BLACK FOREST, Colo. — Kaylee Gripentrog walks into the barn and starts brushing one of her horses.
“This horse has been in front of thousands of people with fireworks going off above her head,” she said
“I wake up, I feed them and then work a couple barn jobs and go to online school, then I ride, get some chores done and feed them”.
It’s an early morning outside Colorado Springs and Kaylee is doing what she loves.
“It’s a big part of my life. I probably spend about 6 hours a day every single day. In the hours I’m not with them, I’m thinking about them, but I wouldn’t change it for anything”, she says.
Mike Castellucci
She’s a high school senior, but you could say she’s the Girl of the West
“So the Girl of the West is the official ambassador of the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo”, said Kaylee.
Kaylee has been named the Girl of the West for 2026. It’s a program that started in 1922.
In the time leading up to the rodeo, she’ll make over a hundred public appearances.
“Rodeo is a big part of our community and I’m very blessed to have something like the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo here,” she added.
For Kaylee, Colorado Springs has felt like the center of cowboy country, especially with the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame just off I-25 and Rockrimmon Boulevard.
But that might be changing soon.
After 48 years in Colorado Springs, it looks like it will all move up the road to Cheyenne.
Mike Castellucci
Paul Woody said the move isn’t a reflection of the popularity of rodeos in Colorado like the Pikes Peak or Bust, they just didn’t expect to be smothered in the center of a city with no room to grow.
An announcement from the Hall’s Board of Directors is expected by June.
But that doesn’t change a thing for Kaylee, who will dedicate this year to a hometown rodeo and of course her Poncho and Tito and Dolly who know how loved they are.
Denver7 | Your Voice: Get in touch with Mike Castellucci
Denver7’s Mike Castellucci covers stories that have an impact in all of Colorado’s communities, but specializes in reporting on community connections. If you’d like to get in touch with Mike, fill out the form below to send him an email.
COLORADO SPRINGS — Derrick Johnson buried his mother’s ashes beneath a golden dewdrop tree with purple blossoms at his home on Maui’s Haleakalā Volcano, fulfilling her wish of a final resting place looking over her grandchildren.
Then the FBI called.
It was Feb. 4, 2024, and Johnson was teaching an eighth-grade gym class.
“’Are you the son of Ellen Lopes?’” a woman asked, Johnson recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.
There had been an incident, and an FBI agent would fly out to explain, the caller said. Then she asked: “’Did you use Return to Nature for a funeral home?’”
“’You should probably google them,’” she added.
In the clatter of the weight room, Johnson typed “Return to Nature” into his cellphone. Dozens of news reports appeared, details popping out in a blur.
Hundreds of bodies stacked on top of each other. Inches of body decomposition fluid. Swarms of bugs. Investigators traumatized. Governor declares state of emergency.
Johnson felt nauseated and his chest constricted, forcing the breath from his lungs. He pushed himself out of the building as another teacher heard his cries and came running.
Two FBI agents visited Johnson the following week, confirming his mother’s body was among 189 that Return to Nature’s owners, Jon and Carie Hallford, had stashed in a Colorado building between 2019 and Oct. 4, 2023, when the bodies were found.
Even as the Hallfords’ bills went unpaid, authorities said they bought Tiffany jewelry, luxury cars and laser-body sculpting, pocketing about $130,000 clients paid for cremations.
They were arrested in Oklahoma in November 2023 and charged with abusing nearly 200 corpses.
Hundreds of families learned from officials that the ashes they ceremonially spread or kept close weren’t actually their loved ones’ remains. The bodies of their mothers, fathers, grandparents, children and babies had moldered in a room-temperature building in Colorado.
Jon Hallford will be sentenced Friday, facing between 30 to 50 years in prison, and Carie Hallford in April after a judge accepted their plea agreements in December. Attorneys for Jon and Carie Hallford did not respond to an AP request for comment.
Johnson, 45, who’s suffered panic attacks since the FBI called, promised himself that he would speak at Hallford’s sentencing and ask for the maximum penalty.
“When the judge passes out how long you’re going to jail, and you walk away in cuffs,” he said, “you’re gonna hear me.”
“She lied”
Jon and Carie Hallford were a husband-and-wife team who advertised “green burials” without embalming as well as cremation at their Return to Nature funeral home in Colorado Springs.
She would greet grieving families, guiding them through their loved ones’ final journey. He was less seen.
Johnson called the funeral home in early February 2023, the week his mother died. Carie Hallford assured him she would take good care of his mother, Johnson said.
Days later, she handed Johnson a blue box containing a zip-tied plastic bag with gray powder, saying those were his mother’s ashes.
“She lied to me over the phone. She lied to me through email. She lied to me in person,” Johnson told the AP.
The following day, the box lay surrounded by flowers and photos of Ellen Marie Shriver-Lopes at a memorial service at a Holiday Inn in Colorado Springs.
Johnson sprinkled rose petals over it as a preacher said: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
Caught on video
On Sept. 9, 2023, surveillance footage showed a man appearing to be Jon Hallford walk inside a building owned by Return to Nature in the town of Penrose, outside Colorado Springs, according to an arrest affidavit.
Camera footage inside showed a body laying on a gurney wearing a diaper and hospital socks. The man flipped it onto the floor.
Then he “appeared to wipe the remaining decomposition from the gurney onto other bodies in the room,” before wheeling what appeared to be two more bodies into the building, the affidavit said.
In a text to his wife, Hallford said, “while I was making the transfer, I got people juice on me,” according to court testimony.
The neighborhood mom
Johnson grew up with his mother in an affordable-housing complex in Colorado Springs, where she knew everyone.
Johnson’s father wasn’t around much; at 5 years old, Johnson remembers seeing him punch his mom, sending her careening into a table, then onto a guitar, breaking it.
It was Lopes who taught Johnson to shave and hollered from the bleachers at his football games.
