The University of Denver is aiming to become a global hub for scholarship on the Holocaust, abuses of power, racism, hatred and antisemitism, with a goal of spurring other universities to do the same.
DU leaders said they’ll announce the school’s first endowed professorship in Holocaust and antisemitism studies at a gathering in the state Capitol with Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday, which is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The professorship represents “a permanent commitment not only to remembrance but to making Denver a global hub for thoughtful Holocaust education and applied scholarship that helps future generations foster social change,” DU Provost Elizabeth Loboa said in a statement.
Polis and survivors of the Holocaust — Colorado residents Osi Sladek and Barbara Steinmetz — will commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp.
At the noon event, Sladek is expected to read from his memoir, which recounts his escape from persecution into the Tatra mountains along Slovakia’s border with Poland. He later served in the Israeli Army and became a folk singer in California before settling in Denver. The Denver Young Artists Orchestra and DeVotchKa’sTom Hagerman will perform music by Sladek’s father using his violin.
Steinmetz fled Europe on a boat that carried her to the Dominican Republic, where she found refuge. She’ll share a “Letter to the Future.”
DU officials over the past two years have been working on this project, said Adam Rovner, an English professor who directs DU’s Center for Judaic Studies, within the College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
“We just think it is simply important that we remain vigilant in our society to guard against abuses of power and racism, hatred, and antisemitism,” Rovner said. “We think this position is much-needed at DU and in higher education.”
One purpose of studying manifestations of antisemitism in the 20th century “is so that people can consider the contemporary manifestations of antisemitism, and decide based on scholarly rigor whether there are threats to Jewish people and other groups,” Rovner said.
Over the past three years, he faced students during the war by Israel, a Jewish nation, against people in Gaza amid pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities around the nation, including encampments at DU and on the Auraria campus.
In DU’s classrooms, he saw “wonderful students” whose “open discussions” continued “through the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7 and even through Israel’s retaliation,” Rovner said. “Students come here because they want to learn and understand, not because they have already made up their minds based on a meme on TikTok,” he said.
A visiting professor will launch DU’s ramped-up studies, thanks to an initial donation of around $500,000. DU officials said they’ll be working with additional donors to fully fund the endowment and establish a permanent position.
Traffic deaths in Colorado increased in 2025, reversing a decline in recent years, with about one in three deaths related to impaired driving, according to state data released Thursday.
Colorado Department of Transportation officials said that, while the increase is small, they see troubling trends and plan to refocus safety efforts around impaired driving and deaths involving pedestrians and bicyclists.
A total of 701 people died on Colorado roads in 2025, an increase of 1.7% over the 689 fatalities reported in 2024, the data show. The number is still below the a record-setting 764 fatalities in 2022.
Impaired driving remains a leading factor in traffic deaths, CDOT officials said in a news release. CDOT recorded 234 deaths in crashes involving an impaired driver in 2025. Since 2022, impaired driving-related fatalities have decreased by 18%, state records show.
A breakdown of CDOT’s 2025 numbers shows the fatalities included 124 pedestrians, 18 bicyclists, and 146 motorcyclists. Car and truck crashes accounted for 392 fatalities.
CDOT and the Colorado State Patrol plan increased patrols aimed at “removing impaired drivers from our roads,” Col. Matthew Packard, chief of the patrol, said in a statement. “Even if you think you’re OK to drive, the consequences of impaired driving are never worth the risk. Use a ride-share service, public transportation, or call a sober friend. Your commitment to sober driving could save a life.”
Updated 4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 17: Hundreds of demonstrators marching through downtown Denver on Saturday afternoon caused rolling road closures, police officials said.
Streets around the state Capitol were intermittently closed because of the demonstration, the Denver Police Department said at 1:20 p.m.
All road closures were lifted as of 3:15 p.m.
Protesters gathered on the steps and lawn of the state Capitol at noon on Saturday to demonstrate against actions by President Donald Trump’s administration, including the recent surge in immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and the fatal shooting of Renée Good[cq comment=”cq” ] by a federal immigration officer.
Original story: Denver police and Regional Transportation District officials on Friday were bracing for potentially disruptive demonstrations downtown on Saturday before and during the Denver Broncos’ football playoff game and other high-traffic events.
The Denver Police Department “respects people’s right to demonstrate” and will monitor planned demonstrations, agency officials said in an emailed statement. “DPD’s approach to demonstrations is to allow people to march or gather peacefully, and to conduct traffic control to help ensure safety. It’s those assaultive, destructive, and/or highly dangerous behaviors that prompt police intervention.”
A “One Year is Enough” rally was scheduled at the Colorado State Capitol from noon to 3 p.m., part of “a continued commitment to fighting against the oppression we see here and abroad,” according to an emailed notice from the Denver Coalition Against Trump. After that, a “Colorado Bridge Trolls” resistance dance party was planned.
The coalition includes 50501 Colorado, the American Friends Service Committee, Aurora Unidos, the Denver Aurora Community Action Committee, the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, Denver Anti-War Action, Denver Students for a Democratic Society, the Denver Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and Teamsters for a Democratic Union.
RTD officials said they expect increased ridership on buses and trains Saturday because of the demonstrations, the Denver Broncos playoff game that kicks off at 2:30 p.m. on Empower Field at Mile High, the Denver Nuggets basketball game at Ball Arena, and the National Western Stock Show.
They said they’re coordinating with police and advised riders to monitor RTD online alerts for updates.
“While RTD is focused on being prepared for the demonstrators with the potential to disrupt services, it can be difficult to predict crowd actions in the moment,” the RTD statement said. Transit staffers will monitor events “to support public safety” and “to the greatest extent possible minimize service disruptions.”
RTD’s alert said demonstrations could disrupt transit on 23 routes — including bus routes 0, 1, 6, 8, 9, 10, 15, 15L, 16, 19, 20, 28, 32, 38, 43, 44, 48, 52, 83L, 120X, ART, FF, and FREE and the D, E, H, L, and W rail lines.
DENVER – A pedestrian died following a crash on Interstate 25 near Yale Avenue early Saturday morning, according to the Denver Police Department.
The Denver Police Department first reported the crash around 4 a.m. Saturday, tweeting that a pedestrian had serious injuries. The pedestrian was later pronounced deceased, police said.
The driver stayed on scene and cooperated with officers, police said.
Officers closed the southbound lanes of I-25 starting at University Boulevard until about 7:30 a.m.
The pedestrian’s identity has not yet been released.
LITTLETON – For deer, the fall time change Sunday morning means trouble: a 16% spike in collisions with vehicles over the following week, despite years of safety campaigns and the construction of 75 special crossings along highways.
Drivers in Colorado collided with at least 54,189 wild animals over the past 15 years, according to newly compiled Colorado Department of Transportation records. That’s far fewer than in many other states, such as Michigan, where vehicle-life collisions often number more than 50,000 in one year.
The carnage — especially this time of year — increasingly occurs where animals face the most people along the heavily populated Front Range, beyond the mountainous western half of the state that holds much of the remaining prime habitat, state records show.
State leaders and wildlife advocates gathered on Thursday near one of the crossings along the high-speed C-470 beltway in southwest metro Denver to launch a safety campaign.
“We’ve made wildlife crossings a priority in our rural areas, and also increasingly in urban areas,” CDOT Director Shoshana Lew said. “We cannot put underpasses and overpasses everywhere. Particularly at this time of year, we urge everyone to be careful of wildlife.”
Lew credited the crossings with containing collision numbers that could be much higher in Colorado, given the traffic and the prevalence of deer and other wild animals. Most of the state’s highway construction projects, such as the work on Interstate 25 north of Colorado Springs that includes a large wildlife bridge, will factor in wildlife safety needs, Lew said.
The risk of collisions spikes this time of year due to deer and elk migrating to lower elevations, bringing more animals across highways. The end of daylight saving time also plays a role as more drivers navigate roads during the relatively low-visibility hours before and after sunset, when deer often move about.
In Colorado, the 54,189 vehicle-animal collisions that CDOT recorded from 2010 through 2024 caused the deaths of 48 vehicle occupants and more than 5,000 injuries. The animals breakdown: 82% deer, 11% elk, 2% bears.
Ten counties where vehicles hit the most animals during that period included five along the Front Range — Douglas, Jefferson, El Paso, Larimer, and Pueblo — with a combined total of 12,791 collisions, state records show. That compares with 11,068 in the other five counties in western Colorado — La Plata, Montezuma, Garfield, Moffat, and Chaffee.
