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Tag: The Denver Post

  • Colorado youth wrestling is growing, and it’s showing at 2026 state tournament

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    Deanna Betterman chuckled at the simple notion of her kids spending extended time away from a wrestling mat.

    “What’s the offseason schedule like?” the Sand Creek High wrestling coach was asked Friday morning, as the mats at Ball Arena began to bustle again.

    “There is no offseason,” Betterman said.

    This weekend, three wrestlers from Sand Creek High, a public school in Colorado Springs, advanced to or beyond the girls’ 4A semifinals of the Colorado state wrestling championships at Ball. All three wrestle for a girls’ program in its very first season of existence. All three, improbably, are freshmen: Peggy Dean (100 pounds), Stella Isensee (105 pounds), and Karris Carter (130 pounds). All three came by way of the Betterman Elite Wrestling Club, a youth academy in Colorado Springs run by Betterman’s husband Joe, a former Team USA wrestler.

    Sand Creek wrestlers only actually attend classes in person on Monday and Wednesday during the school year, Betterman said. On Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, they arrive at the Betterman Elite gym at 8 a.m., practice from 9-11, shower, eat lunch, do online classes, and then have a second training session at 4:30 p.m. They take roughly one month off from this schedule in August. Last spring, the academy sent Dean and others — then in eighth grade — to Tallin, Estonia, for the largest wrestling tournament in Europe.

    Dean won a gold medal.

    “When we’re looking at the big goals, we’re looking at the Olympics for Peggy Dean, Karris Carter, all those girls,” Betterman said. “So these are just little stepping stones we’re hitting. We don’t put a lot of pressure on winning state titles and these little things.

    “Those little things just happen, when you have those high expectations, and those high goals.”

    Peggy Dean of Sand Creek works a takedown on Lilly Lundy of Lewis-Palmer during their Colorado State Wrestling Championships semifinal match at Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. Dean won by way of a 15-0 technical fall. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

    Youth movement

    Sand Creek’s triumvirate of prodigies is just a microcosm, truly, of a wide array of younger contenders at the 2026 state wrestling championships this weekend. Eleven different freshmen wrestlers advanced to the semifinals at Ball Arena in the 5A boys’ and girls’ brackets alone.

    It’s indicative of a larger trend in Colorado and beyond. To be a powerhouse wrestling program, schools “have to have a feeder program,” as Betterman said — a youth club in the area that can pipe in young talent ready to reach a state stage from Day 1.

    “Back in my day, it was the local tournaments,” said 37-year-old Pueblo East head coach Tyler Lundquist. “Now the guys are in bigger buildings than this from 5 years old, until they’re in high school. So the show’s not too big for them, most of these guys.”

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    Luca Evans

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  • Nuggets to sign former CU Buffs star KJ Simpson to 2-way contract

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    The Nuggets are planning to sign former CU Buffs star KJ Simpson to a two-way contract, filling the spot they opened up by converting Spencer Jones to a standard NBA deal Wednesday, league sources told The Denver Post.

    Simpson, 23, was waived by Charlotte after the trade deadline this month. Drafted 42nd overall by the Hornets in 2024, he played in 50 games over the last two seasons and started 17 of them, averaging 7.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.9 assists.

    The 6-foot-2 guard represents additional ball-handling depth for the Nuggets as they prepare for the last third of the regular season. He won’t be eligible to play in the NBA playoffs on a two-way contract. Denver now has three guards occupying its two-way spots, with Simpson joining rookies Curtis Jones and Tamar Bates.

    Simpson played 98 games during a three-year college career at Colorado. He earned First Team All-Pac-12 honors as a junior and stamped his place in program history during the 2024 NCAA Tournament, when he buried a game-winning shot against Florida to send CU to the second round.

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    Bennett Durando

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  • Douglas County woman billed Medicaid for patient who already died, federal officials allege

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    Federal officials unveiled a slew of charges Tuesday against two Coloradans accused of ripping off a program that provides free rides to Medicaid patients, the first criminal charges filed in response to a sprawling fraud bonanza identified by state officials more than two years ago.