Neighborhood kids called her “mom,” some sleeping on the couch when they needed a place to stay and a warm meal. She would chat with Jehovah’s Witnesses because she didn’t want to be rude. With a life spent in social work, Lopes would say: “If you have the ability and you have the voice to help: Help.”
Johnson spoke with his mother nearly everyday. After diabetes left her blind and bedridden at age 65, she’d ask Johnson to describe what her grandchildren looked like over the phone.
It was Super Bowl Sunday in 2023 when her heart stopped.
Johnson, who had flown in from Hawaii to be at her bedside, clutched her warm hand and held it until it was cold.
A gruesome discovery
Detective Sgt. Michael Jolliffe and Laura Allen, the county’s deputy coroner, stood outside the Penrose building on Oct. 3, 2023, according to the 50-page arrest affidavit.
A sign on the door read “Return to Nature Funeral Home” and listed a phone number. When Joliffe called it, it was disconnected. Cracked concrete and yellow stalks of grass encircled the building. At back was a shabby hearse with expired registration. A window air-conditioner hummed.
Someone had told Jolliffe of a rank smell coming from the building the day before, the affidavit said.
One neighbor told an AP reporter they thought it came from a septic tank; another said her daughter’s dog always headed to the building whenever he got off-leash.
It was reminiscent of rancid manure or rotting fish, and struck anyone downwind of the building.
Joliffe and Allen spotted a dark stain under the door and on the building’s stucco exterior. They thought it looked like fluids they had seen during investigations with decaying bodies, the affidavit said.
But the building’s windows were covered and they couldn’t see inside.
Allen contacted the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agency, which oversees funeral homes, which got in touch with Jon Hallford. Hallford agreed to show an inspector inside the next afternoon.
Inspector Joseph Berry arrived, but Hallford didn’t show.
Berry found a small opening in one of the window coverings, the affidavit said. Peering through, he saw white plastic bags that looked like body bags on the floor.
A judge issued a search warrant that week.
Bodies stacked high
Donning protective suits, gloves, boots and respirators, investigators entered the 2,500-square-foot building on Oct. 5, 2023, according to the affidavit.
Inside, they found a large bone grinder and next to it a bag of Quikcrete that investigators suspected was used to mimic ashes. Bodies were stacked in nearly a dozen rooms, including the bathroom, sometimes so high they blocked doorways, the affidavit said.
There were 189.
Some had decayed for years, others several months, according to the affidavit. Many were in body bags, some wrapped in sheets and duct tape. Others were half-exposed, on gurneys or in plastic totes, or lay with no covering, it said.
Investigators believed the Hallfords were experimenting with water cremation, which can dissolve a body in several hours, the document said. There were swarms of bugs and maggots.
Body bags were filled with fluid, according to the affidavit. Some had ripped. Five-gallon buckets had been placed to catch the leaks. Removal teams “trudged through layers of human decomposition on the floor,” it said.
Investigators identified bodies using fingerprints, hospital bracelets and medical implants, the affidavit said. It said one body was supposed to be buried in Pikes Peak National Cemetery.
Investigators exhumed the wooden casket at the burial site of the U.S. Army veteran, who served in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. Inside was a woman’s deteriorated body, wrapped in duct tape and plastic sheets.
The veteran’s body was discovered in the Penrose building, covered in maggots.
“Ashes to ashes”
Following the call from the FBI, Johnson promised himself he would speak at the Hallfords’ sentencing. But he struggled to talk about what had happened even with close friends, let alone in front of a judge and the Hallfords.
For months, Johnson obsessed over the case, reading dozens of news reports, often glued to his phone until one of his children would interrupt him to play.
When he shut his eyes, he said he imagined trudging through the building with “maggots, flies, centipedes. There’s rats, they’re feasting.” He asked a preacher if his mother’s soul had been trapped there. She reassured him it hadn’t. When an episode of the zombie show “The Walking Dead” came on, he broke down.
Johnson started seeing a therapist and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He joined Zoom meetings with other victims’ relatives as the number grew from dozens to hundreds.
After Lopes’ body was identified, Johnson flew in March 2024 to Colorado, where his mother’s remains lay in a brown box in a crematorium.
“I don’t think you blame me, but I still want to tell you I’m sorry,” he recalled saying, placing his hand on the box.
Then Lopes’ body was loaded into the cremator and Johnson pushed the button.
Justice
Johnson has slowly improved with therapy, engaging more with his students and children. He began practicing speaking at the Hallfords’ sentencings in therapy. Closing his eyes, he envisioned standing in front of the judge — and the Hallfords.
“Justice is, it’s the part that is missing from this whole equation,” he said. “Maybe somehow this justice frees me.”
“And then there’s part of me that’s scared it won’t, because it probably won’t.”
An officer and a suspect were injured Monday afternoon in a Colorado Springs shooting involving police, according to the department.
The Colorado Springs Police Department first posted about the shooting in the 2600 block of East Bijou Street in East Colorado Springs at 2:48 p.m. Monday.
Around 1:30 p.m. Monday, CSPD Tactical Enforcement Unit and the Colorado Parole Fugitive Apprehension Unit were in the area of East Bijou Street and Balfour Avenue conducting a “fugitive apprehension operation,” CSPD said. After the operation, CSPD officers contacted a suspicious man in the same area, CSPD said. The man ran away, took out a handgun and a shot a CSPD officer, police said. Two CSPD officers then returned fire, shooting the suspect.
The suspect and the officer were taken to a local hospital. The officer sustained “serious but non-life-threatening” gunshot wound, police said. The suspect is in critical condition.
The identity of the injured officer and the suspect are not being released at this time, CSPD said. The El Paso County Sheriff’s office is assuming responsibility for the investigation.
This is the second Colorado Springs police shooting in three days.
Applejack Wine & Spirits, a staple of the Denver area since the 1960s, has been sold to ABC Fine Wine & Spirits in Orlando, Florida.
ABC, one of the country’s largest family-owned and operated alcohol beverage retailers, announced the purchase Friday. The company said in a statement that the sale marks its first out-of-state acquisition in 90 years and is the start of plans to expand nationwide.