Colorado lawmakers over the past two decades have directed funds for the installation of more and more wildlife crossings, typically overpasses and underpasses combined with fencing along highways. “These can be up to 90% effective in reducing collisions,” Environment America researcher Rachel Jaeger said.
Most recently, in 2022, lawmakers set up a wildlife safe passage fund with a $5.5 million investment for crossing construction. That money’s been spent. State transportation planners have identified locations where crossings are needed, such as the stretch of U.S. 40 between the intersection with I-70 and the town of Empire, where bighorn sheep live.
Wildlife-vehicle collisions have proved persistent enough that safety advocates have launched a social media campaign and are mulling new strategies, such as promoting ridership on CDOT’s intercity Bustang buses as an animal-friendly way to move.
ENGLEWOOD — Metro Denver budtender Quentin Ferguson needs Regional Transportation District bus and trains to reach work at an Arvada dispensary from his house, a trip that takes 90 minutes each way “on a good day.”
“It is pretty inconvenient,” Ferguson, 22, said on a recent rainy evening, waiting for a nearly empty train that was eight minutes late.
He’s not complaining, however, because his relatively low income and Medicaid status qualify him for a discounted RTD monthly pass. That lets him save money for a car or an electric bicycle, he said, either of them offering a faster commute.
Then he would no longer have to ride RTD.
His plight reflects a core problem of lagging ridership that RTD directors increasingly run up against as they try to position the transit agency as the smartest way to navigate Denver. Most other U.S. public transit agencies, too, are grappling with a version of this problem.
In Colorado, state-government-driven efforts to concentrate the growing population in high-density, transit-oriented development around bus and train stations — a priority for legislators and Gov. Jared Polis — hinge on having a swift public system that residents ride.
But transit ridership has failed to rebound a year after RTD’s havoc in 2024, when operators disrupted service downtown for a $152 million rail reconstruction followed by a systemwide emergency maintenance blitz to smooth deteriorating tracks that led to trains crawling through 10-mph “slow zones.”
The latest ridership numbers show an overall decline this year, by at least 3.9%, with 40 million fewer riders per year compared with six years ago. And RTD executives’ newly proposed, record $1.3 billion budget for 2026 doesn’t include funds for boosting bus and train frequency to win back riders.
Frustrations intensified last week.
“What is the point of transit-oriented development if it is just development?” said state Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democrat representing Englewood who chairs the House Transportation, Housing and Local Government Committee. “We need reliable transit to have transit-oriented development. We have cities that have invested significant resources into their transit-oriented communities. RTD is not holding up its end of the bargain.”
At a retreat this past summer, a majority of the RTD’s 15 elected board members agreed that boosting ridership is their top priority. Some who reviewed the proposed budget last week questioned the lack of spending on service improvements for riders.
“We’re not moving the needle. Ridership is not going up. It should be going up,” director Karen Benker said in an interview.
“Over the past few years, there’s been a tremendous amount of population growth. There are so many apartment complexes, so much new housing put up all over,” Benker said. “Transit has to be relied on. You just cannot keep building more roads. We’re going to have to find ways to get people to ride public transit.”
Commuting trends blamed
RTD Chief Executive and General Manager Debra Johnson, in emailed responses to questions from The Denver Post, emphasized that “RTD is not unique” among U.S. transit agencies struggling to regain ridership lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnson blamed societal shifts.
“Commuting trends have significantly changed over the last five years,” she said. “Return-to-work numbers in the Denver metro area, which accounted for a significant percentage of RTD’s ridership prior to March 2020, remain low as companies and businesses continue to provide flexible in-office schedules for their employees.”
In the future, RTD will be “changing its focus from primarily providing commuter services,” she said, toward “enhancing its bus and services and connections to high-volume events, activity centers, concerts and festivals.”
But agency directors are looking for a more aggressive approach to reversing the decline in ridership. And some are mulling a radical restructuring of routes.
Funded mostly by taxpayers across a 2,345 square-mile area spanning eight counties and 40 municipalities — one of the biggest in the nation — RTD operates 10 rail lines covering 114 miles with 84 stations and 102 bus routes with 9,720 stops.
“We should start from scratch,” said RTD director Chris Nicholson, advocating an overhaul of the “geometry” of all bus routes to align transit better with metro Denver residents’ current mobility patterns.
The key will be increasing frequency.
“We should design the routes how we think would best serve people today, and then we could take that and modify it where absolutely necessary to avoid disruptive differences with our current route map,” he said.
Then, in 2030, directors should appeal to voters for increased funding to improve service — funds that would be substantially controlled by municipalties “to pick where they want the service to go,” he said.
Reversing the RTD ridership decline may take a couple of years, Nicholson said, comparing the decreases this year to customers shunning a restaurant. “If you’re a restaurant and you poison some guests accidentally, you’re gonna lose customers even after you fix the problem.”
The RTD ridership numbers show an overall public transit ridership decrease by 5% when measured over the 12-month period from August 2024 through July 2025, the last month for which staffers have made numbers available, compared with the same period a year ago.
Bus ridership decreased by 2% and light rail by 18% over that period. In a typical month, RTD officials record around 5 million boardings — around 247,000 on weekdays.
The precautionary rail “slow zones” persisted for months as contractors worked on tracks, delaying and diverting trains, leaving transit-dependent workers in a lurch. RTD driver workforce shortages limited deployment of emergency bus shuttles.
This year, RTD ridership systemwide decreased by 3.9% when measured from January through July, compared with that period in 2024. The bus ridership this year has decreased by 2.4%.
On rail lines, the ridership on the relatively popular A Line that runs from Union Station downtown to Denver International Airport was down by 9.7%. The E Line light rail that runs from downtown to the southeastern edge of metro Denver was down by 24%. Rail ridership on the W Line decreased by 18% and on R Line by 15%, agency records show.
The annual RTD ridership has decreased by 38% since 2019, from 105.8 million to 65.2 million in 2024.
A Regional Transportation District light rail train moves through downtown Denver on Friday, June 27, 2025. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Light rail ‘sickness’ spreading
“The sickness on RTD light rail is spreading to other parts of the RTD system,” said James Flattum, a co-founder of the Greater Denver Transit grassroots rider advocacy group, who also serves on the state’s RTD Accountability Committee. “We’re seeing permanent demand destruction as a consequence of having an unreliable system. This comes from a loss of trust in RTD to get you where you need to go.”
RTD officials have countered critics by pointing out that the light rail’s on-time performance recovered this year to 91% or better. Bus on-time performance still lagged at 83% in July, agency records show.
The officials also pointed to decreased security reports made using an RTD smartphone app after deploying more police officers on buses and trains. The number of reported assaults has decreased — to four in September, compared with 16 in September 2024, records show.
Greater Denver Transit members acknowledged that safety has improved, but question the agency’s assertions based on app usage. “It may be true that the number of security calls went down,” Flattum said, “but maybe the people who otherwise would have made more safety calls are no longer riding RTD.”
RTD staffers developing the 2026 budget have focused on managing debt and maintaining operations spending at current levels. They’ve received forecasts that revenues from taxpayers will increase slightly. It’s unclear whether state and federal funds will be available.
RTD directors and leaders of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, an environmental group, are opposing the rollback of RTD’s planned shift to the cleaner, quieter electric hybrid buses and taking on new debt for that purpose.
Colorado lawmakers will “push on a bunch of different fronts” to prioritize better service to boost ridership, Froelich said.
The legislature in recent years directed funds to help RTD provide free transit for riders under age 20. Buses and trains running at least every 15 minutes would improve both ridership and safety, she said, because more riders would discourage bad behavior and riders wouldn’t have to wait alone at night on often-empty platforms for up to an hour.
“We’re trying to do what we can to get people back onto the transit system,” Froelich said. “They do it in other places, and people here do ride the Bustang (intercity bus system). RTD just seems to lack the nimbleness required to meet the moment.”
Denver Center for the Performing Arts stage hand Chris Grossman walks home after work in downtown Denver on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Riders switch modes
Meanwhile, riders continue to abandon public transit when it doesn’t meet their needs.
For Denver Center for the Performing Arts theater technician Chris Grossman, 35, ditching RTD led to a better quality of life. He had to move from the Virginia Village neighborhood he loved.
Back in 2016, Grossman sold his ailing blue 2003 VW Golf when he moved there in the belief that “RTD light rail was more or less reliable.” He rode nearly every day between the Colorado Station and downtown.
But trains became erratic as maintenance of walls along tracks caused delays. “It just got so bad. I was burning so much money on rideshares that I probably could have bought a car.” Shortly before RTD announced the “slow zones” last summer, he moved to an apartment closer to downtown on Capitol Hill.