    The indictments allege that Ashley Marie Stevens and Wesam Yassin separately participated in the transportation program and fraudulently collected seven-figure payouts — more than $3.3 million for Yassin alone, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado. The two drivers, who ran separate companies, allegedly fabricated rides for appointments that didn’t exist. Stevens is accused of billing for rides for her husband while he was incarcerated, and Yassin allegedly billed $165,000 for driving a patient who was dead.

    Both Stevens, of Mesa County, and Yassin, of Douglas County, were charged with multiple counts of wire fraud, money laundering and health care fraud for their participation in the driving service.

    The program pays drivers to ferry Medicaid patients to and from doctor’s appointments, but it became a haven for fraud in 2022 and 2023, after state officials increased the service’s reimbursement rates. State officials told The Denver Post last month that an estimated $25 million was lost in the broader fraud.

    Yassin’s indictment was still sealed Tuesday evening. In a statement, federal officials alleged that Yassin billed Medicaid for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rides that never occurred between March 2022 and October 2023. She raked in $283,000 from rides for just one patient, most of which was paid to Yassin after the patient had already died.

    Yassin allegedly used the proceeds to buy a home and furnishings, along with luxury vehicles, jewelry and cosmetic surgery. She was released on bond earlier this week, according to court records.

    Stevens billed the state for more than $1 million between July 2022 and February 2023, according to the indictment. More than $400,000 came from rides she provided to herself or to her family members, for which there were “very few” actual medical appointments, federal authorities allege.

    The trips included rides for her husband, who was incarcerated during some of the time when Stevens claimed she was driving him to the doctor. Another $150,000 was billed for rides that either never took place or were for trips that didn’t involve Medicaid services.

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  • Alex Hunter, Boulder’s longest-serving DA and key figure in JonBenét Ramsey case, dies at 89

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    In the end, Alex Hunter picked the day of his death.

    Boulder’s longest-serving district attorney — who defined more than a quarter century of criminal justice for the region and oversaw the early years of the JonBenét Ramsey case — had exhausted all options for medical care after suffering a heart attack in mid-November.

    The 89-year-old spent several days in Colorado hospitals, alert and cogent, saying goodbye to colleagues, friends and family.

    Then he picked 1:30 p.m. Friday as the time for medical staff to stop the life-supporting medicines keeping him alive. He drifted off and died later that evening, a month shy of his 90th birthday, said his son, Alex “Kip” Hunter III, who is acting as a spokesman for the family.

    “He was just crystalline clear,” Hunter III said Monday. “He was intentional and purposeful, gracious and elegant. …He had come to a place where he was totally at peace with the scope of his life.”

    Hunter spent 28 years as Boulder County’s elected top prosecutor, serving seven consecutive terms between 1973 and 2001. He forged a community-driven, progressive, victim-focused approach to prosecution and helped shape Boulder’s reputation as a liberal enclave.

    He faced intense public scrutiny in the late 1990s after 6-year-old JonBenét was killed and, in the ensuing media firestorm, he chose not to bring charges against her parents — even after a grand jury secretly returned indictments against them during his final term.

    Hunter kept a picture of the young beauty queen in his office and, throughout, stood by his controversial decision in the city’s highest-profile murder case, his son said.

    “He probably suffered more criticism as a result of that than any other moment in his career,” Hunter III said. “And yet he remained confident till he died that that was the right decision.”

    In 1997, Hunter named JonBenét’s parents, John and Patsy, as a focus in the investigation into their daughter’s killing. More than a year later, Hunter announced that Boulder County’s grand jury had completed its work investigating the case, and that there was not sufficient evidence for charges to be filed against the Ramseys.

    He was roundly criticized during the early years of the Ramsey case, featured in tabloids and The New Yorker. Some called for a special prosecutor to replace him, and a Boulder detective resigned from the case, accusing Hunter of compromising the investigation. Outsiders said Boulder needed a tough-on-crime prosecutor — decidedly not Hunter — to bring justice to JonBenét’s killer.