“This is a milestone in ABC’s history and a major step toward our overall expansion plans,” said Charles Bailes III, ABC chairman and CEO. “Applejack has an exceptional reputation in the industry and is an iconic beverage retailer in Colorado.”
Applejack was founded in 1961 in Wheat Ridge. It also has stores in Thornton and Colorado Springs.
Former Applejack CEO and owner Jim Shpall said he has known Bailes for about 30 years and called ABC “great, great operators.”
Shpall said Herb Becker was Applejack’s original owner. The store opened in the Applewood shopping center in Wheat Ridge. At that time, Interstate 70 didn’t reach past Wadsworth Boulevard or Kipling Street, Sphall said.
Alan Freis, Shpall’s father-in-law, bought the business in 1980.
“I had been practicing law. An opportunity arose to go into the business and I started at Applejack in 1994,” Shpall said. “Effectively, until just now, in 65 years of history, it has been run by just three people.”
The first Applejack store is in the same shopping center where it started, but has grown in size through the years. The site at 3320 Youngfield St. is approximately 40,000 square feet.
And the well-known Applejack sign in front of the store has been in place since around 1962, Shpall said.
The three Colorado stores will operate as Applejack by ABC.
Shpall said the companies haven’t disclosed the sales price.
ABC Fine Wine & Spirits started from a single downtown Orlando storefront in 1936. The retailer, privately owned and run, has grown to more than 125 locations across Florida.
ABC said it plans to remodel the Applejack stores and add walk-in humidors in the first six months.
Two soldiers at Fort Carson were convicted of poaching mule deer on the military and state land, Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials said.
State wildlife officials started investigating in November 2024 after a hunter reported finding a buck that appeared to be poached on the base, the agency said in a news release Tuesday.
When a CPW officer arrived in the area, they found a partially processed buck that had been abandoned with “select cuts of meat removed and the antlers cut off,” state officials said.
The officer found a doe 100 yards away that was also partially processed and abandoned, and both locations showed signs of illegal poaching, CPW leaders said in a news release.
The investigating wildlife officer found evidence to identify a vehicle connected to the case and later found related pictures on social media of Army Sgt. Jacob Curtis Keyser and Staff Sgt. Juan Salcedo.
Investigators also executed search warrants that uncovered evidence of poaching and trespassing in Keyser’s vehicle and on his phone.
A third soldier, whom state officials did not name, was fined $900 for disposing of Keyser’s poached venison right before Keyser was interviewed by a state wildlife investigator.
Keyser was charged with 30 wildlife violations and was fined $19,005 and 180 suspension points, state officials said. He must also surrender his hunting rifle, which will be destroyed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Salcedo was charged with 15 violations and was fined $8,817 and 65 suspension points.
People who are convicted of wildlife crimes and accumulate 20 or more suspension points over a five-year period are subject to wildlife license suspension hearings, according to the agency.
State officials will hold a suspension hearing in the coming months to determine how long the soldiers will be barred from hunting and fishing, which could be up to a lifetime, nationwide ban through the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact.
“Poaching is a serious, costly crime which harms legitimate sportspersons, wildlife viewers, small business owners and taxpayers,” district wildlife manager and investigating officer Demetria Wright said in a statement.
The man accused of killing three people and wounding nine others at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs a decade ago died in custody over the weekend, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Robert Dear, 67, died at 6:30 a.m. Saturday in the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Randilee Giamusso said. His death was “preliminarily linked to natural causes,” Giamusso said Tuesday, and prison officials followed advanced medical orders before he died.
Dear’s death ends a decade-long — and ultimately unsuccessful — effort to convict him of crimes connected to the mass shooting. Although Dear had been in state or federal custody since the 2015 attack and confessed to carrying out the mass shooting, he was never convicted because he was always considered to be too mentally ill to go through the court process — that is, he was consistently found incompetent to stand trial.
Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen said in a statement Tuesday that the victims of the shooting were denied justice in the “evil attack.”
“All three victims and this community deserved the full measure of justice in this case, but they are now denied that possibility,” Allen said. “Their family members and loved ones have endured this horror for far too long.”
The Bureau of Prisons declined to provide any additional information about Dear’s death and officials with the Greene County Medical Examiner’s Office did not immediately return requests for more information.
Dear’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
Dear was accused of attacking the Planned Parenthood clinic on Nov. 27, 2015. Authorities believe he intended to wage “war” on the clinic because the staff performed abortions. He arrived armed with four SKS rifles, five handguns, two more rifles, a shotgun and more than 500 rounds of ammunition, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Twenty-seven people who were inside the clinic at the time hid until they could be rescued by law enforcement, according to prosecutors. Dear fired 198 rounds in the attack and tried to blow up propane tanks to take out law enforcement vehicles during a five-hour standoff.
A competency evaluation considers whether a criminal defendant is mentally ill or developmentally disabled, and whether that mental illness impedes the defendant’s ability to understand the court process. Rooted in the constitutional rights to due process and a fair trial, competency centers on two prongs — whether defendants have a factual and rational understanding of the proceedings, and whether defendants are able to consult with their attorneys and assist in their own defenses.
Experts previously testified that Dear understood the facts and circumstances of his case but was still incompetent to proceed because he could not assist in his own defense.
Dear was known for frequent outbursts in court. During a 2019 hearing, he declared himself to be a “religious zealot” who was being prosecuted in a “political kangaroo court.” In 2021, he insisted in federal court that he was competent to stand trial, shouting, “I’m not crazy.”
In September, a federal judge started the process for Dear to be committed long-term to the mental health facility in Missouri after finding he was unlikely to be restored to competency.
The decision came nearly three years after the judge ordered that Dear be medicated against his will in 2022. Federal prosecutors believed doing so would restore him to competency.
On Feb. 14, 2022, a Starbucks manager pulled Michaela Sellaro aside for a meeting.
Just a few weeks earlier, Sellaro and a group of her fellow baristas at the coffee shop at 2975 East Colfax Ave. in Denver informed the company’s CEO that they planned to organize a union.
