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Suspect arrested in fatal shooting of teen in Fairmount Cemetery
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Denver Metro, KUSA-TV

Suspect arrested in fatal shooting of teen in Fairmount Cemetery

By Wilson Beese | 9News A juvenile suspect has been arrested in the shooting of a teenage boy found dead in a cemetery last weekend, Denver Police said Friday. Officers responded around 2:35 p.m. Saturday to Fairmount Cemetery, at 430 S. Quebec St., near South Quebec Street and East Alameda Avenue, and found 16-year-old Elias Garcia Tinajero dead from multiple gunshot wounds. Investigators identified the suspect, who is a juvenile boy, and arrested him on Thursday, police said. READ THE FULL STORY AT 9NEWS
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Mobile harm reduction van aims to help with safer substance use, overdose prevention in Arapahoe County
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Denver Metro, Local, The Colorado Sun

Mobile harm reduction van aims to help with safer substance use, overdose prevention in Arapahoe County

By Tatiana Flowers | Colorado Sun A new mobile harm reduction service is bringing overdose prevention to the streets of Arapahoe County to help people who use opioids and other drugs. The Arapahoe County Public Health department says it’s using an equity-focused approach on its new harm reduction van to help reduce the toll of the opioid epidemic on the community. The new mobile unit, Prevention Point, will offer safer substance use and sexual health services to people across the county including a syringe access and disposal program, Narcan and testing for HIV, hepatitis C and other infections transmitted by unsafe sex and drug use, officials said. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
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What does ‘Do Better Denver’ say about all of us, and the media?
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Commentary, Denver Metro, Rocky Mountain Voice, State

What does ‘Do Better Denver’ say about all of us, and the media?

By Cory Gaines | Guest Columnist I was recently introduced to a Twitter account called “Do Better Denver,” after reading about it in a Westword article. If you are like me and don't live in Denver (or on Twitter), you may not be aware of who they are, but it's not hard to describe. It's a social media account that posts unflinching pictures of homeless people around Denver along with sharing some items that would fall more comfortably into the category of news, e.g. sharing the amount Denver has spent on public safety this year. I think that reasonable arguments could be made either way about the value of pictures of homeless people and encampments in bringing to light the issue and/or in trying to fix it. I will leave it to you to come to your own conclusions there. I'm not going...
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Big Brother or crime fighter? Elbert County says ‘no’ to license plate readers
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Denver Metro, denvergazette.com, Local

Big Brother or crime fighter? Elbert County says ‘no’ to license plate readers

By Carol McKinley | Colorado Springs Gazette In a clash between personal freedoms and technology-driven public safety, the guys controlling Elbert County's purse strings won. In May — to the dismay of the Elbert County Sheriff's Office — its own panel of county commissioners became what is likely the first governmental entity in Colorado to challenge the reach of cutting-edge surveillance technology avowed by law enforcement as a powerful crimefighting tool. In December, the Elbert County Commissioners voted, 3-0, against renewing the contract for the region’s nine Flock Safety brand license plate readers because constant surveillance of passing vehicles is too much "Big Brother" for their comfort. “This is a place where people ought to be able to live freely and enjoy their pr...
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Immigrants buoys Denver schools’ enrollment by 200 to 250 students each week
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Denver Metro, denvergazette.com, Local

Immigrants buoys Denver schools’ enrollment by 200 to 250 students each week

By Nicole C. Brambila | Denver Gazette The number of immigrants arriving in Denver may have slowed, but Denver Public Schools, which has struggled with declining enrollment for years, is seeing a steady pace of new students each week. And district staffers warned during the board’s regular meeting on Thursday that, if the enrollment numbers continue to climb, budget "adjustments" may arise this year and next. That could potentially mean cuts.    The district saw roughly 300 students enroll since its last update in January. This time last school year, the district had 82,401 students, according to a district update on Thursday. Now, the district has 84,327 students. READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DENVER GAZETTE
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Study: $95K income is ‘lower middle class’ in Denver
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Denver Metro, kdvr.com, Local