He walks or rides scooters to work, faster than taking the bus, he said.
Similarly, Honor Morgan, 25, who came to Denver from the rural Midwest, “grateful for any public transit,” said she had to move from her place east of downtown to be closer to her workplace due to RTD transit trouble.
Buses were late, and one blew by her as she waited. She had to adjust her attire when riding her Colfax Avenue route to Union Station to manage harassment. She faced regular dramas of riders with substance-use problems erupting.
Morgan moved to an apartment near Union Station in March, allowing her to walk to work.
She still hoped to rely on RTD for concerts and nightlife, and to reach DIA for work-related flights at least once a month. But RTD social media posts have alerted her to enough delays on the A Line that she no longer trusts it, she said. To reduce her “anxiety” and minimize the risk of missing her flights, she shells out for rides — even though these often get stuck in traffic.
She and her boyfriend recently tried RTD again, riding a train to the 38th and Blake Station near the Mission Ballroom. They attended “an amazing concert” there, she said, and felt happy as they walked to the station to catch the train home.
A man on the platform collapsed backward, hitting his head. He was bleeding. She called 911. Her boyfriend and other riders gathered. She ran across the street to an apartment building and grabbed paper towels. RTD isn’t really to blame, but “I just wish they had a station platform attendant, or someone. I do not know head-injury first aid,” Morgan said.
The train they’d been waiting for came and went. An ambulance arrived. They got home late, the evening ruined, she said.
“His head cracked open. He had skin flaps hanging off his head. This was stuck in my head, at least for the rest of the night.”
Police have arrested a 20-year-old man for allegedly assaulting a middle-aged man who interjected himself into Denver’s downtown No Kings demonstration, shouted expletives and a slur, then fell in a street fracas and suffered a serious injury.
The assault occurred after the older man declared: “‘Yes Trump,’” according to a Denver Police report.
A video circulating on social media showed the older man, wearing a blue New York Giants logo shirt, gesturing at and deriding demonstrators on Saturday afternoon as they rallied near Denver’s Union Station. The man ran and fell against pavement on his face, the video shows.
He got up and ran, again, then was tripped and fell onto the street by a curb against his head. Bleeding, he got up again and, with friends, ran, and clashed with demonstrators. Some demonstrators tried to help him, pointing to his head suggesting he needed medical care as blood covered the left side of his face.
Denver police on Monday confirmed they arrested Jose Cardenas after tracking him from Wynkoop Street, where the assault occurred at about 2:30 p.m., to North Lincoln Street near the intersection with 14th Avenue, “where Cardenas attempted to run from officers.” Witnesses identified Cardenas as the one who assaulted the counter demonstrator, the police statement of probable cause for arrest said. “Cardenas was transported to the Denver Jail and charged with aggravated assault.”
Police did not identify the victim. The report said he suffered “a serious laceration to his head.”
The Denver Board of Ethics has cleared Denver International Airport CEO Phil Washington of using his position for private gain when he flew himself and eight other executives to Madrid on a spring trip that cost about $18,000 per person.
But the board members said in a written decision that even if Washington technically followed city policy, they were “appalled” by the amount of money he approved spending for an aviation conference — and by his “seemingly cavalier attitude in responding to this complaint.”
The decision, issued Friday, came five months after CBS News Colorado revealed the cost of the tickets and other travel expenses after filing a request under the Colorado Open Records Act. Soon after the story came out in May, someone anonymously filed an ethics complaint about the report.
“While the Board of Ethics believes that officers, officials, and employees of the City and County of Denver should be better stewards of public funds, the Board must apply the facts to the law as it stands,” according to the ruling document.
In an interview with the board’s executive director, Washington said he wouldn’t have allowed the purchase of the airline tickets if he knew how much they would cost, according to the decision. But the board found that when Washington approved the expenses, the estimates he saw were mostly in line with the actual costs.
“Mr. Washington’s statement that he was unaware of the actual costs of the airfare is concerning,” the members wrote in the statement.
The airport’s travel policy allows employees to fly business class on flights longer than eight hours, and on this trip all nine flew business or first class. The group’s round-trip flights ranged in price from about $9,300 each for three officials to nearly $19,200 for the airport’s chief operating officer, Dave LaPorte. Washington’s flights cost about $12,000.
The board also took issue with Washington saying it was a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to attend the Passenger Terminal Expo and Conference, since it happens annually. Washington said the higher-class seats were necessary so that the executives could “hit the ground running” when they arrived, even though almost none of them had speaking engagements until one to two days after they arrived in Madrid.
The board found that Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s Chief of Staff Jenn Ridder also approved the estimated expenses but said she was compelled to do so because the costs came from the airport’s own budget, rather than the city’s general fund. The airport operates off revenue it generates, including from airlines and passengers.
Washington described the three-day conference, which began April 8, as an opportunity to learn from the “best in aviation” and a chance to bring ideas back to Denver.
The Board of Ethics is an independent agency established by the city charter that investigates ethics complaints and issues opinions on ethical responsibilities.
RTD directors faced a barrage of public opposition and were locked in debate Tuesday night over how to restructure the agency’s Access-on-Demand service, which provides free rides to people with disabilities on commercial services such as Uber and Lyft.
The directors were wrestling with a staff proposal to impose a base fare of $6.50, reduce the maximum per-ride subsidy from $25 to $20 for up to 60 rides per month, and end the 24/7 availability across the Regional Transportation District’s 2,342-mile service area. They voted 10-5 to set the base fare at $4.50, but had yet to agree on other changes at 9:30 p.m.
For more than a year, RTD’s 15 elected directors have been unable to decide on the changes that Chief Executive and General Manager Debra Johnson recommended to make Access-on-Demand “financially viable.”
On Tuesday night, they heard more than three hours of appeals by metro Denver residents with disabilities who urged RTD to maintain a service they described as a lifeline.
A transit fare of $6.50 “may not sound like much to you. But it would make it so that I cannot afford to go to work,” Gabby Gonzales, who works part-time at a pizza restaurant and estimated her monthly income at about $1,100. “Please keep it as it is. Make it affordable for me.”
It’s a matter of “freedom,” said Molly Kirkham, who told directors Access-on-Demand “changed my life,” enabling her to live independently and work. “We want to be in the community.”
State Sen. Faith Winter referred directors to a letter signed by 30 lawmakers opposed to the changes that she said “will harm our community.” And James Flattum, spokesman for the grassroots advocacy group Greater Denver Transit, said doing the right thing means preserving the service as is. “Please do not raise fares for our disabled neighbors in this community,” he said.
RTD directors also were considering whether to order a new study of transit for people with disabilities in metro Denver encompassing Access-on-Demand and the separate, legally required Access-a-Ride service that demands day-before reservations for shared mini-bus rides with a standard fare of $4.50. A “peer review” of Access-on-Demand by national public transportation officials that RTD chief Johnson commissioned last year concluded RTD should restructure the program to ensure “financial sustainability.” Access-on-Demand costs about $17 million out of the RTD’s $1.2 billion annual budget.
The monthly ridership using Access-on-Demand reached 73,000 in July, according to RTD records. That’s more than 10 times the ridership when agency directors launched Access-on-Demand five years ago.
Federal immigration arrests in Colorado surged this summer as the Trump administration charged ahead with its plans to mass-deport undocumented immigrants.
But as arrests have spiked, law enforcement agencies increasingly have detained people without any prior criminal convictions or charges, internal data show.
Between June 11 and July 28, ICE arrested 828 people in Colorado, according to a Denver Post analysis of data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley. That amounted to more than 17 arrests per day, a more than 50% increase from the first five months of the Trump administration, through June 10, a period covered in a previous Post story. The rate from this summer was also more than five times higher than the daily arrest average from the same time period in 2024.
Of those detained over the summer, only a third had prior criminal convictions noted in the records. Another 18% had pending charges, indicating that nearly half had been neither convicted nor charged with a crime and that their only violation was immigration-related.
That, too, is a shift: In the earlier months of President Donald Trump’s second term, two-thirds of the 1,639 people arrested in Colorado had either been convicted of a crime (38%) or charged with one (29%).
“That tracks with what we would have expected (and) what we’ve been hearing from community sources,” said Henry Sandman, the co-executive director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. “The data and the reality disproves ICE’s talking points that they’re going after criminals. We’re seeing tactics increase. They’re trying to increase arrest numbers as high as possible, whatever the reason may be for detaining folks.”
Steve Kotecki, a spokesman for Denver’s ICE field office, did not respond to a request for comment late last week.