In the early afternoon, at a table by the windows, the store and district managers sat Sellaro down for a chat. The message, though light and breezy, was clear: “You know Starbucks’ stance is that we don’t need a union to represent our partners,” Kaylin Driscoll, the district manager, told Sellaro, according to a recording reviewed by The Denver Post.
Relationships with leadership will degrade if employees vote to organize, the managers told her. Promotions could be nixed. Benefits might change.
“The dynamic of having those conversations will change with a union,” said Ariel Rodriguez, the store’s manager, in the recording. “I have no personal desire to be part of a store that has to work through a union to have those conversations with you. I have zero interest in that.”
The East Colfax store, which the company has since closed, represents one of 18 Starbucks cafes in Colorado that have unionized since 2022, despite the Seattle-based coffee giant’s well-documented union-busting activity. What started with one unionized store in Buffalo, New York, in 2021 has blossomed into a nationwide movement encompassing 640 locations and thousands of workers around the United States.
Union supporter Pete DeMay of Chicago chants into a bullhorn along with other picketers during a labor organizing action at the Starbucks location at 2975 E. Colfax Ave. in Denver on Friday, March 11, 2022. (Photo by Eric Lutzens/The Denver Post)
Starbucks has nearly 18,300 locations, company-operated and licensed, across the U.S. and Canada. So far, despite the rapid growth in organizing, fewer than 4% of Starbucks workers are employed in unionized stores.
Starbucks has fought these efforts tooth and nail along the way. The National Labor Relations Board, which regulates private sector union activity in the U.S., has found the company illegally fired workers in response to organizing, closed stores because of union votes and engaged in widespread unfair labor practices designed to quash workers’ efforts.
The coffee conglomerate is the biggest violator of labor law in modern history, according to Starbucks Workers United, the national union representing company workers. The NLRB and its judges have found Starbucks has committed more than 500 labor law violations, the union says. Workers have filed more than 1,000 unfair labor practice charges, including more than 125 since January. More than 700 unresolved charges remain.
Despite the hundreds of union votes over the past four years, baristas are still working without a contract. This month, 92% of union workers voted to authorize an open-ended unfair labor practices strike ahead of the holiday season. The vote comes after six months of Starbucks “refusing to offer new proposals to address workers’ demands for better staffing, higher pay and a resolution of hundreds of unfair labor practice charges,” the union said in a news release.
On Nov. 13, more than 1,000 workers — from 65 stores in more than 40 cities, including Colorado Springs and Lafayette — walked off the job. The union said it was “prepared to continue escalating” its strikes if the company failed to deliver a new contract.
“Union baristas mean business and are ready to do whatever it takes to win a fair contract and end Starbucks’ unfair labor practices,” said Michelle Eisen, a Starbucks Workers United spokesperson and 15-year veteran barista. “We want Starbucks to succeed, but turning the company around and bringing customers back begins with listening to and supporting the baristas who are responsible for the Starbucks experience.
“If Starbucks keeps stonewalling, they should expect to see their business grind to a halt. The ball is in Starbucks’ court.”
The union’s push comes amid a wave of public support for organizing efforts. More than two-thirds of American adults approve of labor unions, according to Gallup polling, a level last reached in the 1950s and early 1960s. Support remains especially strong among young people — a demographic common for Starbucks baristas.
Starbucks representatives declined an interview request for this story. Sara Kelly, Starbucks’ chief partner officer, told employees in a letter this month that the company had bargained in good faith with the union, reaching more than 30 tentative agreements on full contract articles.
“Our commitment to bargaining hasn’t changed,” Kelly wrote. “Workers United walked away from the table, but if they are ready to come back, we’re ready to talk. We believe we can move quickly to a reasonable deal.”
Starbucks, she said, remains the best job in retail, paying, on average, $30 per hour for hourly workers once benefits are factored in.
The first Colorado union shop
But employees at Colorado’s first unionized cafe quickly learned the extent to which Starbucks would go to dissuade organizing efforts.
Harris didn’t know much about labor organizing, but she was intrigued. She and her colleagues were sick of the low compensation, of underscheduling and understaffing, and of not learning their weekly schedules until the night before.
Harris connected with the Buffalo workers over Twitter, and the resulting conversations helped launch the first Starbucks union efforts in Colorado.
Many of her colleagues were scared. One quickly told management about the plans.
Within a week, a rarely seen district manager suddenly showed up at the store, Harris said. Management organized an hour-long meeting about how the union was a bad idea, she said.
“They laid it on thick,” Harris said.
The day the workers officially filed with the NLRB, the Marshall fire broke out in Boulder County. As the blaze raged in Superior and Louisville, the Starbucks employees continued to work. Several staffers lost their own homes or were forced to evacuate.
Harris said she got a call that night from her manager, asking if she was OK. Then she said she was told to be at work first thing the next morning.
“It was a total exploitation of us,” Harris said.
As the vote neared, Starbucks amped up its anti-union activity, she said. Management initiated more two-on-one meetings with staff members. For many of the teenage baristas, this represented one of their first jobs. And here leadership was telling them that they wouldn’t be able to transfer stores or enjoy the perks that nonunion employees would receive, such as credit card tips.
Len Harris fires up the crowd during a rally at Trident Booksellers and Cafe in Boulder on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Harris helped to organize the first unionized Starbucks in Colorado, in Superior, before she was fired. (Matthew Jonas/Boulder Daily Camera)
“The individual intimidation was infuriating beyond belief,” Harris said. “I was sick to my stomach that they were taking advantage of these younger workers to terrify them.”
An executive flew in from Seattle and observed staff at work for weeks, Harris said. Management started cutting workers’ hours.
In April 2022, 12 of the 14 employees at the Superior location voted in favor of forming the union. The company, though, refused to negotiate with the newly formed body. So they went on strike in November, shutting down the store for the entire day.
