Denver is about to get a new district attorney. With Mitch Morrissey, who was elected in 2004, stepping down due to term limits, voters in November will have a chance to choose between Beth McCann, who won the Democratic primary in June, and Helen Morgan, running as an independent. We…
Sage burned thick in the air. Drums pounded. Hundreds marched, danced and prayed under the gold dome of the State Capitol. The dispute over a North Dakota oil pipeline leaked into Denver Thursday night, as Native American children and elders led activists from all over the state who had converged…
The latest data obtained by Westword from the Denver Police Department shows that enforcement of Denver’s unauthorized camping ordinance – better known as the “urban camping ban” — remains at elevated levels since regular sweeps of the homeless began in March. Here is the updated chart: The urban camping ban…
Reports of rising heroin use and drug dealing at Denver parks and along the Cherry Creek Greenway are backed up by statistics. According to Denver Parks and Recreation, police have made 128 felony arrests along the Cherry Creek trail, mostly for drug-related offenses, and over the past year, an estimated…
David Edelstein, founder of Team Pit-a-Full, a pro-pit-bull advocacy organization and training service, has been working for years to overturn pit-bull bans in Denver and Aurora. Now, after Conifer resident Susan Shawl was killed in an attack by two terrier-pit bull mixes owned by her son, he sees the battle…
The van leaves the Stout Street Health Center in downtown Denver on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Others climb aboard in Colorado Springs or Pueblo before the van heads east, into the vast, sparsely populated grasslands of the Lower Arkansas Valley. The passengers are all referrals, vetted and pre-approved, like sailors…
Two measures that would have imposed tighter restrictions on Colorado’s oil-and-gas industry have been declared ineligible for the November ballot, amid conflicting accusations of fraud and foul play. Secretary of State Wayne Williams announced this morning that, based on random sampling, neither of the initiatives collected enough valid signatures to…
Raymond Garcia, a Republican running for a seat in the state House, says memes he’s shared on his personal Facebook page are jokes and a response to the politically charged material his “liberal” friends share on their feeds. In the last few days Garcia has shared a meme of Democratic…
Yesterday, August 25, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was supposed to appear in Denver in order to deliver what was touted as a major speech on immigration. That event was subsequently canceled with little advance notice — a move that Trump critics such as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow seized upon as…
Last week, we reported that a local lawyer was preparing a class action lawsuit against the city of Denver for violating the constitutional rights of the city’s homeless population when conducting sweeps of homeless people, their encampments and their property. Today, the law office of Jason Flores-Williams made good on…
The Libertarian Party was founded in Colorado in 1971 — and 45 years later, party leaders here believe their cause is poised to make its largest impact to date. Why? Libertarian Party of Colorado chair Jay North and LPOC communications director Caryn Ann Harlos feel one big reason is the way…
A federal lawsuit against Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and other city officials, filed by one of Hizzoner’s former best buds and top advisors, has been dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge John Kane — just when filings in the case were getting interesting. Ex-aide Wayne McDonald’s complaint of wrongful termination…
Prosecutor Frank Ruybalid isn’t going to lose his law license over the mishandling of several criminal cases — and that means the embattled district attorney for Las Animas and Huerfano counties will be able to finish his term at the end of this year despite stinging criticism of his office…
The presidential candidacy of Donald Trump has raised a lot of unexpected questions. Among the strangest: “Is there a difference between a politician saying he or she will vote for Trump and actually endorsing him?” The distinction isn’t merely academic. In recent days, New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, told CNN…
At first blush, a proposed amendment to the Denver city charter seems unlikely to stir passions. But including Denver’s Office of the Independent Monitor in that document is important to the Denver Justice Project, which is planning a rally in favor of such a proposal at 4:30 p.m. today at the…
Yesterday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced that, if elected, he will institute an ideological test for Muslim immigrants and visitors to the United States — or, in his words, “extreme, extreme vetting.” The uproar that followed was undoubtedly familiar to former Congressman Tom Tancredo, who previously ran for president, as…
Ever since the March 8 and 9 sweeps of homeless encampments near the Denver Rescue Mission, the city has engaged in a sustained crackdown on uprooted and displaced individuals throughout the city. These actions have been documented by “camping ban” statistics kept by the Denver Police Department, as well as…
Is Colorado’s election system “rigged”? That’s what Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has suggested. But there’s no better day than today to see democracy in action at the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, where all signatures on petitions for measures aiming for the statewide November ballot are due at 3…
“You,” says the Grand Junction woman in a Facebook video. “Your kind. You’re the ones that gives brown people the bad name. Just fucking want to get something for nothing. Well, get your ass a job if you don’t have one.” At that point in the clip, which is on view…
When recent CU Boulder graduate Josie Valadez Fraire made plans to take part in a July 1 demonstration against Donald Trump, the featured attraction for the Western Conservative Summit at the Colorado Convention Center, she expected merely to add her voice to those of fellow protesters unsettled by the presumptive Republican…
Among the droves of non-natives relocating to Colorado for our beautiful, expansive outdoors are thirteen brown and black bears rescued from deplorable conditions in Ohio. The bears, which include several cubs, were relocated to the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg in late May, several years after Ohio passed a law that…
A month ago today, when Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump visited Colorado to attend the Western Conservative Summit, our Ana Campbell wrote that he had a no good, very bad day. But if anything, his latest trip to our fair state was even worse. The Donald was almost an hour…