The data, obtained directly from ICE by the UC Berkeley researchers through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, offers the clearest look at immigration enforcement activities available, as ICE doesn’t post recent information online. For this analysis, The Post examined arrests that occurred in Colorado; arrests that were listed in the dataset as occurring in Wyoming but which took place in a Colorado city; and arrests lacking a listed state but which occurred in a Colorado town or county.
The Post removed several apparent duplicate arrests and a similarly small number of arrests in the region that did not have a specific location listed. The analysis also included a handful of people who appeared to have been arrested twice in the span of several months.
When listing a detainee’s criminal background, the data provides no details about the criminal charges or prior crimes. Illegally entering the country is typically treated as a civil matter upon first offense, but a subsequent entry is a felony criminal offense.
More info about July operation
The newly released data includes the same nine-day period in July during which ICE has said it arrested 243 immigrants without proper legal status “who are currently charged with or have been convicted of criminal offenses after illegally entering the United States.” The arrests, the agency said, all occurred in metro Denver.
But the data published by the UC-Berkeley researchers does not fully match ICE’s public representations.
During the same time frame, the agency arrested 232 people, according to the data. Most of those arrested during that time had never been convicted or charged with a crime, at least according to what’s in the records. Sixty-six people had a previous criminal conviction, and 34 more had pending charges.
Kotecki did not respond to questions about the July operation.
The Post previously reported that ICE falsely claimed that it had arrested a convicted murderer in Denver as part of the July operation. The man had actually been arrested at a state prison facility shortly after his scheduled release, state prison officials said last month.
While ICE claimed the man had found “sanctuary” in the capital city — a shot taken at Denver’s immigration ordinances — The Post found that state prison officials had coordinated his transfer directly to ICE. He was then deported to Mexico, and information matching his description is reflected in the UC Berkeley data.
It’s unclear if all of ICE’s arrests are fully reflected in the data, making it difficult to verify ICE’s claims. The researchers’ data is imperfect, experts have told The Post. The records likely represent the merging of separate datasets before they were provided by the government, increasing the likelihood of mistakes or missing data.
Some arrests in Colorado were listed as occurring in other states or had no state listed at all. Other arrests were duplicated entirely, and researchers have cautioned that ICE’s data at times has had inaccurate or missing information.
The anonymized nature of the data, which lacks arrestees’ names but lists some biographical information, also can make it difficult to verify. When ICE announced the results of the July operation, it named eight of the people it had arrested. Court records and the UC Berkeley data appear to match up with as many as seven of them.
The eighth, Blanca Ochoa Tello, was arrested on July 14 by ICE’s investigative branch in a drug-trafficking investigation, court filings show. But it’s unclear if she appears in the ICE data, as she was arrested in La Plata County and no woman arrested in that county was listed in the data.
To verify ICE’s July operation claims, The Post examined arrest data in Colorado and Wyoming, which jointly form the Denver area of operations for the agency. The Post also searched for arrests in every other state to identify any arrests that may have occurred in a Colorado area but were errantly listed under other states.
Federal agents detain a man as he exits a court hearing in immigration court at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building on July 30, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Nationally, immigration authorities had their most arrest-heavy months this summer, according to data published by researchers at Syracuse University. Immigration officials arrested more than 36,700 people in June, its highest single-month total since June 2019, during Trump’s first term. More than 31,200 were arrested across the country in July.
The Trump administration has also set out to increase its detention capacity to accommodate the mass-deportation plans.
As of late July, ICE planned to triple its detention capacity in Colorado, according to documents obtained last month by the Washington Post. That plan includes opening as many as three new facilities and the expansion of Colorado’s sole existing facility in Aurora.
DHS officers watch from the parking lot as protesters gather at the entrance to the ICE Colorado Field Office on Aug. 30, 2025, in Centennial. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post)
Over the course of this year, ICE arrested people in Colorado who were originally from more than 60 countries, according to the data. That included 10 Iranians arrested in late June or early July. Six of those people were arrested on June 22, the day after the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. Three more were arrested over the next 48 hours.
The vast majority of the undocumented immigrants who were arrested and deported were returned to their home countries, though roughly 50 were sent somewhere else, the data show. Nine Venezuelans were sent to El Salvador in the first two weeks of the Trump administration, when alleged gang members were dispatched to a notorious prison there.
ProPublica identified roughly a dozen Coloradans who were sent to that prison. It reported that several were arrested in late January, which matches information listed in the ICE data published by UC Berkeley.
Advocates’ fears of continued arrests have escalated as ICE’s funding has surged. On Aug. 30, several immigration advocates picketed outside an ICE field office in Centennial after a number of immigrants received abrupt notices to check in at the facility.
Four people were detained, said Jordan Garcia, the program director for the American Friends Service Committee’s immigrant-rights program in Colorado.
Among them, he said, was an older Cuban man with dementia. Garcia and other advocates spoke with the man and his son before they entered the facility. The son later came out, Garcia said, and said that his father had been detained.
Homelessness increased by 10 percent in the metro Denver area this year, according to Metro Denver Homeless Initiative’s annual Point-in-Time count data.
The Point-in-Time count aims to capture the number of people experiencing homelessness in the metro area by counting people both on the street and in shelters during a single day in January each year. This year’s count, released on Wednesday, was done between sundown on Jan. 22 and sundown on Jan. 23.
The count includes Denver and its surrounding counties, while similar efforts take place nationwide in coordination with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
It’s an imperfect science, with weather and methodology changes affecting data year to year. But the information helps local and national nonprofits and government agencies respond to Denver’s homelessness crisis.
This year, volunteers counted 9,977 people experiencing homelessness in the metro area, compared to 9,065 people during the 2023 count.
Data Source: Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative
Homelessness has been rising for years. Between 2022 and 2023, the overall number of people counted increased by 31.7 percent.
“Behind every data point lies the reality of individuals and families facing the hardship of homelessness,” said Rebecca Mayer, interim executive director at Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative in a statement Wednesday. “It’s crucial to remember that our unhoused neighbors deserve the stability and security of a safe place to call home.”
The entire Denver metro saw an increase in the number of people using shelters.
The growth in homelessness this year was largely driven by a 12 percent increase in people using shelters, according to Metro Denver Homeless Initiative.
“While fewer people are experiencing homelessness for the first time, the number of chronically homeless individuals rose by 16 (percent),” wrote Metro Denver Homeless Initiative in a statement Wednesday.
For Cathy Alderman, Chief Communications and Public Policy Officer for Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, the growth in chronic homelessness speaks to the state of Denver’s housing market.
“That just means that they’re staying in the cycle of homelessness longer, and that screams that, we know we have a housing crisis in Denver, but it’s probably even worse than we think,” she said.
Data Source: Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative
The count also found that the number of families experiencing homelessness has “grown significantly” by about 49 percent, from 2,101 families in 2023 to 3,136 families experiencing homelessness in the metro area this year.
“That’s one of the most troubling things about the report,” Alderman said. “We know that homelessness has an even more detrimental impact on kids.”
What about Denver homelessness specifically?
The overall number of people experiencing homelessness in Denver rose by about 12 percent, from 5,818 people in 2023 to 6,539 people in 2024.
While unsheltered homelessness rose in the metro area at large, the number of unsheltered people sleeping outdoors in Denver dropped by about 10.5 percent, from 1,423 people to 1,273 people.
Data Source: Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative
That’s after Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration spent more than $100 million opening non-congregate hotel shelters and micro-communities to bring people sleeping on the streets indoors.
In a statement Wednesday, Johnston attributed the rise in people living in shelters to those efforts, which closed more than a dozen encampments and moved more than 1,000 people indoors, often to non-congregate shelters.
Denver’s figures also do not include the 4,300 new immigrants to Denver who were staying in Denver’s temporary migrant shelters that night, just a few weeks after new immigrant arrivals peaked in early January.
Mayor Mike Johnston is touting the results as a win for the city.
He spent much of his campaign and early days in office promising to bring 1,000 people indoors by the end of 2023.
In a statement Wednesday, one success he pointed to an 82.5 percent drop in unsheltered family homelessness — from 103 to 18.
But the overall number of families experiencing homelessness in Denver grew by about 58 percent.
Johnston also touted the decrease in tents across the city, including a 23 percent drop in people living in tents and cars. According to the Mayor’s office, Denver has about 117 tents currently up in the city, versus the 242 tents counted in January.
Meanwhile, the number of people staying in shelters grew compared to 2023.
“We have always believed that homelessness is a solvable problem, and now we have the data to prove it,” Johnson said. “In just six months we were able to achieve transformational reduction in unsheltered homelessness while building an infrastructure that will allow us to attack this issue for years to come. Denverites should be proud to live in a city that responds to homelessness with compassion.”