The following day, Starbucks fired Harris, citing a policy about handling cash that she said she had never heard of. An administrative law judge with the NLRB later found the company had illegally fired Harris based on her union activity. She’s still waiting for tens of thousands of dollars in court-ordered back pay.
“I feel like I’ve gotten a peek behind the curtain to the levels of depravity that the company will sink to to take advantage of their employees,” she said.
The Starbucks playbook
The tactics Starbucks used to try to quash worker organizing in Superior are part of the playbook deployed by company leadership across Colorado and the rest of the country, according to interviews, NLRB documents and news reports.
Emily Alice Dinaro started organizing a Starbucks location on Denver’s 16th Street mall in 2022 because of what she saw as management’s failure to protect staff from violence, drug use and volatile customer interactions that were occurring daily.
After the union activity began, management started enforcing existing rules more strictly, while introducing new edicts, she said. Union supporters were singled out, and these new enforcement steps were used to push people out of the store, Dinaro said.
Out of the 26-person staff, 18 workers signed union cards, while 10 of them signed a letter to the Starbucks CEO informing him of their support. But the implementation of these new rules — concerning dress code, cell phone use and cash handling, among other things — forced widespread turnover at the store, Dinaro said. Only five people ended up voting in the union election, which passed successfully.
Dinaro was fired shortly after the vote over what the company said were repeated violations of its attendance and punctuality policy. In 2024, an NLRB judge ruled that Starbucks had fired her illegally due to her union activity.
“When I first started at Starbucks, I thought they were an outstanding, virtuous company,” Dinaro said. “I’ve come to learn they just have an outstanding PR team.”
Starbucks barista Brenna Bellfield holds roses, a symbol of the labor movement, in front of the unionized East Colfax location of Starbucks in Denver, Colorado, on Saturday, Jan. 2022. (Eli Imadali/Special to The Denver Post)
A Starbucks spokesperson, in a statement to The Post this month, said the company “respects our partners’ right to choose through a fair and democratic process, to be represented by a union or not to be represented by a union.”
But federal judges have repeatedly said otherwise. The NLRB, time and again, has found that Starbucks violated the National Labor Relations Act in dealings with employees and their efforts to unionize.
The coffee giant shuttered a store in Colorado Springs in 2022 shortly after its workers voted to unionize and one day before a requested bargaining date. The NLRB, the following year, ordered Starbucks to reopen that store, along with 22 others around the country, because the company had failed to give notice to labor groups.
The NLRB invalidated another union election at a different Colorado Springs location in 2022, finding that management threatened employees through “highly coercive” questioning and “textbook unlawful interrogation.” One manager gave “dire” warnings to workers that unionized stores would not receive certain benefits, such as pay raises.
In several instances, Starbucks violated federal law by firing Colorado workers over pro-union activities, the NLRB found.
The company has employed these same tactics to dissuade union activity across the country.
Federal labor regulators in 2022 asked a court to force Starbucks to stop the company’s “virulent, widespread and well-orchestrated response to employees’ protected organizing efforts.”
Starbucks has refused to divulge how much it has spent on its response to worker organizing campaigns. A federal judge in 2023 ordered the company to comply with a U.S. Department of Labor subpoena seeking expenditure documents for its investigation into the company’s compliance with the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.
“We will not sit idly by when any company, including Starbucks Corp., defies our request to provide documents to make certain they are complying with the law,” Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said in a statement at the time.
Howard Schultz, the coffee chain’s billionaire founder, has said the unionization drive felt like an attack on his life’s work. In previous speeches to his employees, he has cast the union as “a group trying to take our people,” an “outside force that’s trying desperately to disrupt our company” and “an adversary that’s threatening the very essence of what (we) believe to be true.”
Sharon Block, a former NLRB member under President Obama and a professor at Harvard Law School, said the coffee giant has used a tried-and-true playbook to stifle union activity. But with weak federal laws and a National Labor Relations Board that has been stunted by the Trump administration, she said, there is little incentive for unscrupulous companies to play by the rules.
“This is a continuing pattern of behavior that sends a signal to the workers that this is a company that will do almost anything to stop them,” she said in an interview.
Starbucks has earned the distinction as a model for unlawful corporate union busting, the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, wrote in a January article. The National Labor Relations Act lacks teeth, making companies more than willing to accept a few slaps on the wrist in order to achieve their broader goals, the report’s author noted.
“There is no mystery as to why corporations like … Starbucks … violate the (law) with such regularity: Crime pays great dividends, as it produces the desired chilling effect on worker organizing and as corporations consider the law’s paltry sanctions an insignificant price to pay to prevent unionization through fear and disruption,” the article states. “The penalties for violating the (law) are utterly meaningless for multibillion-dollar corporations.”
‘No contract, no coffee’
Despite these aggressive union-busting efforts, Starbucks workers continue to organize in Colorado and across the country.
Unionized shops in Colorado have grown to 17 stores, including five in Denver. More than 640 member stores have joined the cause since 2022, making the drive one of the fastest organizing efforts in modern history, according to Starbucks Workers United.
Now workers want a contract.
The union and the company conducted their first bargaining session in April 2024, meeting monthly that summer. In December, however, the union says Starbucks backtracked on the agreed-upon path forward. Starbucks Workers United accused the company of failing to bargain in good faith.
In April, the company rejected Starbucks’ package. The two sides have yet to return to the bargaining table.
Workers voted overwhelmingly on Nov. 5 to authorize an open-ended unfair labor practice strike. The union on Nov. 13 turned Starbucks’ Red Cup Day — an annual free cup giveaway around the holiday season — into a “red cup rebellion,” forcing the closure of nearly all 65 stores where workers were striking.
Starbucks Workers United said they planned to continue escalating the strike, warning that it could be the “largest, longest strike in company history” if the company refuses to deliver a fair contract.
Colorado Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, along with 24 of their Senate colleagues, wrote a letter this month to Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, pushing the company to end its “illegal union-busting efforts and negotiate a fair contract with its employees.”
“It is clear that Starbucks has the money to reach a fair agreement with its workers,” the senators wrote. “Starbucks must reverse course from its current posture, resolve its existing labor disputes, and bargain a fair contract in good faith with these employees.”
