Suburban Denver police officers will not be charged after detaining four black girls at gunpoint this summer and handcuffing two after wrongly suspecting they were riding in a stolen car, prosecutors said on Friday.
Related: 'He was inspired by everything': friends and family pay tribute to Elijah McClain
Continue reading...Richard and Mayumi Heene claimed son had floated away to try to get reality TV show
The husband and wife who pleaded guilty to criminal charges for staging the 2009 “balloon boy” hoax, in which they created a global media sensation with a false report that their son had floated away in a makeshift dirigible, have been pardoned by Colorado’s governor.
In granting executive clemency to Richard and Mayumi Heene, Governor Jared Polis said the couple, now 59 and 56, had paid their debt to society for a “spectacle” that wasted law enforcement time and resources.
Continue reading...Michael Hancock urged people on Twitter to ‘avoid travel’, then flew to Mississippi
The mayor of Denver was forced to apologise after flying to Mississippi to spend Thanksgiving with his family – shortly after urging residents to follow official advice and remain at home because of the coronavirus.
Related: US Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths rise amid Thanksgiving rush
Continue reading...A car drove through a crowd and a person was shot in the Denver suburb of Aurora on Saturday during demonstrations against racial injustice.
The Aurora police department said on Twitter that protesters were walking on Interstate 225 when a vehicle drove through them, and a protester fired a weapon, wounding at least one person who was taken to a hospital in stable condition
Continue reading...Police in riot gear confronted protesters in Aurora, Colorado, who had gathered at a violin vigil for Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old known for his violin playing who died after he was put into a neck hold by police in suburban Denver last year.
Aurora police department said officers did not use teargas on demonstrators but said pepper spray was used to make sure protesters were moving back.
A standout image by photographer Alyson McClaran captures a face-off between a healthcare worker and an angry protester
The weekend has seen a spate of anti-lockdown protests across the US in Ohio, Michigan and Colorado.
But a standout image by photographer Alyson McClaran came on Sunday from Denver, Colorado. As protesters gathered outside the capitol steps and others assembled in their automobiles to ask the city to reopen for business, healthcare workers stood in the middle of the road in their scrubs. After having spent the last weeks treating Covid-19 patients, they staged their own demonstration: they wanted to remind the protestors of why the shutdown measures are important.
Continue reading...The skies above a Colorado ski resort town have been lit up by a record-breaking firework. The 1270kg shell, which flew 671 metres into the air before exploding, is the largest ever fired. Representatives from Guinness World Records were on hand to verify that the firework was 181kg heavier than the previous record-holder, launched in the United Arab Emirates in 2018
Continue reading...Donald Trump on Wednesday talked about the construction of a wall in states that border Mexico, but included Colorado, which is 400 miles away from the frontier. The US president later said on Twitter he had been kidding and added that he had been referring to people in states that weren't on the border, saying they would still benefit from the wall
Continue reading...A Colorado mother who sought donations to cover medical treatments for her daughter and promoted the girl’s “bucket list” of dreams to fulfil before she died has been indicted on a murder charge in the seven-year-old’s death, which was previously believed to be from a terminal disease.
In a grand jury indictment revealed on Monday, Kelly Renee Turner, 41, also known as Kelly Gant, was charged with 13 criminal counts that included child abuse, theft and charitable fraud in the death of Olivia Gant in 2017.
Continue reading...Dozens of inflatable mattresses cartwheeled across a park in Denver, Colorado, on Saturday as strong winds whipped through the neighbourhood. Robb Manes, who filmed the bizarre spectacle, described it as the ‘great mattress migration of 2019’. According to local reports, the mattresses had been set out for an open-air film screening called the Bed Cinema later that day
Continue reading...Fuelled by hard drugs and righteous anger, his incendiary prose shook America. Could our writer channel his spirit by spending a night at the typewriter where it all happened?
It is 4.30 on a Thursday morning and I am writing these words on the big red IBM Selectric III that once belonged to Hunter S Thompson. Owl Farm, Thompson’s “fortified compound” in Woody Creek, Colorado, is dark and silent outside. Even the peacocks he raised are sleeping. The only sound anywhere is the warm hum of this electric typewriter and the mechanical rhythm of its key strikes, as clear and certain as gunfire.
In April, Thompson’s widow, Anita, began renting out the writer’s cabin to help support the Hunter S Thompson scholarship for veterans at Columbia University, where both she and Hunter studied. It sits beside the main Thompson home on a 17-hectare estate marked with hoof prints and elk droppings that gradually rises towards a mountain range. A short walk uphill is the spot where Thompson’s ashes were fired into the sky from a 153ft tower in the shape of a “Gonzo fist”, a logo he first adopted during his unsuccessful 1970 campaign to be sheriff of nearby Aspen. Johnny Depp, who played Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, picked up the $3m tab for that elaborate sendoff, which took place shortly after Thompson killed himself in 2005.
Continue reading...There has been a spate of tornadoes in the US over the last two weeks as a volatile mix of warm, moist air from the south-east and persistent cold from the Rocky Mountains clashes over the midwest
Continue reading...Unofficial results show citizen initiative on psilocybin passed, following path of decriminalized cannabis
Voters on Tuesday made Denver the first US city to in effect decriminalize psilocybin – the psychoactive substance in “magic mushrooms” – adding a new chapter to the city’s role in shaping wider drug policy.
The citizen initiative on the ballot followed the same tack taken by marijuana activists to decriminalize pot possession in 2005 in the city. That move was followed by statewide legalization in 2012. A number of other states have since broadly allowed marijuana sales and use by adults.
Continue reading...Brian Kauffman has spoken publicly on his encounter with a mountain lion. The ordeal, which happened on the 4 February on a trail in the mountains west of Fort Collins, Colorado, left the cat dead and Kauffman with 28 stitches.
Continue reading...Colorado Parks and Wildlife says man fought off the cougar, hiked out of the area after attack and drove himself to hospital
Wildlife officials say a man who fought off a young mountain lion on a northern Colorado trail killed the animal by suffocating it.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife says the man was running alone near Fort Collins when the lion attacked him from behind after the movement apparently triggered its hunting instincts.
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