Cole Chandler, Johnston’s senior advisor for homelessness resolution, said he thinks the city’s efforts to bring people out of unsheltered homelessness are working. He attributes the overall growth in homelessness to Denver’s persistent housing crisis.
“I think we’re getting better at helping get people out of homelessness. We’re getting more effective at that,” he said. “We’re doing a better job, and yet people are still falling into homelessness. And so I think that just underscores the affordable housing crisis that we’re in the midst of.”
The overall rise in Denver homelessness is coupled with record-breaking eviction numbers.
Denver is currently on track to break eviction records, with more than 9,000 filings already this year. The city also broke eviction records last year, and residents quickly maxed out local rental assistance funds.
Johnston hopes his proposed sales tax will help prevent new homelessness in the long term. The .5 percent sales tax, which needs approval from City Council and then Denver voters, would generate $100 million per year to fund affordable housing.
Editor’s note: This article was updated to include comment from Alderman and Chandler.
As Colorado’s universal preschool program moves into its second school year this month, officials are hoping to leave its rocky rollout in the rearview mirror.
By the end of July, more than 31,000 4-year-olds matched with state-funded preschool providers for the coming year, according to the most recent data for the core program from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. Most will receive up to 15 hours of free classtime per week, though about 11,100 of them — about 3,000 more than last year — are expected to qualify for 30 hours each week, after state officials expanded eligibility criteria for the extra class time.
The number of providers participating in the program — in-home day cares, private practices, religious schools and public schools — has grown by about 150, to more than 2,000 statewide for this school year, Universal Preschool Program Director Dawn Odean said.
Taken together, that data points to the year-two stabilization of a program whose inaugural year, hiccups and all, was akin to “building the plane as we were flying it,” Odean said.
Colorado’s program was officially born in April 2022, when Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill to create it and the new Colorado Department of Early Childhood. The program was set for a fall 2023 launch. That left about 16 months to stand up the department, bring about 1,800 participating providers into the new system and sign up tens of thousands of families.
But entering year two of the $344 million program, Odean and local coordinating organizations are hopeful the initial struggles were growing pains associated with its launch. Department officials expect to meet or surpass last year’s sign-up numbers soon, and they hope to see enrollment increase by up to 5%.
“In a nutshell, I’ll tell you things are much better,” said Elsa Holguín, president and CEO of the Denver Preschool Program. It’s one of the local coordinating organizations, or LCOs, that act as a link between the state department and on-the-ground providers. “Things have gotten better for the families, things have improved for the child care providers and things have improved for the LCOs.”
But, she added, there’s always room for refinement.
“Are we where we need to be? No. We still have some work to do across the spectrum,” Holguín said.
The rollout of year two is still underway, with parents now able to walk through local providers’ doors to sign up for free preschool, space permitting, rather than being required to apply online. The full enrollment figures for this year won’t be available until the fall.
Aleia Medina, 5, second from right, and classmates attend a morning class with Rosario Ortiz at the Early Excellence Program of Denver on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Adapting to last year’s high enrollment
Ahead of last year’s launch, expectations for the first year began shifting about as soon as public planning for it began.
A promise of 10 hours a week of free classtime for all preschoolers turned into 15, with some students qualifying for double that time — considered full-day schooling — based on family circumstances. But months later, officials raised the threshold to qualify for 30 hours as overall enrollment rates shot up about 20% higher than expected, leaving some families feeling like the rug was yanked out from under them.
Initially, the state had planned to offer extra time to children deemed at risk if they qualified under an eligibility category — by having an individualized education plan, being a dual-language learner, coming from a low-income family or being in foster care.
When demand outpaced expectations, state officials changed the criteria to add base household income limits, at a middle-class level, as an additional qualification. Students still had to qualify under at least one other factor.
Meanwhile, providers and families were chafing at a confusing enrollment process that drew critical attention from state lawmakers.
But officials point to a number of under-the-hood changes since then to smooth out operations.
Voters in November approved a ballot measure last fall that allowed the state to keep $23.7 million in excess tobacco tax proceeds that help pay for the program. Officials expanded the criteria for 30 hours of free classtime to include all families who are at or below the federal poverty line, expanding access to some 3,000 more children. And the state streamlined enrollment processes to smooth out some of those first-year wrinkles.
“We’re ecstatic with year one as far as the number of children served and the number of providers participating — but (we) certainly knew that we stood up the program, and the process to enroll and register, in a fairly compressed timeline, which created some challenges,” said Odean, the state’s preschool program director, in an interview this week.
She also acknowledged the legal battles that played out in the first year.
A group of school districts had sued over the rollout, claiming that it hurt students with special needs and left school districts in a lurch. A judge ruled in July that the districts lacked standing to sue, while also acknowledging the “headaches” they faced, according to Chalkbeat.
In a separate January lawsuit, two Catholic schools sued over a nondiscrimination clause for preschool providers. That suit was largely rejected, but not before the state removed the nondiscrimination clause. About 40 religious schools are registered as universal preschool providers in the state this school year.
Odean said she couldn’t comment on the particulars of the lawsuits, but she appreciated the conversations they spurred about how to make sure families get the preschool they want — even if she wished they didn’t take the form of litigation.
Hunter Fridley, 4, counts the number of classmates during a morning class with Rosario Ortiz at the Early Excellence Program of Denver on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Private providers’ low enrollments “concerning”
When it came to preparing for school this year, Holguín, the Denver Preschool Program’s CEO, said preregistration for families and other changes to enrollment, in particular, “changed our world” by making it easier to connect them with preschool providers.
Diane Smith, director of the Douglas County Early Childhood Council, another LCO, likewise said the state’s program is better positioned this year “in many ways” — though it’s still too early to make a definitive call.
She still identified a number of focus areas for the future, including a desire for more lead time between announced changes to the program and when they’re implemented, along with more predictable, consistent funding for providers. And, of course, the unending work of making sure every family that wants to participate knows about the program and how to enroll in it.
In short, the first-year growing pains haven’t quite waned, Smith said, even as she excitedly reports that more providers have signed up to provide universal preschool in her area.
“Some people are bigger worriers than I am,” Smith said. “I’m the type who says ‘Yes, this is a little bit of a challenge, but I think intentions are always good.’ We’re looking to move forward and we have.”
Dawn Alexander, executive director of the Early Childhood Education Association of Colorado, which advocates for private preschool providers, warned that some of her members were starting to fret about “concerning” lowearly enrollment numbers — though she, too, cautioned that it was too early to raise a red flag.
Many families seem to be choosing school districts’ programs for their 4-year-olds, Alexander said, meaning that private preschools lose out on those enrollments. The older, less care-intensive preschool children help round out the rosters of many facilities that also provide day care for infants and toddlers, she said. Losing those populations can put their entire business at risk.
That, coupled with other strains associated with tight margins and fluctuating enrollment, add up for providers, she said. Many staffed up based on expected enrollment — and corresponding state funding — that’s so far not materialized, she said. She and other private providers raised similar concerns last year.
“You get too many frustrations and you go, ‘I’m out,’ ” Alexander said. “And you don’t want private providers to opt out of the system. It’s critical they be a significant part of it.”
Odean said there was still work being done around funding, including how to make it easier for families to qualify for — and providers to benefit from — the myriad state and federal preschool assistance programs.
There’s also a balance to strike between stable, predictable funding and ways to allow it to fluctuate so it meets current needs, she said. A smoother year two will make it easier for officials to be intentional about steps forward, she said.
“Things change, communities change — and so we have to continue to be responsive,” Odean said. “We just want to have some clear processes in place where we’re continuing to hear from families and providers, and we have a stable system and environment … so we can continue to improve.”
Summer-like temperatures will be joined by sunny, mostly clear skies and a light afternoon breeze, according to NWS forecasters.
Temperatures in Denver will peak around 87 degrees Friday afternoon before dipping back down to 53 degrees overnight, forecasters said.
In northern Colorado, warm, dry and windy weather conditions will lead to increased fire danger, especially in Weld and Larimer counties, according to a NWS hazardous weather outlook.
Periods of critical fire weather conditions are possible, but will largely be dependent on fuel conditions, the outlook stated.
Fuel conditions refers to when excess plant material — including grasses, shrubs, trees, dead leaves and pine needles — significantly threaten the ignition or spread of wildfires, according to NWS.
Rain is set to return to the metro area Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning and early next week, forecasters said Friday.
Showers and thunderstorms could hit Denver between noon and midnight Saturday, and a cooler, unsettled weather pattern is expected to bring higher chances for rain Monday and Tuesday as a storm system tracks across the state, the hazardous weather outlook stated.