Jeremy Dixon, right, and Starbucks baristas picket outside a Starbucks store during a rally to demand a new union contract in Colorado Springs on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Kelly, Starbucks’ chief partner officer, said the company already offers the best overall wage and benefits package in retail. She touted strong benefits that include health care, 100% tuition coverage for a four-year college degree and up to 18 weeks of paid family leave. The union, she wrote, is proposing pay increases of 65% immediately and 77% over three years, along with other proposals that would “significantly affect store operations and customer experience.”
“These aren’t serious, evidence-based proposals,” Kelly wrote.
The union, though, says many workers don’t get enough hours to qualify for benefits. Starting wages for baristas, they say, are $15.25 an hour in a majority of states, though Denver’s minimum wage stands at $18.81, requiring higher rates. Barista positions listed on the company’s website start at $17 per hour in Colorado, while shift supervisor roles begin around $21 per hour.
Baristas in Fort Collins and Colorado Springs last month participated in a national wave of pickets as they demanded a fair contract and prepared to strike.
“No contract, no coffee!” workers and their allies shouted as they rallied outside a Starbucks cafe on South College Avenue in Fort Collins. “Respect our rights or expect our strikes!”
Drivers honked their horns in support, while supporters gave thumbs-down reactions to those frequenting the coffee chain.
Three days later, a dozen people picketed outside a cafe on Carmela Grove in Colorado Springs, chanting in call-and-response choruses.
“I’m proud so many other stores are willing to step up with us,” said Blue Taylor, a shift supervisor and strike captain at the store. The 19-year-old watched as the company, during the store’s unionizing drive, spread misinformation about the consequences of organizing and tried to dissuade workers from supporting the cause. It didn’t work.
An early morning apartment fire in Colorado Springs sent two people to the hospital and displaced dozens from their homes, according to fire officials.
Colorado Springs firefighters responded to the blaze at 5320 Pikes Peak Avenue shortly after 1:30 a.m. Sunday, according to the fire department.
A video posted by the Colorado Springs Fire Department shows smoke wafting from the building, with burnt and peeling siding visible toward the upper floors.
The bulk of the fire has been knocked down. All of Pikes Peak between Byron and Murray will remained closed.
Firefighters rescued four people from the burning building with ladders and seven people were injured, fire officials said. Five of those injured were treated and released at the scene, but paramedics took two to the hospital with unknown injuries.
Roughly 50 people were displaced by the fire, according to Colorado Springs officials.
The cause of the fire and the extent of the damage remained under investigation Sunday.
The Colorado Springs Fire Department responded to the crash at 4:11 p.m. at 1700 W. Uintah St. after a truck into the parking lot, started speeding eastbound toward the building and crashed through the exterior wall.
Six people, including the driver, were taken to the hospital with injuries that did not appear to be life threatening, the agency said on social media.
The driver is cooperating with the investigation, and officers believe the crash was an accident, according to the fire department.
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – Mountain View High School’s Madeline Clark hugs her father Kevin Clark, the head of the CHSAA Cross Country Committee, after finishing the Class 4A girls State Cross Country Championship race on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, at the Norris Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Photo by Timothy Hurst/The Denver Post)
A fire sparked Thursday in eastern El Paso County briefly evacuated nearby residents before it was fully contained, the sheriff’s office said
The Big Springs fire consumed 82 acres near 31415 Big Springs Road — north of Yoder and about 35 miles east of Colorado Springs — before fire crews gained full containment as of 1:41 p.m., according to the sheriff’s office.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued at 12:30 p.m. for residents in the area. Sheriff’s officials downgraded the area to pre-evacuation status 30 minutes later.
Additional information about the fire, including the cause, was not immediately available Thursday.
A Denver jail deputy arrested after a domestic violence incident is accused of pulling a gun, threatening to harm the man his wife was seeing and destroying a computer and iPad, according to a Colorado Springs Police Department arrest affidavit.
Darrel Killebrew, 33, was arrested on suspicion of felony menacing, assault, child abuse, criminal mischief and criminal tampering after officers were called to his home late Monday night.
According to the affidavit, Killebrew began fighting with his wife — who had started divorce proceedings in April — after finding out she was cheating on him.
Killebrew took her computer and iPad and refused to return them, then ordered her to call the other man, saying “Trust me, I got something coming for him” while drawing a gun from his waistband.
The two fought, and Killebrew tossed the gun on the couch and knocked the woman to the floor before taking the devices into the kitchen and repeatedly slamming them onto the corner of the kitchen island, investigators wrote in the arrest report.
When she went to get her purse from her vehicle, Killebrew knocked it out of her hands and later removed the internet router and hid it.
Killebrew was released from the El Paso County Jail on a $4,000 bail and is set to appear in court Tuesday. The Denver Sheriff Department put him on investigative leave Wednesday.
A single-engine plane carrying three people crash-landed early Wednesday on a road in Colorado Springs, according to law enforcement.
The pilot made an emergency landing on Powers Boulevard near Barnes Road, where the plane was leaking fuel, according to a 4:38 a.m. post from the Colorado Springs Fire Department. It’s unknown what forced the pilot to land.
None of the three people on board the plane was injured, according to fire officials. Photos posted by the fire department show damage to the plane’s wings and tail.
Two lanes of southbound Powers Boulevard were closed Wednesday morning for the cleanup and investigation, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department.
The Federal Aviation Administration was responding to investigate the crash, fire officials said.
LEADVILLE, Colo. — The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is assisting the Lake County Sheriff’s Office in investigating a fatal road rage incident.
On Tuesday around 10 p.m., sheriff’s office deputies were called to reports of a shooting along Highway 24 just south of Leadville, the CBI said. When deputies arrived, they found Landon Levell Mentink, 40, of Leadville, shot and pronounced dead at the scene.
Law enforcement identified Robert Price Chase, 31, of Leadville as a suspect. Investigators said they believe he and Mentink were involved in a road rage incident that quickly turned violent.
