part 1 of 2 The motorcade wound slowly through the snowy streets of the city, following the hearse that carried the body of Denver police officer Shawn Leinen. Leinen, 28 years old and a three-year veteran of the force, had been shot and killed a few nights earlier by a…
Marj Rust enjoys the view from her home on a ridge west of Rocky Flats. She can take in a rolling expanse of rangeland running east from the hogback to Standley Lake, a vista interrupted only by the jumble of buildings at the U.S. Department of Energy facility. But these…
United we strand: Sure, the debut flight of United’s $120 million Boeing 777 out of Denver International Airport last Wednesday morning was a soaring success, with a sendoff that included costumed well-wishers and the flash of many cameras. But the fate of the first flight in caught United officials, airport…
At thirty, Barry Bonds is still the finest baseball player in the world. The San Francisco Giants’ left-fielder has a sweet swing, hits with awesome power and guns down runners with an arm the chairman of the NRA would envy. He’s won five Gold Gloves for his defensive play and…
Ten days ago South Dakota senator Larry Pressler blew into Denver for a short overnight trip. When he left he was $25,000 richer, thanks to a fundraiser held in his honor by Tele-Communications, Inc. The Denver cable giant’s timing couldn’t have been better. Exactly a week later, the biggest telecommunications…
When Richard McSpadden wanted to put in some new pay phones at Union Station, he didn’t have to look far. “In the past several months I’d say I’ve gotten about eight calls from companies wanting to either put in new phones or rip out our phones and put in their…
California Steaming I was disappointed to see the first category on your Best of Denver Readers’ Poll: “The best way to discourage Californians from coming to Colorado.” A Colorado native, I have lived in North and South Carolina, Georgia and back in Colorado, and I was then relocated to California…
Escalating tensions along Colorado’s Front Range have resulted in an outbreak of chemical warfare, forcing the government to step in and mediate. “It’s neighbor against neighbor,” says Angela Medbery, co-founder of the Colorado Pesticide Network and an eyewitness to the grassroots campaigns, which she describes as “mini-wars.” The fighting surrounds…
part 2 of 2 Orlando could have gone to Denver’s Emily Griffith Opportunity School to get his GED, Will says. But, she says, he was reluctant to do so. “At that time he was voicing a desire to stay away from gang influence,” says Will. “He said gang members went…
Right now Colorado attorney general Gale Norton looks like she should be a shoo-in for Hank Brown’s soon-to-be-empty U.S. Senate seat. She’s won two statewide elections, she’s made herself highly visible in what is normally a dry, low-profile office, and she’s smart. She’s pro-choice, talks tough on crime and pushes…
part 1 of 2 There’s something about Orlando Domena that makes people want to save him–from poverty, from gangs, from himself. Community leaders, from Denver’s chief of police to gang intervention officials, politicians and respected businessmen, offered up jobs, money, a cellular phone and a college education in an attempt…
Pop culture: Sacre bleu! Comsat, owner of the Nuggets, apparently thought of everything–including how to wrangle tax concessions out of both the city and the state–when it planned to build a giant arena in the Platte Valley. Everything, that is, but this: The very name of the place is a…
The assembled scholars in the South Stands think Al Davis is Satan, and they may be right. But if he does what he’s making noises about doing, they’ll canonize the man in Oakland, California. His stock might even rise a few notches right here in Elway Corners. Maybe Al wouldn’t…
When Rita Montero was conducting her campaign for the Denver Public Schools board this spring, voters in northwest Denver heard all about her qualifications for the job and her ideas for educational reform. Montero pledged to cut wasteful spending at DPS, boost parental participation and overhaul the district’s bilingual-education program…
Usually, Colorado’s wild animals mind their own business–but now flocks of government agents and self-appointed experts are doing it for them. This summer they will attempt to relocate, reintroduce and otherwise manipulate vicious carnivores, bad bears and smelly weasels. To find out what’s happening, you could sit through a bunch…
Paper Trail I didn’t follow the Paul Kelly case very carefully when it happened. But I read some of the Boulder Daily Camera articles, and if someone had asked me what the case was all about, I probably would have said something like, “Yeah, a bunch of high school morons…
One week before the end of spring term at the Emily Griffith Opportunity School, the shoe-repair shop is not just deserted, but decimated. Where students once learned the footwear basics, nothing remains but a few wooden tables and the lingering smell of polish. One floor up, in the watch-and-clock-repair lab,…
A leaky roof atop the new, $72 million Denver Public Library has caused damage to hundreds of books and has allowed rain to trickle into the office of the city librarian, but DPL officials are looking for a silver lining. “We’ve had great adventure here,” says City Librarian Rick Ashton,…
It cost Denver taxpayers $700 to have Lance Allrunner arrange a secret ghost-busting ceremony at Denver International Airport last month. But the way Allrunner sees it, it was money well spent. Allrunner, a 26-year-old Denver resident, traveled by car to the Cheyenne Indian reservations in Oklahoma and Montana earlier this…
It is spring, and what could be more springlike than standing on the sidewalk outside Bob’s Build-A-Bike with twenty other boys, admiring everyone else’s bicycle while hoping yours is better? Pretending not to notice as drivers slow their cars and stare. Wishing you could afford just one treat inside Bob’s…
Copping a plea: Not only did this month’s just-us-cops chat between Denver councilman Ed Thomas (a Mary DeGroot supporter) and Denver police chief Dave Michaud (a proponent of Wellington Webb) inspire numerous versions of the conversation, it also resulted in a few spin-off industries. Exhibit A, reproduced here, is a…
If Dr. Kevorkian isn’t doing anything this week, he might want to drop by CBS headquarters and apply his skills to everyone in the place. When last we looked, for instance, smug Dan Rather was still glued to his chair, dispensing the usual mixture of lame Texas aphorism and lofty…