Warm weather will continue throughout the week — regardless of wet conditions — as temperature highs hover in the upper 70s and lower 80s across the metro area, forecasters said.
Saturday night rain showers and severe Sunday/Monday thunderstorms are forecasted for eastern Colorado, according to NWS meteorologists.
Too few parking spaces, lengthy queues for open spots, cramped designs that can’t handle crowds — Denver-area drivers brace themselves for headaches when they try to navigate the most stress-inducing parking lots in the city and beyond.
The Denver Post went searching for the worst parking lots in metro Denver, with help from more than 100 people who weighed in with their opinions in an informal survey on social media platforms X and Facebook. Within Denver’s city limits, older central neighborhoods like Capitol Hill — where space is at a premium — host parking lots that received an onslaught of criticism.
But that doesn’t mean suburban communities are immune to precarious parking set-ups.
Poor parking lot experiences can affect drivers’ loyalty to a business, one expert says. Consumers are constantly forming judgments about brands, so “parking is one of the critical elements for brands to get right,” said Brent Coker, a marketing lecturer at the University of Melbourne.
“Everything that happens to a consumer informs their attitude, which defines their future behavior,” including purchase decisions made minutes later, the Australian said. “If the carpark sucks, then yeah — that’s gonna give someone a negative attitude.”
Here are the parking lots that stand out the most in Denver:
1. Trader Joe’s urban locations
Grocery store chain Trader Joe’s has two Denver locations in older neighborhoods, with small lots that challenge drivers in Capitol Hill on Logan Street and in Hale on Colorado Boulevard.
“It’s no secret that Trader Joe’s parking lots are a nightmare,” said customer Rob Toftness, 42. “You add in their tight quarters with drivers’ inability to behave like adults, and you have a difficult recipe.”
On a rainy Monday afternoon, shoppers weren’t deterred from completing their errands at the Capitol Hill store. They stepped in front of cars waiting for openings in the lot. Drivers tried to squeeze into narrow spots, parking haphazardly before darting into the store themselves.
Four cars were queued in the left lane on Logan Street, turn signals blinking as they waited to enter.
However, for cyclists and pedestrians, the store is a breeze to navigate. Toftness, a Five Points resident, opts to ride his bike along the 7th Avenue bikeway, then locks it at the bike rack while he shops.
In an episode of the company’s podcast, Inside Trader Joe’s, co-host Matt Sloan said, “We don’t open stores with the world’s most ridiculous parking lot on purpose.” The size of a Trader Joe’s lot is based on the store’s square footage, with the chain’s locations often smaller than the average grocery store, especially when they’re squeezed into older neighborhoods.
“Stores of a more recent vintage — more recently open stores — have larger parking lots when we can get them,” Sloan added.
Trader Joe’s spokesperson Nakia Rohde declined to respond further.
A shopper exits a King Soopers grocery store on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024, in Capitol Hill in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
2. King Soopers in Capitol Hill
The King Soopers grocery store on East Ninth Avenue leaves local customers lamenting the amount of time it can take to secure a parking spot in the main lot.
Those who choose to park in the overflow lot are also inconvenienced, as the anti-theft wheel locks on shopping carts engage at the edges of the main lot, forcing patrons to carry their groceries across a busy street. Nine cars idled in the parking lot on a Monday afternoon, as drivers tried to park or back out of spots.
Kara King, 33, said she’s never secured a parking spot on her first go-round.
“You constantly have to circle the lot, waiting for one to open up,” the Speer neighborhood resident said. “Otherwise, your option is to park on the street and haul your groceries to your car.”
King Soopers spokesperson Jessica Trowbridge didn’t respond to requests for comment.
3. Whole Foods Market in Cherry Creek
At the Whole Foods Market on East First Avenue in Cherry Creek, customers’ criticisms are largely directed at its lot design.
“Whole Foods in Cherry Creek is awful,” said customer Krista Chism, 48. “All the spaces are designed for compact cars.”
She called the lanes “too narrow,” which heightens the risk of hitting another vehicle parked behind her car while reversing. When she visits, “I seriously weigh the cost of paying to park against the possible cost of someone hitting my car,” the Park Hill resident said.
The Whole Foods media team didn’t respond to a request for comment.
4. Denver Botanic Gardens
Visiting the Denver Botanic Gardens often comes with parking difficulties on busy weekends, despite a dedicated parking garage. The gardens are most heavily trafficked by guests during events, including Blossoms of Light, Glow at the Gardens, the Spring Plant Sale and the Summer Concert Series, said Erin Bird, associate director of communications. Popular times for visitors also include warm, sunny weekends and Scientific and Cultural Facilities District free days.
Bird said representatives understood visitors’ parking frustrations and urged guests to take extra time to secure parking in either the garage or the surrounding neighborhood.
“The Gardens’ multi-level parking structure was designed to maximize the limited space we have due to our location that borders city parks in an established residential neighborhood,” she said. “Timed entry has eased some of the parking strain.”
Denver’s flagship REI store on the South Platte River, pictured on Sept. 11, 2012, has a front surface lot (shown), an underground garage and auxiliary lots. (Photo by John Leyba/The Denver Post)
5. REI Co-op’s flagship store
The REI Co-Op Denver flagship store on Platte Street near downtown is the source of consistent parking gripes, including tight spaces, incidents of bike theft and the price to pay to park for lengthy shopping trips (after a 90-minute grace period).
Patrons say the outdoor co-op attracts the most crowds during the weekend, but that doesn’t mean its ground-level parking areas don’t fill up at times during the week, too. On a recent Wednesday evening, the metered street parking was also mostly occupied as a few customers dashed across the busy street to the former Denver Tramway Powerhouse building that now houses the retail chain.
The REI store earns 4.5 out of 5 stars on Google reviews, but at least 20 one-star reviews mention parking troubles. The designs of one surface parking lot and the underground garage are noted as cramped. One reviewer wrote: “The store itself really is great. But PLEASE fix the parking.”
The REI media team didn’t respond to a request for comment.
What about the suburbs?
Outside of Denver, plenty of parking lots throughout the metro area give shoppers and visitors grief, too. Here are some notable ones:
Costco: The warehouse club chain’s locations in Lone Tree, on Park Meadows Center Drive, and in Arvada, on Wadsworth Boulevard, draw particular complaints about parking lots that rattle the nerves. Costco stores face guff elsewhere, too: On Reddit, a thread asking the question “What’s your Costco’s parking lot situation?” has garnered hundreds of responses. Objections include waiting for spots during busy shopping hours and aggression in parking lots, such as honking, cursing and even car accidents. The Costco media team didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Construction workers pour concrete in the upper parking lot at Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre on Feb. 6, 2024, in Morrison. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Red Rocks Amphitheatre: The Denver-owned venue is considered the pride and joy of the local music scene — but its parking, not so much. After a packed concert, drivers can look forward to sitting in their vehicles for long periods as they inch toward the venue’s exits. And they can’t turn to public transportation either — although that could change if a proposal for public shuttles to and from a nearby light rail stop in Golden gains traction.
This year’s Red Rocks season kicked off in April, but the venue used the offseason to pave some lots, increase roadside parking, and install new sidewalks and lighting to the south lots, Denver Arts & Venues spokesperson Brian Kitts said. The city also plans to add bathroom facilities and some covered spaces for patrons.
“Being in a city park, especially one with property in National Historic Landmark status, means that what Red Rocks can do with parking is fairly limited,” Kitts said. “New lots, new entrances and new roads through the foothills aren’t feasible, so visitors will continue to rely on the patience and kindness of fellow concert goers for ingress and egress.”
Is there a bad parking lot we missed? Tell us about it!
People gathered in Civic Center Park in downtown Denver to celebrate the Cinco de Mayo Festival at Civic Center Park in Denver on May 28, 2024.
The annual festival and celebration help put the spotlight on the Mile High City’s vibrant Latino population. This year’s festival featured live music and dance performances on three stages. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the victory of the outnumbered Mexican army over French forces, providing momentum and national confidence for the Mexican people to drive the foreign power from their country.
Today, Cinco de Mayo celebrates the tradition of freedom and acknowledges the beauty of Latino culture. Denver’s Cinco de Mayo “Celebrate Culture” Festival has been a Mile High tradition for more than three decades.
Former Edgewater police officer McKinzie Rees hopes to serve and protect again, but first she must get her name removed from a so-called “bad cops list” maintained by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. It landed there, she said, as retaliation after she reported sexual assaults by a supervising sergeant.