    What Hunter kept secret in 1999 was that the grand jury had voted to indict the parents on charges of child abuse resulting in death — essentially alleging the Ramseys placed their daughter in a dangerous situation that led to her death — but that he’d declined to sign the indictments and move forward with a prosecution, believing he could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

    That highly unusual detail remained secret until it was reported by the Daily Camera more than a decade later.

    “It was so like him to refuse the grand jury instruction,” Hunter III said. “Because he believed in his heart that it would have a negative impact on the outcome of the case.”

    Over time, Hunter came to realize the Ramsey case would define his career, even if he would rather it did not. He was surprised by how it followed him even years after his retirement, Hunter III said.

    “Horrible crimes happen every day, and that was a horrible crime, but it’s had legs, it’s had a life that I think often surprised Dad in particular,” Hunter III said. “I think that a lot of Dad’s 28 years as the district attorney perhaps got lost in the JonBenét Ramsey case.”

    From left, Adams County Chief Deputy District Attorney Bruce Levin, Assistant Boulder County District Attorney Bill Wise, Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter and the JonBenét Ramsey grand jury’s special prosecutor, Michael Kane, walk outside the Ramsey family’s former Boulder home on Oct. 29, 1998. (Photo by Paul Aiken/Daily Camera)

    ‘Doing the right thing time and time again’

    Through the decades, Hunter was attuned to the Boulder community in a way few others ever were — for years, he invited cohorts of random voters into his office on Tuesday nights for candid discussions on crime and the courts, and he often made decisions and implemented policy based on what he heard in those meetings.

    He was a master at reading a room and took pride in surrounding himself with good people, said Dennis Wanebo, a former prosecutor in the Boulder DA’s office.

    He rarely faced any serious opposition on the ballot.

    “He was there for 28 years,” said Peter Maguire, a longtime Boulder prosecutor during Hunter’s tenure. “And you don’t do that without being the consummate politician who has his finger on the pulse of the community, and by doing the right thing time and time again.”

    Hunter was first elected by a narrow margin in 1973 in no small part because he promised to stop prosecuting possession of marijuana as a felony — prompting University of Colorado students to vote for him in droves, said Stan Garnett, who served as Boulder district attorney beginning in 2009.

    Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter is pictured in this October 1980 photo. (Photo by Dave Buresh/The Denver Post)
    Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter is pictured in this October 1980 photo. (Photo by Dave Buresh/The Denver Post)

    Hunter was part of a wave of Democratic leadership that swept through Boulder in the 1970s. He hosted his own talk radio show for a while in the 1980s, and ran up Flagstaff Road almost every workday, leaving at 11:30 a.m. and having his secretary collect him at the top and return him to the courthouse. He was media-savvy and funny, charming and articulate.

    He declared bankruptcy in the 1970s after a failed real estate venture left him $6 million in debt. Hunter married four times and had five children, one of whom, John Hunter-Haulk, died in 2010 at the age of 20 — the “heartbreak of his life,” that Hunter never fully moved past, his son said.

    In the late 1970s, after regularly hearing people’s displeasure with plea agreements, Hunter declared that his office would no longer offer plea bargains in any cases, instead requiring defendants to plead guilty to the original charges or take their cases to trial.

    The effort quickly failed as the court system buckled under the increased number of jury trials.

    “People made fun of him at the time, other DAs mocked him for it and said it was a fool’s errand,” Wanebo said. “And maybe in hindsight it can be looked at that way. And yet there was also a very good secondary effect of that for our office, which was, we got really careful about what we charged people with.”

    ‘A Renaissance man’

    Hunter was moveable when he made mistakes, Maguire said, though he needed to be convinced through either a reasoned or political argument — this is what the community wants — to change his stances.

    “Alex was a Renaissance man,” Garnett said. “He was interested in everything. And he was very thoughtful, very kind. He was very ethical.”