Chase was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He’s currently being held at the Lake County Detention Center. Chase made his first appearance in court on Wednesday, and a bond was set at $100,000. A next court appearance is scheduled for October 16.
Denver 7+ Colorado News Latest Headlines | September 25, 7am
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office arrested two students at a Colorado Springs-area high school for allegedly bringing a handgun and an airsoft gun to school.
The arrests occurred Friday at Mesa Ridge High School after reports of weapons on campus led the school resource officer to the student and the handgun, where they were detained and the weapon confiscated, the sheriff’s office said.
“After securing the firearm, the SRO immediately located a second student associated with the incident. Both students were detained, and the school administration placed the facility in a security hold, while additional Patrol deputies, including a K9 team, could respond,” the sheriff’s office said.
Both were booked into juvenile detention on multiple misdemeanor charges, including possession of a handgun by a juvenile and unlawful conduct on school grounds.
It’s unclear if the weapons were loaded.
The incident, located at 6070 Mesa Ridge Parkway near Colorado Springs, prompted many parents to withdraw their children early due to safety concerns.
It also came two days after a shooting at Evergreen High School that wounded two students and left the shooter dead with a self-inflicted wound.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — While no one in Colorado took home the “big one” from Saturday’s Powerball drawing, a ticket sold in the state made at least one person an instant millionaire.
One ticket sold at a Maverik convenience store in Colorado Springs, located at 9665 Prominent Point, won its owner $1 million after the person matched five numbers, Colorado Lottery officials said Saturday.
The winning numbers were 11, 23, 44, 61, and 62, with the Powerball number being 17.
But the nearly $1.8 billion jackpot was the amount people were playing for, and that will be split between two Powerball players in Missouri and Texas.
The winning ticket in Texas was sold at a gas station-convenience store in Fredericksburg, according to the Texas Lottery.
The $1.787 billion prize, which was the second-largest U.S. lottery jackpot in history, followed 41 consecutive drawings in which no one matched all six numbers.
Back in Colorado, more winners were announced in Parker, Dinosaur, Brighton, Woodland Park, Fort Morgan, and Aurora— as six people won between $50,000 and $100,000.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
Coloradans making a difference | Denver7 featured videos
Denver7 is committed to making a difference in our community by standing up for what’s right, listening, lending a helping hand and following through on promises. See that work in action, in the videos above.
No one in Colorado took home the nearly $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot on Saturday, but seven lucky ticket holders across the state still walked away winners.
The seven large-prize tickets sold in Colorado are worth between $50,000 and $1 million, according to a news release from the Colorado Lottery. The prizes include:
$1 million from a ticket sold at a Kum & Go/Maverick at 9665 Prominent Point in Colorado Springs
$100,000 from a ticket sold at a Loaf N Jug at 101 West Brontosaurus Boulevard in Dinosaur
$100,000 from a ticket sold at a Kum & Go/Maverick at 70 West Bridge Street in Brighton
$100,000 from a ticket sold at a Sherman Food & Gas at 207 South Sherman Street in Fort Morgan
$100,000 from a ticket sold at an A-1 Food & Gas at 10300 East Sixth Avenue in Aurora
$50,000 from a ticket sold at a King Soopers at 17761 Cottonwood Drive in Parker
$50,000 from a ticket sold at Banana Belt Liquors at 300 U.S. 24 in Woodland Park
Two Powerball players in Missouri and Texas won the nearly $1.8 billion jackpot during Saturday night’s drawing, ending the lottery game’s three-month drought without a winner. The two winners will split the jackpot.
The winning numbers were 11, 23, 44, 61, and 62, with the Powerball number being 17.
The winning ticket in Texas was sold at a gas station-convenience store in Fredericksburg, according to the Texas Lottery.
The $1.787 billion prize, which was the second-largest U.S. lottery jackpot in history, followed 41 consecutive drawings in which no one matched all six numbers. The last drawing with a jackpot winner happened on May 31.
Powerball’s terrible odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to generate big jackpots, with prizes growing as they roll over when no one wins. Lottery officials note that the odds are far better for the game’s many smaller prizes. There are three drawings each week.
The Missouri and Texas winners will have the choice between an annuitized prize of $893.5 million or a lump sum payment of $410.3 million. Both prize options are before taxes. If a winner selects the annuity option, they will receive one immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments that increase by 5% each year. Powerball tickets cost $2, and the game is offered in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
DENVER — News that U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM) is relocating from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama, is not necessarily the economic deathblow that some are making it out to be, according to the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.
Chamber president and CEO J.J. Ament said Space Command accounts for 1,400 jobs and a billion dollars in regional economic impact. However, according to Ament, that is a drop in the aerospace industry bucket.
“We’re certainly disappointed to see Space Command move to Alabama, but Colorado’s aerospace economy is incredibly robust,” Ament told Denver7 anchor Shannon Ogden. “We have more than 2,000 aerospace companies in Colorado. They employ over 200,000 people directly or indirectly.”
Explore the history of the fight over Space Command in the timeline below:
According to the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, Colorado’s aerospace industry brought in more than $40 billion in federal investment just last year.
Meanwhile, the relocation of Space Command headquarters won’t happen overnight.
“But one fell swoop means over many years, because one of our arguments to keep Space Command is it’s fully up and running now. Fully operational capability. So it’ll take many years for Huntsville to develop and build facilities that will be needed,” Ament said. “So that transition is going to take time. It won’t happen immediately. We’ll find that many of our military men and women will be ordered to relocate. Many of the commercial folks will probably stay in Colorado and will continue to work in some capacity with Space Command from here. I think there will be Space Command jobs even if headquarter zip code changes.”
Related coverage:
Denver7
Denver7 | Your Voice: Get in touch with Shannon Ogden
Denver7 evening anchor Shannon Ogden reports on issues impacting all of Colorado’s communities, but specializes in covering local government and politics. If you’d like to get in touch with Shannon, fill out the form below to send him an email.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced the U.S. Space Command headquarters would relocate from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Huntsville, Alabama.