That sergeant went on to work for another police department until this year, when he pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and misconduct and was sentenced, more than four years after the assaults and retaliation against Rees.
She testified to the state’s House Judiciary Committee this week that, even after her attacker was exposed, her complaint about still being listed as a problem police officer “is falling on deaf ears every time.”
Rees’ testimony, echoed by other frontline police officers from Colorado Springs and Denver about retaliation they faced after reporting misconduct, is driving state lawmakers’ latest effort at police oversight. Fresh legislation would require investigations of all alleged misconduct and increase protection for whistleblowers.
But the bill, titled “Law Enforcement Misconduct,” faces resistance from police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys and the Fraternal Order of Police who contend it would complicate police work and lead to unnecessary prosecutions.
While state leaders “are committed to addressing police misconduct,” the requirement that all allegations must be investigated could create “a caustic culture” within police agencies, said Colorado Department of Public Safety executive director Stan Hilkey in testimony to lawmakers during a hearing Tuesday.
“This bill is harmful to the mission of public safety,” Hilkey said, raising concerns it would lead to police “watching each other … instead of going out and responding to and preventing crime.”
The legislation, House Bill 1460, won approval on a 6-5 vote in the House Judiciary Committee. It would require investigations of all alleged misconduct by police, correctional officers and others who enforce the law in Colorado. Officers who report misconduct would gain the ability to file lawsuits if complaints aren’t investigated or they face retaliation.
Key elements under discussion include a provision bolstering the attorney general’s power to add and remove names from the Police Officer Standards and Training database, which bars future employment, and to compel police agencies to provide information for managing that list.
Other provisions would require longer retention of police records and prohibit government agencies from charging fees for making unedited police body-worn camera videos available for public scrutiny.
Investigating all alleged misconduct is projected to cost millions of dollars as state agencies face increased workloads, requiring more employees in some agencies, and increased litigation and liability expenses.
Lawmakers sponsoring the bill have agreed to remove a provision that would have established a new misdemeanor crime for officers who fail to report misconduct by their peers.
But the increased protection for whistleblowers is essential, said Rep. Leslie Herod, a Denver Democrat, in an interview.
“People need those protections now. This would ensure good officers can be good officers and bad officers who cover up for bad officers no longer can be on the force,” said Herod, who introduced the legislation on April 17.
Most police officers “do great work,” sponsor says
The bill would build on police accountability laws passed following the 2020 Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, which sparked street protests, Herod said.
“We still have more work to do. There’s no one-shot bill that will fix police accountability in the state,” she said.
“The majority of police officers in Colorado do great work. We need to make sure we have protections in place when that doesn’t happen. This is just as important as any other issue we are debating in Colorado.”
The late-in-the-session legislation would affect the 246 police agencies and 12,000 sworn officers around Colorado. It began when Rees and other police whistleblowers who had faced retaliation approached lawmakers.
For Rees, 30, who now supports herself by pet-sitting, the feeling of still being punished — and prevented from continuing a career she worked toward since childhood — “is horrible,” said in an interview.
“There should always be checks and balances,” she said. “It is exhausting trying to figure this out. You just get this runaround. There’s no way out.”
Rees told lawmakers that she reported two sexual assaults in 2019 by the sergeant to colleagues, seeking protection under internal agency protocols and as a whistleblower under existing state laws.
“Instead, I got served the ultimate sentence of no protection,” she said.
This year, after his dismissal from the Black Hawk Police Department, former Edgewater police Sgt. Nathan Geerdes, who was indicted by a grand jury in 2022 on four counts of unlawful sexual contact and one count of witness retaliation, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact, first-degree official misconduct and forgery as part of a plea deal. He was sentenced in Jefferson County District Court to four years of probation.
Edgewater police officer Ed McCallin also testified, describing the retaliation he faced after he became aware “that a senior officer had sexually assaulted a junior officer” — referring to Rees — and then “weaponized” the state’s database against her.
“I was asked to cover that up by my police chief,” he said. “I was threatened with internal investigations twice” and “had to meet with a city council member to save my job for doing the right thing.”
When he went to the Fraternal Order of Police for guidance in the case, McCallin said, a contract attorney advised him “to look the other way.”
“We just need more time,” sheriff says
Colorado law enforcement group leaders and police advocates said their main concern was that they weren’t consulted by sponsors of this legislation.
“We just need more time to dive into this,” Arapahoe County Sheriff Tyler Brown, representing the County Sheriffs of Colorado, told lawmakers.
Herod acknowledged “miscalculation” in not consulting with law enforcement brass in advance.
She and co-sponsor Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat serving as vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said they lined up meetings this week to hash out language and amendments before the bill advances.
Rep. Mike Weissman, who chairs the committee, agreed that support from law enforcement leaders would be crucial but added that he understood the “guardedness” of the bill sponsors, “given how these issues can go in this building.”
District attorneys from Jefferson and El Paso counties objected to the proposed requirement that every misconduct claim must be investigated, saying it would create conflicts in carrying out their professional duties.
Several lawmakers raised concerns about language in the bill, such as “unlawful behavior.” Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican, said a police officer who was sexually assaulted and chose not to report the crime “could become caught up in the system” for failing to report misconduct. Or police who might have to make an illegal U-turn while chasing a suspect, hypothetically, would have to be investigated, he said.
But the lawmakers broadly supported the efforts aimed at making sure the Attorney General’s Office manages the database of police transgressors properly.
The committee’s bill supporters said the compelling testimony from the Edgewater officers and other whistleblowers persuaded them that there’s an undeniable problem to address.
Former Colorado Springs police officer John McFarland told of a case in which a fellow officer took shortcuts in DUI investigations and falsely reported “hundreds” of roadside sobriety tests that never happened. When McFarland learned of that misconduct and reported it, he said, “I was sat in the corner and surrounded by the department’s command staff. I was threatened with charges and dismissal if I did not drop the matter.”
Former Denver police officer Holland Wiston, who was a victim of sexual assault, told lawmakers she faced ridicule within the police department and later was relegated to desk duties.
Others who testified included the sister of a man who was killed at a Tesla electric vehicle charging station last year in Edgewater. Crystal Fresquez said family members had concerns about police “inconsistencies” as they tried to find out how Adam Fresquez died, discovering eventually from a coroner’s report that the death involved the use of mace and two gunshots in his back. Jeremy Alan Smith was arrested in the incident.
When she heard what happened to Rees, Fresquez testified, she saw a need to support the legislation as a member of the public who could be affected by misconduct.
“How can we trust a police department that fails to hold its own officers accountable?” she said.
A new nonstop Turkish Airlines flight from Denver International Airport will carry travelers 6,152 miles between Denver and Istanbul — the longest flight from DIA.
The recruitment of Turkish Airlines brings the number of airlines at DIA to 26. Flight searches on Google on Thursday morning showed round-trip flights available starting June 11 for around $1,329 roundtrip.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and DIA chief executive Phil Washington planned to announce the flight Thursday morning. The new service is expected to bring a $54 million annual economic impact in Colorado and support the creation of about 350 new jobs around the state. The flight will take about 13 hours, longer than the 12-hour direct flight between Denver and Tokyo.
DIA officials in recent years have prioritized “expanding our global connections” as part of their strategic plan for serving 100 million passengers a year by 2027 and more than 120 million by 2045, the airport’s 50th anniversary. A primary goal is to “expand the air networks to the continent of Africa and other disconnected destinations.”
A 21-person delegation of airport, city government, and business officials from Denver visited Ethiopia in February 2023 on a trade mission to build relationships. They offered economic incentives as part of their efforts to persuade Ethiopian Airlines and, eventually, Egypt Air to commit to starting service to Denver with several flights a week. Another delegation visited Turkey in October 2022 to explore possibilities for starting a Turkish Airlines flight between Denver and Istanbul.
The new flight announced Thursday “does not diminish in any way our desire” to line up a flight to other cities, said Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce president J.J. Ament, who joined both delegations.
“A flight to Istanbul opens up India, and it also opens up Africa for us,” Ament said.
“The imperative is that we continue to increase Denver’s global reach and the reach of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West with DIA as the gateway airport,” he said. “Being able to reach new parts of the world, growing parts of the world, is what is going to keep Colorado globally relevant.”
DIA is the largest airport in the United States by size, covering 53 square miles of land. It also ranks among the busiest airports in the world. A record 77 million passengers went through DIA in 2023, up from 69 million in 2019.
The airport offers flights to 217 destinations, predominantly domestic. But international air travel, including air cargo operations, has grown steadily and in 2023 brought more than 4 million travelers, up 21% since 2022.
