GEORGETOWN, Colo. — Georgetown was forced to temporarily close to visitors Saturday afternoon as overwhelming fall foliage traffic created gridlock conditions throughout the mountain town.
For about an hour and a half Saturday afternoon, Clear Creek Sheriff’s deputies turned away traffic from Interstate 70 and Highway 285 heading to Georgetown. Only residents with valid identification were allowed to enter the town during the closure.
Gary Wilkins, a long-time Georgetown resident, watched as cars pass by his home each fall as visitors search for golden aspen leaves. This weekend, however, the typical autumn rush became unmanageable.
“Wasn’t moving. It was gridlock,” said Wilkins. “I think that’s probably the best way to describe it.”
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Georgetown resident Gary Wilkins speaking with Denver7’s Claire Lavezzorio.
The traffic situation was further complicated by an equipment failure at one of Xcel Energy’s substations, which shut off power for more than 2,200 customers in the Georgetown area Saturday.
The outage forced some restaurants to close for several hours, leaving hungry leaf peepers with nowhere to eat.
Denver7 met Devon Parish and his family, who encountered the roadblock during their leaf-peeping adventure and were initially turned away.
“It was disappointing because my four kids were, they were like, ‘Whoa, what are we gonna have to go back through? Are we gonna go home now?’” Parish said.
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The family decided to turn back to Bailey for lunch and wait for the town to reopen to traffic.
“We came back through, and it was, it was worth every second of the wait, honestly,” Parish said.
Later in the afternoon, traffic conditions improved and power was restored to all customers.
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But residents like Wilkins know the fall frenzy is far from over.
“It’s not over yet,” Wilkins said.
Leaf peepers gridlock Georgetown, forcing town to temporarily close to visitors Saturday
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GEORGETOWN, Colo. — Clear Creek County is known for its miles of scenic landscape and quaint communities such as Idaho Springs and Georgetown.
But in 2022, it became known locally and nationally for a law enforcement agency that had tarnished its reputation.
On June 11, 2022, a Clear Creek County Sheriff’s deputy shot and killed 22-year-old Christian Glass after he had called for help when his car became stuck against an embankment just outside Silver Plume.
Glass suffered a mental health episode after he called for help and refused to exit his car when deputies and other law enforcement officials ordered him out. He had a knife on him that was used for amateur geological work, but a review of the incident determined Glass posed no threat to officers.
The fallout was immense and helped push the sheriff at the time, Rick Albers, into retirement.
In December 2023, the county found his permanent replacement in Matt Harris.
Upon taking the job, the new sheriff of Clear Creek County vowed to rebuild the department’s reputation through transparency and accountability while acknowledging the mistakes of the past.
“Make no mistake about it, the incident and the death of Christian Glass is tragic,” Harris said. “The environment that caused the Christian Glass shooting didn’t happen that night. It was an organizational failure from many, many years of not having the right people, the right training, the right quality of people, the right ethics.”
Harris spent nearly 30 years in federal law enforcement and was most recently a U.S. Marshall in Utah.
He said lots of friends and family questioned why he would and to take this job.
“I said I want it because I know I could fix it,” he said.
And to fix it, he needs to build trust with the community and install a new culture inside the sheriff’s office.
“If you make a mistake and you get it wrong, you have to correct the record, you have to correct it immediately. It’s the old adage, the cover-up will kill you,” Harris told Denver7 Investigates in late July. “We’re trying to build something in Clear Creek County. We have a checkered past. That’s why I was asked to take the job.”
That philosophy was challenged less than a month after that interview when a local dog breeder, 57-year-old Paul Peavey, was reported missing and days later was found dead on his property by a volunteer search party.
Harris later admitted that his department did not do enough when the missing person’s reports were filed.
“It’s disappointing, it’s very disappointing, but it is what it is. We failed, and we know we didn’t handle it correctly,” Harris told Denver7 Investigates in an interview a day after he issued a public apology. “Somebody called our department asking for assistance and we didn’t investigate it thoroughly.”
Two days after that interview, the department announced they had arrested 36-year-old Sergio Ferrer in connection with Peavey’s murder.
“My commitment to our community and the commissioners was that I was going to be transparent, that we were going to bring professionalism and integrity and better police work to Clear Creek County, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Harris said.
As far as rebuilding the department internally, Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office Capt. Seth Marquardt said morale was very low after the Glass shooting.
“It was calls 24-7. I don’t know if I can put a number on it. It was just constant,” he said.
Marquardt said the department faced constant verbal attacks following the shooting, leading to a high number of departures. Marquardt was one of the deputies who stayed.
“A lot of people did a lot of reflecting. Is this worth it anymore? And at the end of the day, for a lot of people the answer was no,” Marquardt said while getting emotional. “You know, it was rough, there were times when I didn’t want to be here. But I love what I do. I’ve been doing it my whole life, and I don’t know what else I would do.”
According to information from the Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office, 55 employees, including 29 sworn deputies, have left the department since the Glass shooting. The office has filled 27 of those 55 vacancies.
As he looks to fill some of those open positions, Harris acknowledges that while things are improving, there is still more to do.
“We have a lot of work to do. We’ve made a lot of progress. We’ve made a lot more progress than I ever thought we would make in 6 1/2 or seven months, but we have a lot of work to do still,” Harris said.
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