    Tom Kelley, a former First Amendment attorney for The Denver Post, remembered a time in which he convinced Hunter that he was legally obligated to release some criminal justice records to the newspaper. Kelley swung by the courthouse to pick the records up, and Hunter met him, leading Kelley through the courthouse’s winding back hallways in search of the records.

    Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter makes his way down a hill in front of the Boulder County Justice Center, through a mass of media and bystanders, on his way to announce that the grand jury in the JonBenét Ramsey case was disbanding without taking action on Oct. 13, 1999. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
    Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter makes his way down a hill in front of the Boulder County Justice Center, through a mass of media and bystanders, on his way to announce that the grand jury in the JonBenét Ramsey case was disbanding without taking action on Oct. 13, 1999. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)

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    Shelly Bradbury

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  • Jared Dudley has played with and coached countless superstars. His mission in Denver? Protect Nikola Jokic defensively

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    Jared Dudley’s second career had already started before his first one was over. He just needed time to realize it.

    Winning a championship with LeBron James helped him get there. By then, Dudley had been bouncing around the NBA for more than a dozen years. The LeBron- and Anthony Davis-led Lakers were his seventh team. “When you can sit in a room and watch film with LeBron, AD and (Rajon) Rondo and call them out,” he says, “it’s something that very few coaches have the guts to be able to do, the credibility.”

    Dudley felt perfectly comfortable doing that. Enough to begin to recognize a knack for leadership that could serve him beyond his playing years, which were numbered anyway. “It’s like I’d been coaching my last four or five years in the NBA,” he realized.

    In 2021, he was planning to prolong his time on the Lakers’ roster as a veteran bench presence — he and James had developed a close friendship — but a new opportunity beckoned. Former Lakers assistant Jason Kidd took over as head coach of the Mavericks, and he had a staff opening ready for Dudley.

    The beloved longtime role player took the leap directly into coaching. Four years later, he’s ascending the ranks. Nuggets coach David Adelman kicked off his regime this summer by hiring Dudley to oversee Denver’s defense, which ranked 21st in the league last season.

    “Word of mouth,” Adelman said. “A lot of people told me great things about him, and in this league, sometimes it’s not who you know; it’s what you hear from other people you respect and trust.”

    A coaching lifer, Adelman wanted to make sure he built a staff that included former players to introduce a healthy range of perspectives. In the 40-year-old Dudley, he landed someone who brought not just schematic creativity, which has already been on display early this season, but a candid demeanor and clear understanding of NBA locker room dynamics.

    “Just because you were a player doesn’t mean you can relate,” Dudley told The Denver Post in an interview this week. “It takes all those different experiences on my journey as a player to be able to know how to talk to them, when to talk to them, when to come at Jamal (Murray), when to come at (Nikola) Jokic, when to call other players out.

    “… That’s what I’m trying to do (for) a team that struggled on defense but has a historically good offense. Make this team above-average defensively to give us a chance to win a championship.”

    Dudley didn’t always have the “guts” to speak up as audaciously as he did late in his playing career. But that’s how it should be, he thinks. Confidence and privilege come with age in a league where status matters. When Dudley was young, observing and adapting meant survival.

    “My mom always taught me a good player is one that listens. So I never had a problem,” he said. “Steve Nash told me one time, ‘When I pass you the ball, I’m passing you the ball with an advantage. So if you don’t have an advantage, pass me the ball back.’ When he says that, OK, I remember that. I believe in a hierarchy where there’s different levels, and superstars get different treatment and can say different things. I believe in that.”

    Few people in the league today have worked alongside as many superstars as Dudley. He was traded to Phoenix in 2008 as a second-year bench player, teaming up with Steve Nash, Grant Hill and Shaquille O’Neal. He played with Chris Paul and Blake Griffin on the Lob City Clippers, then with a young Giannis Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee, John Wall in Washington, Devin Booker in Phoenix, LeBron and AD in Los Angeles. He coached Luka Doncic, Jalen Brunson and Kyrie Irving in Dallas.

