Alan Prendergast

Alan Prendergast is a former staff writer at Westword and is now a senior contributor. He writes about various topics but primarily focuses on news. He’s contributed to Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Outside, USA Today, Men's Journal and other publications and is the author of two nonfiction books, Gangbuster: One Man's Battle Against Crime and The Poison Tree: A True Story of Family Violence and Revenge. He’s earned numerous accolades for his work including the Eugene Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award and two national feature writing awards from the Society of Professional Journalists.

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Aspen's "slums": New book stirs outrage among town's glitterati

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 29, 2011

It's holiday week in Aspen, and this New Year's weekend is shaping up as the busiest party binge at the resort in years -- a time for Hollywood celebs and other one-percenters to pack the slopes and the clubs, to ogle and to be ogled, and call 911 about Charlie...
Robert Hood: A former supermax warden's resolutions for 2012

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 28, 2011

A former warden at the highest-security prison in the country -- the federal supermax prison outside Florence -- has some intriguing advice for fixing the nation's troubled, budget-draining corrections system in the coming year. Intriguing, in part, because some of the changes Robert Hood urges (apparently with a straight face)...
Tim Wirth scolds Obama for lack of action on climate change

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 27, 2011

Environmental leaders who ardently supported Barack Obama in 2008 haven't had much to celebrate in the past three years, as key pieces of legislation dealing with climate change and controls on the energy industry have been scuttled, diluted or delayed -- by a bad economy, an increasingly intransigent Congress, and...
Douglas Bruce: The long, hard fall of a rogue tax crusader

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 22, 2011

The conviction of controversy magnet Douglas Bruce on tax evasion charges has touched off some high-pitched gloating on liberal-leaning political websites, as well as the expected musings on the irony of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights godfather getting busted by the tax man. For those who hate TABOR, it's apparently...
Crowley prison riot: New details of unheeded warnings emerge in epic lawsuit

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 21, 2011

Seven years ago inmates at a private prison in southeastern Colorado went on an all-night rampage, chasing the shorthanded staff from the premises, attacking suspected snitches, setting fires and causing millions of dollars in damages. Now documents filed in a long-running legal battle confirm what many prisoners have been saying...
Encana blasts EPA report linking fracking to Wyoming water pollution

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 20, 2011

In a telephone conference with journalists this morning, officials of the Canadian energy giant Encana sharply disputed an EPA draft report that linked the company's gas drilling operations in Wyoming to contamination of residents' drinking water, calling the report badly flawed and demanding an independent review of the study's findings...
Fracking the North Fork: Paonia residents rally against drilling assault

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 19, 2011

Thanks to the increasing push for more oil and gas drilling, communities once considered out of the fray are being drawn into the controversies over hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" -- even folks in the stunning North Fork Valley, an area better known for its organic farms, ranches operated by the...
Video: Online guns undercover investigation catches sellers flouting law

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 16, 2011

A New York City undercover investigation of online gun sales in fourteen states has found that a majority of the 125 unlicensed sellers contacted were eager to sell firearms to buyers they knew couldn't pass a background check, a violation of federal law. Colorado sellers fared somewhat better than those...
Theresa Foster murder fact vs. fiction: Read the 1948 autopsy report

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 15, 2011

This week's cover story, "The Case of the Kidnapped Coed," revisits the wild press coverage surrounding the 1948 murder of eighteen-year-old college student Theresa Foster -- and explores how the Denver Post's rabid campaign to catch a killer tainted the subsequent trial. It's a cautionary tale about how pseudo-experts (in...
Fracking lovefest blooms from John Hickenlooper's gas play

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 14, 2011

Yesterday, amid an unusually genial gathering of environmental and energy leaders, Governor John Hickenlooper unveiled new state rules requiring detailed disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking") methods of drilling for oil and gas -- a major step toward transparency in the controversial drilling practice and a...
Tim Tebow: Top five franchising opportunities

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 14, 2011

No question about it, the ascension of Tim Tebow has established a unique style of football in Denver. The Broncos have managed to distill all the heart-pounding excitement and nail-biting competitiveness of NFL action and compress it into the final couple of minutes (and sometimes the final couple of seconds)...
The case of the kidnapped coed

