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…
Pro-choice activists, legislators, physicians and faith leaders gathered on the west steps of the Capitol Monday in a “Rally to Protect Women’s Health.” The event was a spin-off of Pro-Choice Lobby Day, as well as a response to local and federal fetal personhood proposals…
The issue of foreclosures is one the Colorado Progressive Coalition has remained involved with for two and a half years — though many of its members can put that number to shame. So as House Bill 1156 nears the chamber’s economic and business development committee hearing tomorrow, CPC, Moveon.org, Metro…
A federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge conducted in Aurora over seven days last week and early this week resulted in the identification of twelve immigrants subject to deportation, ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok says…
Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler claims he’s under unwarranted attacks by media and Democratic leaders like Rick Palacio, who recently accused Gessler’s proposed voting policy as an attempt at voter suppression. Palacio connected Gessler’s legislations to the 1965 civil rights movement, during which advocates protesting for African-American voting rights…
Today, approximately a hundred advocates of women’s health took to the Capitol as part of Pro-Choice Lobby Day. The event, held in Denver annually for more than a decade, brought the Protect Families Protect Choice Coalition together with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to train supporters as citizen advocates…
After months of waiting and sifting through discovery, Mercer Lewis, 21, became the first Occupy Denver activist to take his case in front of a jury yesterday. After the trial, Lewis, who was found not guilty on the charge of obstructing a street or passageway, had a great deal to…
Today is the last in a seven-day “surge” being conducted in Aurora by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Their supposed target? Deportable aliens who have been arrested, or those issued court summonses who are fugitives or who have been previously deported or convicted of crimes. It’s the summonses part that’s causing…
Nearly twenty years after Denver’s much-hyped “Summer of Violence” triggered a harsher approach to juvenile offenders statewide, lawmakers are wrestling with two reform bills — and a new report contends that Colorado’s system for moving juvenile cases into adult court isn’t working and doesn’t provide adequate protection for teen defendants…