    He tried to absorb something from each experience. Nash’s instructions on what to do with the ball as a role player were a north star. Dudley also partially attributes the length of his career (14 years) to lessons learned from Nash about taking care of his body — “all the stuff he did pre and postgame: IVs, acupuncture, working on your core.” O’Neal taught him in those early years how to balance seriousness and light-heartedness.

    Jared Dudley (3) and Steve Nash (13) of the Phoenix Suns during Game 2 of the Western Conference Semifinals of the 2010 NBA Playoffs against the San Antonio Spurs at US Airways Center on May 5, 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

    Dudley built a reputation with his IQ despite his awkward body type. He played a bit of power forward at Boston College, was drafted as a small forward, then he transformed himself into a starting two-guard with the Suns. He monitored league trends, such as the emergence of Draymond Green and downsized lineups. In Milwaukee, he asked to play the four after Jabari Parker tore an ACL. “I saw the defenses weren’t evolving fast enough for the small-ball four,” Dudley recalled. “I got ahead of it. … You have to evolve — 90% of the league is role players.”

    That’s the ethos he’s trying to bring to the Nuggets, a team with a similarly heady identity. Aaron Gordon, in particular, outfitted his game to complement Jokic in 2021 when he was traded to Denver — a reinvention that echoes how Dudley changed his game to function with an all-time great passer in Phoenix.

    When Dudley traveled to Denver for his interview in July, he arrived with a film project, exploring zone options and how the staff could limit Jokic’s defensive workload this season. “Even though it might be word-of-mouth,” he said, “you’ve still gotta impress.” He and Adelman had dinner together for more than four hours, talking scheme for about 35% of it (in Dudley’s estimation) and life for the other 65%. Adelman didn’t need much time to deliberate.

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    Bennett Durando

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  • A judge told Gov. Jared Polis not to comply with an ICE subpoena. Polis’ attorneys say he still wants to.

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    Gov. Jared Polis is still trying to find a way to comply with a federal immigration subpoena, four months after a Denver judge ruled that doing so would violate Colorado law.

    In repeated court filings, including one submitted Friday, Polis’ private attorneys have said they intend to turn over records on 10 businesses that employed several sponsors of unaccompanied children to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    They’ve asked a Denver judge, who previously prohibited some state employees from complying with ICE’s subpoena, to dismiss the case and clear the way for them to turn over a more limited batch of records.

    The recent filings represent the second attempt by Polis to comply with the April immigration enforcement subpoena. The governor’s first attempt was blocked by District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones in June, after Jones sided with a senior state employee who’d sued Polis earlier that month to stop the state from fulfilling the subpoena.

    The employee, Scott Moss, argued that providing the requested records would violate state laws that limit what information can be shared with federal immigration authorities.

    But though Jones preliminarily sided with Moss, his ruling is complicated. He prohibited Polis from directing a specific division of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to comply with the subpoena. But he said he couldn’t prevent Polis from directing others to comply with the subpoena, even though Jones said doing so would still likely violate the law.

    The records that Polis now says he intends to turn over to ICE are in the custody of another labor department division not covered in Jones’ order.

    In an email Tuesday, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman declined to comment on the case or why Polis is still seeking to provide records to ICE. She pointed to the administration’s recent legal filings.

    The administration has previously said it wanted to support ICE’s efforts to check on unaccompanied minors without legal status, though the governor’s office has not provided any evidence that it has sought assurances that ICE wasn’t seeking the information purely for immigration enforcement efforts.

    David Seligman, whose law firm has supported the case, criticized the governor’s decision to seek the lawsuit’s dismissal while indicating his intention to turn over records to ICE. While ICE wrote that it wanted detailed employment records so it could check on the well-being of unaccompanied children, Seligman and Moss, the employee who brought the lawsuit, have argued that the agency only wants the information so it can arrest and deport the children’s sponsors.

    “It is absolutely absurd that this governor would be going out of his way to comply with and cooperate with ICE in light of everything that we’re seeing right now,” Seligman said.