Earlier this year, airport officials announced new nonstop flights from DIA on Aer Lingus to Dublin, Ireland, starting on May 17. Other cities that DIA travelers can reach nonstop include London, Paris, Zurich, Reykjavik, Iceland, Munich, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and a dozen cities in Mexico and Central America.
Denver police are investigating after a man was shot and killed in the city’s East Colfax neighborhood Wednesday night.
Denver officers were on the scene of the shooting — near the intersection of East Colfax Avenue and Spruce Street — at 8:21 p.m. Wednesday, according to a statement from the city’s police department.
Paramedics transported one person — only identified as an adult male by police — to a local hospital, where he later died from his injuries, according to a 9 p.m. update. The Denver Office of the Medical Examiner will release the victim’s identity and official cause of death at a later time.
The investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made, according to police.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867.
On Saturday morning, March 16, 2024, thousands of parade goers flocked to lower downtown Denver to enjoy the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade which had over 120 floats and entries that featured dancers, marching bands, dignitaries, police and fire departments, clowns, car clubs and many other organizations.
Homeowners associations’ foreclosure filings on thousands of Coloradans’ houses over unpaid fines and fees have spurred fresh attempts by lawmakers to better regulate HOAs and metropolitan districts with the hope of preventing more people from losing their homes.
Lawmakers have introduced several reform bills that would restrict foreclosures from delinquent fees and require HOAs and metro districts to adopt written policies, enhance notifications to homeowners and add licensing requirements for professional managers. The legislation would also set regulations on how much homeowners can be charged. HOAs would be required to work with homeowners before beginning any foreclosure proceedings.
“As more Coloradans find themselves living in HOAs and metro districts, it is more important than ever that homeowners be protected from losing the largest asset they will ever invest in through unnecessary foreclosure,” said Rep. Iman Jodeh, an Aurora Democrat who is sponsoring two bills.
Homeowners associations in Colorado legally have the power to place liens on residents’ homes that supersede even those of the banks that hold their mortgages. An HOA can then sell a property to collect the money a resident owes — and the owner still would be left with mortgage debt and none of the equity they had built.
About half of Colorado residents live in communities overseen by an HOA.
The associations’ power drew more scrutiny in 2022 following media reports, including by The Denver Post, about the Master Homeowners Association for Green Valley Ranch in far-northeast Denver. That HOA filed nearly half of all HOA foreclosures in Denver the prior year.
Neighborhood residents who are Black, Asian or Latino said they sometimes weren’t notified of the fines or would continue to accrue new fees and interest even after resolving the violations. In some cases, residents didn’t even know their homes had been placed in foreclosure proceedings until someone showed up at their door and said they now owned the home.
The legislature passed a law in 2022 to protect homeowners from accumulating HOA fines and fees that they may not be aware of by requiring HOAs to provide written notice to residents, in their preferred language, about any violations. It also capped the fees HOAs could assess.
“We want to make sure people stay housed in Colorado”
But lawmakers say there is much more to be done for communities across metro Denver to limit HOA-driven foreclosures and protect homeowners from predatory or mismanaged companies.
“We’re fighting for homeowners,” said Rep. Naquetta Ricks, an Aurora Democrat, adding that this was especially important amid the state’s ongoing housing crisis. “We want to make sure people stay housed in Colorado.”
A statewide committee, the HOA Homeowners’ Rights Task Force, was charged with studying issues related to metro districts and HOAs, and its members recommended multiple areas of focus for the 2024 session. Lawmakers have incorporated at least two recommendations into new bills — creating an alternative dispute resolution process and addressing licensure of community association managers.
The task force is expected to release a final report by April 15.
The new bills introduced so far during the 2024 session include:
HB24-1267, which would require metro districts that conduct covenant enforcement like HOAs to adopt written policies on fines and fees and on governing disputes. It also would prevent the metro district from foreclosing on any lien because of delinquent fees.
HB24-1158, which would require changes to HOA notifications to owners on delinquent accounts and before lien foreclosures, and it would establish a minimum bid.
HB24-1337, which would limit a homeowner’s reimbursement of collection costs and attorney fees to 50% and prohibit an HOA from foreclosing on a lien until it has tried to serve an owner with a civil action within 180 days or obtained a personal judgement in a civil action. It also would prohibit the purchaser of a home in foreclosure from selling for 180 days, with the former owner having first priority of buying the home again.
HB24-1078, which would reestablish license requirements for HOA community association managers (a program that expired in July 2018).
So far, just two bills have been considered by committees. HB-1267 passed 10-0 in a House committee Wednesday, and no one spoke in opposition to the bill. Jodeh said she worked with metro districts when crafting the legislation.
HB-1078, the licensure bill, passed 8-3 in a House committee Feb. 14, eliciting support from homeowners who had faced HOA foreclosures and opposition from community management associations.
Vicki Souder, left, and Linda Wilson protest against foreclosures in front of the Master Homeowners Association for Green Valley Ranch offices on Friday, April 1, 2022. The HOA filed 50 foreclosures in 2021, nearly half the total of all HOA-initiated foreclosures in Denver that year. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Arvada Democratic Rep. Brianna Titone, a former HOA president, is one of the sponsors of the bill. The legislature passed a similar bill in 2019, but Gov. Jared Polis vetoed it. At the time, Polis’ office said he was concerned about costs to get licensed that would then be passed to consumers, even though a 2017 report from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies recommended an extension, and a 2021 report also recommended regulation.
Titone said the new licensing bill would “make sure that people are educated about the law and make sure that no felons are getting involved in having full access to communities’ money.”
The bill would also ensure managers know how to do their jobs, Titone added, so that they don’t have to hire attorneys to help, costing residents even more money. And it would require companies to disclose relationships that include identifying whom they’re providing kickbacks to, she said.
The requirements would apply only to professional management companies, not employees directly hired by HOA boards.
“I’ve come here with licensing in 2019. I’ve come with licensing in 2022. And I’ve come with licensing today,” Titone said at the committee hearing, and “nobody has ever suggested an alternative. … They just say no. … You should ask yourself why they don’t want this. It’s because because they’re making a lot of money off of the backs of the people they work for and they’re hired by.”
Licensing bill draws opposition
Despite the bill’s similarity to the 2022 bill Titone worked on with Colorado’s Division of Real Estate, Deputy Director Eric Turner testified against the bill at the hearing, calling it “well-intentioned.” He said it “does not address the various issues about living in an HOA, imposes barriers to entry into the profession and increases costs for homeowners.”
John Kreger, who testified for Associa, the largest community management association in the country, jokingly said that “after the unflattering characterizations of our industry today, I feel compelled to assure the committee that on behalf of Associa and the hundreds of Coloradans we employ, we are not crooks or idiots.”
Kreger and other community association managers argued the bill would not be effective at protecting consumers but instead would just raise costs. Kreger said there wasn’t enough data to show a widespread problem, and any theft of funds or misuse should be handled within the criminal justice system.
Homeowners and nonprofit foreclosure attorneys have attended committee hearings to describe horror stories about themselves or their clients losing their homes over fines and fees from HOAs and metro districts, even if they’d never missed a mortgage payment.
Monica Villela, who lived in a Green Valley Ranch home with her family for 19 years, choked back tears at Wednesday’s hearing. She told lawmakers that during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became difficult to keep up with maintenance and HOA fees that ballooned.
Her family had never missed a mortgage payment and had never even refinanced their home, she said, but they didn’t have the money to pay the $8,000 in fees they owed or for an attorney to fight them.
They lost their home, just as her son would have started college.
“We no longer have that option,” she said. “Our family has honestly been deeply affected. It really hurts seeing my kids being depressed by this horrible situation. We have been hurt.”
She urged lawmakers to pass reforms “to keep families in their homes all across Colorado so we can keep our most holy possession: our homes.”
While a majority of the HOA and metro district legislation introduced at the Colorado statehouse this year centers around protecting homeowners, at least two bills aim to make processes easier on HOAs: HB24-1233 would reduce some of the requirements placed on HOAs when collecting delinquent payments, while HB24-1091 would allow HOAs to set standards for (though not prohibit) the use of fire-hardened building materials for fencing.
Polis’ office declined to comment on the specifics of pending HOA bills or to discuss the HOA task force’s recommendations. Spokesperson Shelby Weiman issued a statement that said his office would monitor the bills’ progress, adding that Polis commends lawmakers’ efforts to provide more flexibility for homeowners.
“Governor Polis believes that burdensome HOA policies shouldn’t be so restrictive that they reduce fire safety, drain individuals and families of their finances, or force people from a home they love over something like untrimmed grass,” she wrote.
