Text this: Kidnapping foiled by stealthy thumb work

Face the facts: Texting in cars can be a pain in the ass when it’s done by drivers who pay more attention to remembering how many times to press the “3” button to get the letter “e” than they do to staying in their lane. But in the case of…

The 2009 grim roster of death from the Denver Coroner’s Office

The Denver Coroner’s Office has just updated its list of homicides for 2009 to date, and it’s not pretty. Beginning with Michael Thomas, who died on January 9 due to “sharp force injury to abdomen” through Barbara Irish, who succumbed due to “complications of penetrating gunshot wound of head,” all…

Lottery winners: Beware of that scumbag in line behind you

Yay! You’ve just won some money playing the lottery — and being as you’re a 75-year-old woman, you can definitely use it. So you head to the nearest grocery store to cash out, feeling mighty fine about life in general. If only Leonard Bedon wasn’t watching the whole thing over…

Is trying juveniles as adults cruel and unusual?

The Denver-based Pendulum Foundation has made some significant progress in challenging the laws that can send juveniles to adult prison, serving life without parole for violent crimes committed when they were fifteen- or sixteen-years old — a wrenching issue Luke Turf explored in his 2005 feature “Headed For Trouble.” Now,…

Mile High Murder, No. 42: Homicide at 3042 Humboldt Street

View Larger Map Here’s a development sure to freak out residents living in the vicinity of 3042 Humboldt Street, an area captured in the graphic above (if you have problems seeing the image, click “View Larger Map”). Early this morning, the Denver Police Department responded to a burglary call at…

OMG! Douglas County teens face horrors of sexting

I am back from the front lines of the kiddie porn wars with some shocking news: The prosperous, sprawling suburbs of Douglas County conceal a steamy underbelly of underage sexual exhibitionism. Youth are being exploited right and left. Usually by each other. Sexting — the insidious, technologically inevitable, highly adolescent,…

Marine Lance Hering accepts plea for disappearing act

Marine Lance Hering so didn’t want to return to duty back in 2006 that he and a friend, Steve Powers, cooked up an elaborate story about his disappearance after injury in a Eldorado Canyon climbing accident. The tale and its aftermath (including his arrest in Washington state several months later),…

Renegade graffiti crew makes Capitol Hill hate peace

Give peace a chance? Not in much of Capitol Hill today. Over the weekend, a graffiti practitioner and/or crew with, presumably, a keen sense of irony, tossed up hastily scrawled peace signs on businesses, government buildings and even some private residences, much to the chagrin of those whose property was…

Your guide to recognizing terrorism: John Elway

Today, the hoi polloi of American law enforcement — Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske and Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli — will be in Denver to address the International Association of…

In the Florence pen, it’s risky not to join the riot

The dysfunctional high-security federal penitentiary in Florence has been the scene of all sorts of gang-related mayhem, from the grisly 1999 disembowelment of inmate Joey Estrella to the 2008 racial uprising in the yard, in which guards fired on brawling prisoners and killed two (as reported in “Life in the…