    Moss has since left the department, and Polis’ lawyers now argue that no one associated with the case has a legal standing to challenge compliance with the subpoena. They’ve also argued that they can turn over the records because the employers’ addresses and contact information can be found online.

    The records are only part of the broader swath of personal details that ICE initially requested, and they cover only six of the 35 sponsors for which ICE first sought records. The sponsors are typically family members of children without legal status, who care for the minors while their immigration cases proceed.

    The administration has similarly told ICE officials that it intends to comply with part of the subpoena once the lawsuit is concluded. In a July 11 email, Joe Barela, the head of the Department of Labor and Employment, wrote to a special agent in ICE’s investigative branch that the agency planned to “provide your office with the names and contact information for those 10 employers.”

    The labor department has already complied with three ICE subpoenas this year, including in one “erroneous” case that apparently ran afoul of state law.

    Jones must now rule on whether to dismiss the lawsuit or let it proceed. Between June and early September, Recht Kornfeld, the private law firm Polis hired to represent him in the lawsuit, has billed the state for more than $104,000, according to records obtained by The Denver Post through a public records request.

    The Colorado Attorney General’s Office has said it was unable to represent Polis because of legal advice it provided to the governor related to complying with the subpoena. The office has declined to characterize the nature of that advice.

    The subpoena was sent to the state labor department in April as part of what ICE described as essentially a welfare check of unaccompanied minors in the state. The subpoena sought employment and personal records for the children’s sponsors.

    Initially, administration officials decided not to comply with the subpoena because of the state’s laws limiting such contact. But Polis abruptly changed course and decided to turn over the records, prompting Moss to sue.

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    Seth Klamann

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  • ICE arrests climb in Colorado this summer, but people detained are less likely to have criminal backgrounds

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    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)

    Feds demand higher pace of arrests

    The overall surge in arrests this summer has come as the Trump administration seeks to dramatically increase detentions and, eventually, the pace of deportations. In early July, Congress approved tens of billions of dollars in new funding for ICE as part of the tax bill.

    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.

    As of last month, that detention center housed 1,176 people, according to data published by ICE.

    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)
    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)

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    Seth Klamann

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  • Christian Braun blames himself for momentum swing after dunking on Rudy Gobert, getting technical foul – The Cannabist

    Christian Braun blames himself for momentum swing after dunking on Rudy Gobert, getting technical foul – The Cannabist

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    MINNEAPOLIS — Christian Braun was teleported back in time to one of his college games.

    It was Nov. 26, 2021, against his new Nuggets teammate DaRon Holmes II and the Dayton Flyers. With 1:45 remaining in the first half, Braun taunted after a slam dunk that put Kansas up 44-29 and received a technical foul. Dayton ended the half on a 6-0 run and then tied the game four minutes after the intermission. KU lost on a buzzer-beater.

    Braun recalled that game to his teammates in the Denver locker room Friday night, after a dramatic 119-116 loss to the Timberwolves. It’s not a fond memory for him, and neither was this highlight.

    Read the rest of this story on TheKnow.DenverPost.com.

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    The Cannabist Network

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  • Owner of troubled Aurora apartments faces state investigation related to conditions, consumer-protection laws – The Cannabist

    Owner of troubled Aurora apartments faces state investigation related to conditions, consumer-protection laws – The Cannabist

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    The owners of several dilapidated apartment buildings in Aurora and Denver have faced a new threat in recent months: an investigation by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office on suspicion of violating the state’s safe-housing and consumer-protection laws.

    The state office sent subpoenas to CBZ Management, one of its primary representatives and several of its subordinate companies in September, according to records obtained by The Denver Post. The subpoenas seek answers and records related to a swath of CBZ’s practices, including how it advertises its properties and whether tenants get the apartments they have toured; how the companies track and respond to maintenance requests and health code violations; how they handle security deposits; and how they screen tenants, among other questions.

    CBZ Management’s buildings in Aurora have been the subject of extensive tenant and municipal complaints and have recently drawn international attention over allegations the properties were overtaken by gangs.

    Read the rest of this story on TheKnow.DenverPost.com.