How the Denver Post and Perry Mason ruined a Colorado murder case

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 13, 2011

Two rabbit hunters found her. She lay face-down, half-buried in the snow beside a frozen stream twelve miles south of Boulder, legs pulled up as if curled in sleep. She appeared to have been dumped there from a bridge fifteen feet above that carried motorists along state highway 93. She...
Paolo Bacigalupi's new novel drawing buzz -- six months before release

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 12, 2011

You know you've moved beyond cult status as an author when national magazines get all itchy over the upcoming publication of your new novel... a good half a year before it's scheduled to be released. Such is the excitement around The Drowned Cities , Paonia writer Paolo Bacigalupi's much-anticipated follow-up...
Fracking: Polluted water in Wyoming could spell trouble in Colorado

By Alan Prendergast
Dec 9, 2011

The release of an EPA report detailing suspected groundwater contamination from gas drilling operations in Wyoming comes just as Colorado is weighing tougher restrictions and wider disclosures about the hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" process -- and may serve as Exhibit A for environmental groups opposing the practice. All of which...
Sister Helen Prejean on why Colorado's death penalty is past its expiration date

By Alan Prendergast
Nov 30, 2011

When you've spent close to three decades as one of America's leading opponents of capital punishment, you develop an understanding of what states truly have the will to execute their condemned. And Sister Helen Prejean, the Dead Man Walking author who's in Aurora tonight for a public talk on vengeance,...
Capitol dome closes tomorrow until 2014, so catch the view today (PHOTOS)

By Alan Prendergast
Nov 30, 2011

If you're not occupying any other public space in central Denver today, it might be time to visit the Colorado Capitol building and climb those 99 steps from the third floor to the dome observation area. Tomorrow will be too late, since the dome is closing for repairs until some...
Kristen Parker's hep-C rampage: Doctors deny duty to prevent drug thefts (VIDEO)

By Alan Prendergast
Nov 28, 2011

Although Kristen Parker, the surgical tech who infected dozens of Rose Medical Center patients with the hepatitis C virus in 2008 and 2009, is now serving a thirty-year prison sentence, the fallout from her crimes continues to keep a scrum of attorneys busy. In recent court filings in a patient...
The McDonald's map of America -- and Denver's place in it (VIDEO)

By Alan Prendergast
Nov 25, 2011

For some of us, the day after Thanksgiving is for quiet family time and home-cooked leftovers. For all too many, though, it's a grisly rush to the Black Friday sales at the mall and a lot of scarfing of fast food. Which makes this an excellent time to check out...
Habitual criminal policy: Who's going away for a long, long time?

By Alan Prendergast
Nov 23, 2011

This week's cover story, "Welcome to Arapahell," examines Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers's frequent filing of habitual criminal charges against repeat offenders, which can triple or quadruple the length of a prison sentence. While other district attorneys use the habitual criminal charge sparingly, reserving it for their most violent...
The Big Bitch

The secret behind long sentences handed out to repeat offenders in the 18th Judicial District

By Alan Prendergast
Nov 22, 2011

On the Saturday before Easter 2010, Dennis Pauls got it into his head to give his ex-wife a plant. It was an Easter lily, a Christian symbol of suffering and renewal; tradition says white lilies bloomed where Christ's sweat fell to the ground in the garden of Gethsemane, a sign...
Sam Granillo, Columbine survivor, plans film on long-term trauma of shootings

By Alan Prendergast
Nov 21, 2011

There was a time when you could hardly turn on the TV without seeing the footage over and over: terrified teens fleeing the school with hands in the air, running past the bodies of slain classmates; SWAT teams smashing windows; the badly wounded young man who fell out of the...
Ignite the Light: An ecstatic extravaganza for the enlightened and at-risk youth

By Alan Prendergast
Nov 18, 2011

So many choices for music, dance or art this weekend. But if you're in the mood for aerial performances, archetypal paintings, ecstatic dancers, light shows, electronica, fire spinning, spoken word, custom wearable art, vibration adjustments and energy activations -- all in support of a good cause, mind you -- there's...

Archives from 2011

Alan Prendergast

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