those arrested near Civic Center Park last night increased, as did the crimes they are associated with. At the moment, all five are currently under investigation for second-degree assault and aggravated robbery. Caryn Sodaro, James…
Figuring some modest improvement is better than none, the Colorado House Judiciary Committee passed along a bill yesterday that’s intended to make child and family investigators (CFI) and other professionals operating in family court more accountable — after first amending and watering down its most significant measures, which had been…
Yesterday, as robotic voices called for the next in line and more than one man ogled a Michael Crichton paperback, Governor John Hickenlooper visited the Pierce Street DMV to announce a statewide plan to shorten the times many of those present will face on their next visit. Called the “Wait…
Editor’s note: This is the latest profile in Kelsey Whipple’s ongoing series highlighting local political activists. When Eleanor Dewey dropped out of Aurora’s Grandview High School her sophomore year, the decision was an easy one. As a young trans woman who felt no connection to her coursework, her peers and…
At 2 p.m. today, the Colorado Personhood Coalition will hold a press conference at a very pointed location — a local Planned Parenthood office — to tout the beginning of a petition drive for the latest version of a Personhood resolution. And campaign reps including Kristi Burton Brown, the face…
Update below: When Occupy Denver members mark the group’s six-month anniversary next week, they’ll focus on accomplishments. One example: Protesters recently interrupted and shut down a live Fox 31 broadcast with complaints of subpar previous coverage. From there, as you’ll see in the video below, the F-bombs fly, with reporter…
Last night, police arrested three Occupy Denver/Thunderdome protesters on the corner of 14th and Broadway after an attempt to film one officer ended in threats of violence and the protesters being pepper-sprayed in the face. Corey Donahue and Patrick Marsden, both Thunderdome cooks, are currently in jail on suspicion of…
Last week, one Occupy Denver protester self-identified as having scabies. The skin infection, created by mites inside the skin, is spread through close contact, leaving city officials concerned about health in Civic Center Park and protesters worried about repeated visits from police and Public Works employees. Yesterday, approximately fifteen police…