In 2018, Trump signed an executive order reestablishing the space command during his first term. In 2023, former President Joe Biden decided to keep the headquarters in Colorado, where it was temporarily located.
Trump’s announcement Tuesday officially reversed Biden’s decision and is consistent with his original plan.
“The U.S. Space Command HQ will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point forward as Rocket City,” Trump said in a press conference.
President Donald Trump speaks about the relocation of U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado to Alabama in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Washington. | Mark Schiefelbein
The decision was criticized by Democrats, who say it will be costly to relocate the headquarters and puts jobs in jeopardy in Colorado.
Trump said Tuesday that Colorado’s use of mail-in voting was a “big factor” for why the change was happening. Alabama allows absentee ballots that can be requested and returned by mail.
Alabama, which voted in favor of Trump in all three of the elections he ran in, celebrated the decision with its congressional delegation joining Trump in the Oval Office for the announcement. The relocation is expected to bring jobs and investment to Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal.
“We had a lot of competition for this and Alabama’s getting it,” Trump said, acknowledging the state’s leaders flanking him on either side.
The Air Force had previously said Redstone was the preferred location for the headquarters, but officials said new construction would have to happen in Alabama to support the operations already underway in Colorado. The Biden administration opted instead to overturn Trump’s decision and keep operations where they were.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement Tuesday that Trump was playing “political games” with the military’s readiness and their families.
“Moving Space Command Headquarters to Alabama is not only wrong for our national defense, but it’s harmful to hundreds of Space Command personnel and their families,” Weiser said.
In this Aug. 29, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump, left, watches with Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary Mark Esper as the flag for U.S. space Command is unfurled as Trump announces the establishment of the U.S. Space Command in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. President Joe Biden has decided to keep U.S. Space Command headquarters in Colorado, overturning a last-ditch decision by the Trump administration to move it to Alabama and ending months of politically fueled debate, according to senior U.S. officials | Carolyn Kaster
Weiser said his office had been preparing for Trump to make this announcement and is ready to challenge it in court.
Trump’s announcement Tuesday was his first televised remarks in a week, since a three-hour Cabinet meeting last Tuesday.
After several days with no public appearances, there was speculation online about the president’s health. He noted during the press conference that he had an “active” weekend by golfing, posting online and doing an hourlong interview with an outlet.
Donald Trump made his first public appearance in a week on Tuesday to announce that the US Space Command (Spacecom) headquarters, which is tasked with leading national security operations in space, would be in the Republican stronghold of Alabama.
Flanked by Republican senators and members of Congress at a White House news conference, Trump said Huntsville, Alabama, would be the new location of the space command. The move reverses a Biden administration decision to put the facility at its current temporary headquarters in Democratic-leaning Colorado.
“The US Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point forward as Rocket City,” Trump said. “We had a lot of competition but Alabama’s getting it.”
The move would result in more than 30,000 new jobs and bring hundreds of billions of dollars to Alabama, a state which voted for Trump “by about 47 points”, the president said.
“They fought harder for it than anyone else,” Trump claimed, before adding that Colorado’s decision to allow mail-in voting was “corrupt”.
“The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, [is that] they do mail-in voting,” he said. “So they have automatically crooked elections and we can’t have that. When a state is for mail-in voting, that means they want dishonest elections. So that played a big factor.”
Huntsville is already home to the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight center and the 38,000-acre Redstone Arsenal. The city was identified by the US air force as its preferred site for Space Command in 2021 as it would be a cost-effective option. A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) later found that the air force’s decision-making process had “significant shortfalls in its transparency and credibility”.
Two years later, in 2023, Biden overturned those plans to relocate to Alabama. Instead, Biden chose to make the then temporary Colorado Springs location permanent, taking a recommendation from Gen James Dickinson, the former head of Space Command. Dickinson reportedly said relocating to Alabama could jeopardize military readiness as making the headquarters fully operational would take time.
“For FOUR YEARS, I have fought to get U.S. Space Command moved to its SELECTED home at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama,” Senator Tommy Tuberville wrote alongside a video statement after Trump’s announcement. “Thank you, President Trump and Secretary [Pete] Hegseth, for reversing Joe Biden’s political cronyism and restoring MERIT and INTEGRITY to this process.”
Tuberville lambasted Biden’s 2023 decision to keep Spacecom in Colorado Springs in his video and said the former president let the “nation’s security [take] a backseat to politics” and “caved” to “woke politics” at the time. He then thanked Trump for “restoring merit and integrity” to space exploration and alleged the move would save taxpayers $480m.
Trump’s announcement of a change of course followed days of fevered online speculation about his health, fueled by his absence from the public eye since last week.
Asked if he was aware that there had been 1.3m social media engagements as of Saturday morning speculating on his possible “demise”, Trump countered that he had held several news conferences in the past week and pointed to some “pretty poignant” posts he had made on his Truth Social platform.
“I did numerous news conferences, all successful. They went very well, like this is going very well. And then I didn’t do any for two days, and they said ‘there must be something wrong with him,’” he said.
“Biden wouldn’t do them for months, you wouldn’t see him, and nobody ever said there was ever anything wrong with him – and we know he wasn’t in the greatest of shape. It’s all fake news.”
Speculation about Trump’s health has recently intensified. Some of the fervor has been spurred by a White House disclosure that he was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a condition involving damage to the veins in the arms and legs. There has also been viral pictures showing Trump with swollen ankles and bruising on his hands.
Elsewhere in his announcement, Trump indicated that he had decided to send armed troops into Chicago, allegedly to fight crime. Such a move is against the will of JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, and follows the recent controversial deployment of national guard forces in Washington on the same purported basis.
“We’re going in,” he said, calling Chicago and Baltimore – another Democratic-run city – “hellholes”.
He said the deployment of national guard troops in Washington DC had “served as a template,” adding: “I’m very proud of Washington. [It’s] a safe zone.”