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    The Cannabist Network

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  • Kids living near Colorado airports have slightly elevated levels of lead in their blood, new study finds

    Kids living near Colorado airports have slightly elevated levels of lead in their blood, new study finds

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    Children living near small airports in Colorado had slightly higher levels of lead in their blood than the statewide average, according to a new study — though experts had diverging opinions on how significant that difference was.

    The study, by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, found levels to be within the range the federal government considers normal, and didn’t prove that living near an airport caused the increase in blood lead levels, though levels declined consistently as the distance from an airport increased, reaching the state average at about two miles out.

    The researchers also didn’t have enough blood samples to show whether lead levels were particularly high near any of the airports, though the data didn’t suggest any difference, said Dr. Ned Calonge, the department’s chief medical officer.

    While lead can affect anyone, young children are most vulnerable. In most cases, lead doesn’t cause any immediately noticeable symptoms, though over time it lowers intelligence scores and increases the risk of hyperactivity and behavior problems. Children experiencing acute lead poisoning, which is rare, may have headaches, stomach pain and weakness.

    Aircraft fuel is the largest source of new lead pollution in the country, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Certain industries, like battery recycling, also generate lead pollution, while contamination from lead paint and leaded gas still lingers.

    Click here to read the full story from our partners at The Denver Post.

    Denver 7+ Colorado News Latest Headlines | May 13, 8am

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  • Nuggets might watch Lakers vs. Pelicans together, but “we don’t have a preferred opponent”

    Nuggets might watch Lakers vs. Pelicans together, but “we don’t have a preferred opponent”

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    MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The tarp is being removed from the pool for the first time this year at the Jokic household.

    “We have good weather,” Nikola Jokic said Sunday afternoon in Memphis, his mind already back in Denver enough to know the local forecast. “So I’m going to go in my swimming pool. … Probably get some treatment. Relax a little bit.”

    The Nuggets have five nights off before they play again, in Game 1 of the Western Conference playoffs Saturday at Ball Arena. They have two full days before they’ll know their first-round opponent — either the Los Angeles Lakers or New Orleans Pelicans.

    They intend to enjoy the brief moment of stillness while they can. Because they hope to enjoy what happens next even more.

    “I think we all kind of were tired of the regular season,” Michael Porter Jr. said.

    Common side-effect of winning a championship. The first 82 games suddenly don’t feel as important. The playoffs can’t arrive soon enough. Champions become adrenaline junkies, living for the pressure and excitement. After a rollicking win over the Timberwolves last Wednesday, Nuggets players sat in the locker room and fantasized about the crowd noise of a playoff environment, the extra oomph of player introductions. Ball Arena had just given them an early taste of it.

    Maybe that’s why they fell apart two nights later in San Antonio. Second-half blowout. Lottery team. Lethargic crowd. Minds in the future. The Nuggets lost focus, lost a 23-point lead and lost their stranglehold on the No. 1 seed in the West.

    The regular-season finale in Memphis was an opportunity seized to salvage something out of their slip to third place in the standings. Minnesota’s loss to Phoenix handed the No. 2 seed back to Denver (57-25), an extra series with that coveted home-court advantage and a different path through the playoffs. Lemons to lemonade.

    “In the second round, we’ll get another round of home-court, and then the only way we wouldn’t get the Western Conference Finals home-court is if OKC makes it all the way,” Porter said. “Which they very well could. So definitely some benefits to being the second seed.”

    “We’ll see in a couple months how it played out for us,” Reggie Jackson said. “Still a tough loss in San Antonio, just because we completely controlled our own destiny. But we still control our destiny. It’s just about playing our best ball at the right time.”

    First, a few days to breathe. The afternoon game time Sunday allowed the Nuggets to fly home from Memphis immediately after the game and have most of the evening to relax. Monday is also a “black-out day,” with nobody going to the team facility or working.

    “Let everybody stay home, get some rest, be with your families, whatever it is you need to do,” coach Michael Malone said. “And then obviously on Tuesday, maybe have a light player development type of a day. And may get together as a team to watch that game on Tuesday night.”