Study: $95K income is ‘lower middle class’ in Denver

BY Maddie Rhodes | KDVR-TV It takes a lot more money to be considered anything above the lower middle class in the Mile High City. In Denver, making $95,000 a year isn’t enough to break you out of the lower middle class, according to a new study – but it is close. GOBankingRates researched the 100 largest cities in the U.S. and found the median household incomes for those cities. The study then followed the Pew Research Center’s definition of middle-class income as “two-thirds to double” the median income of an area. READ THE FULL STORY AT KDVR-TV
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Metro District board member recalled in special election amid complaints of ‘verbal abuse and physical intimidation’
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Denver Metro, kdvr.com, Local

Metro District board member recalled in special election amid complaints of ‘verbal abuse and physical intimidation’

By Heather Willard | KDVR-TV DENVER (KDVR) — According to the unofficial vote tally published by the Denver Office of the Clerk and Recorder, a reportedly contentious board member of the Ebert Metropolitan District Board of Directors has been recalled and replaced. Murray Hawthorne, treasurer and board member for the Ebert Metro District, was described in a recall petition as someone who “does not represent or respect Ebert residents.” The petition further claimed a pattern of verbal abuse and physical intimidation from Hawthorne to residents. Hawthorne protested the recall election on Nov. 29, 2023. The protest was dismissed and the recall election date was set for Feb. 13, with polls open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. READ THE FULL STORY AT KDVR-TV
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Denver has helped 40,000 migrants while Colorado Springs counts 24 families. Does being a sanctuary city matter that much?
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Denver Metro, Local, Southern Colorado, The Colorado Sun

Denver has helped 40,000 migrants while Colorado Springs counts 24 families. Does being a sanctuary city matter that much?

By Jennifer Brown | Colorado Sun El Paso County commissioners, voices amplified by a microphone, left no room for misinterpretation: Migrants are not welcome in Colorado Springs.  “Keep going. Find a sanctuary city,” Commissioner Carrie Geitner said two weeks ago during a hastily called news conference after a few South American migrants arrived at a church-run shelter. “They asked for those folks to come to their cities. Find one of those. That’s where they should go.” About a week later and an hour up the highway, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston was quoting from the Statue of Liberty: “Please, send us your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” he said, even as he announced budget cuts brought on by housing and feeding migrants. “These are folks yearning to breathe ...
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Aurora considers modular construction for affordable housing
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Denver Metro, denvergazette.com, Local

Aurora considers modular construction for affordable housing

By Noah Festenstein | Denver Gazette As Colorado struggles with its lack of affordable housing, the Aurora City Council will consider on Monday a resolution that would allow the use of buildings with "modular construction" to provide affordable housing units. The goal of Aurora’s modular construction resolution is to “increase attainable housing,” according to city staff. With modular construction, buildings are built offsite and then moved, like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, onto a property. The method is seen as more effective, faster and more environmentally friendly than regular construction, officials said. Off-site construction “makes modular housing a promising and innovative solution for increasing the supply of housing with construction timelines that are more tha...
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Aurora committee sends forward shoplifting bill, lowering threshhold to $100
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Denver Metro, Local, The Sentinel

Aurora committee sends forward shoplifting bill, lowering threshhold to $100

By Max Levy | The Sentinel Shoplifters who steal merchandise worth $100 or more from Aurora stores would be automatically jailed under a proposal moved forward Thursday by the Aurora City Council’s public safety policy committee. Currently, retail thieves who steal $300 or more in goods trigger the automatic three-day jail sentence included in the mandatory minimum sentencing law that the council passed in 2022. The proposal sponsored by Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky would lower that threshold to $100. It would also impose special penalties for repeat offenders — a 90-day minimum jail sentence for anyone convicted of one prior retail theft offense and a 180-day minimum sentence for people who have been convicted at least twice. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE AURORA SENTINEL...
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