    That’s the burning question now. Who would the Nuggets rather play in the first round? The seventh-seeded Pelicans, a roster that might end up without an All-NBA selection and a core with minimal playoff experience? Or the eighth-seeded Lakers, a franchise that strikes fear into everybody but a current iteration that has lost eight consecutive games to Denver? It’s a fresh matchup or a grudge match.

    “I think it’s pretty even throughout,” Porter said. “New Orleans presents a lot of challenges. Especially with (Brandon Ingram) being back. But the Lakers are a very good team as well. We may have swept them last year (in the Western Conference), but it was a battle every game. I think they ran every game, and then it came down to the last two or three minutes where we kind of pulled away. So it may have looked like we dominated, but that was a very good matchup last year, so we’re taking everyone serious.”

    Porter, despite Denver’s scoreboard-watching Sunday, wanted to be clear: “We don’t have a preferred opponent.”

    Meanwhile, Malone wasn’t focused on the “who” so much as the “when.”

    “You find out a lot sooner than you did as a 1-seed,” he said. “So that helps.”

    Indeed, the Nuggets will have more time to scout one specific opponent than they did last year as the top seed, which doesn’t find out its adversary until Friday at the conclusion of the Play-In Tournament. The real work starts Wednesday for Denver. Even that rumored gathering for the Lakers-Pelicans game Tuesday night would be more of a social event than a work function.

    “We’ll probably get together and watch it and just try to relax at the same time,” Jackson said. “Try to do a little bit of scouting, but just trying to do a little bit of hanging out. Build some comradery and just relax a little bit.”

    The situation in New Orleans will be intriguing. The Lakers were already there Sunday for Game 82. Their 124-108 rout vaulted them to the No. 8 position and knocked the Pelicans from No. 6 to No. 7 … all for the two teams to play again in the same arena 48 hours later. The Lakers don’t even have to fly home to Los Angeles and back.

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    Bennett Durando

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  • Why Nuggets want Reggie Jackson to stay aggressive during slump: “This team is mad at you if you don’t shoot”

    Why Nuggets want Reggie Jackson to stay aggressive during slump: “This team is mad at you if you don’t shoot”

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    MIAMI — The backcourt that shepherded Denver to consecutive road wins in Miami during last year’s NBA Finals was waiting to check back into the game, waiting to send Heat fans marching toward the exits once again. Clutch time is when the Nuggets’ starters thrive.

    But these two starters decided they’d rather let the backup backcourt do the honors.

    After a barrage of Reggie Jackson jumpers, Jamal Murray and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope went to coach Michael Malone and told him to keep Jackson and Christian Braun in the game. Malone obliged, and the Nuggets kept pulling away for a 100-88 win that they hope will be important for reasons that transcend their temporary, solitary claim to first place in the West.

    Jackson needed a new dose of confidence.

    “I’ve been in a crazy slump,” he said.

    Earlier in the fourth quarter, Braun scored seven critical points during Nikola Jokic’s rest minutes to protect a slim lead. Then Jackson took over, scoring from 17, 15 and 26 feet on three consecutive possessions in a span of 1:12 to double Denver’s lead and force an Erik Spoelstra timeout.

    “I had Jamal Murray and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at the scorer’s table during that stretch. And this speaks a lot about our group,” Malone said. “Both those guys said to me, ‘Coach, let Reggie ride. Let CB ride. This group is playing well.’ And part of our culture — because we do have a culture in Denver as well — part of our culture is being selfless. Getting over yourself. And I think that’s another example of how our team is always getting over the individual, thinking about the collective. Really happy for Reggie Jackson.”

    Malone was not-so-subtly throwing shade at Miami’s “Heat Culture” mantra in his postgame comments, but his proud advocacy for Nuggets Culture was validated by the team’s reaction to Jackson’s heat check.

    “You could see it transpire on the court. That was the cool part,” Jackson told The Denver Post. “I’ve been playing long enough. You see a lot of things the older you get. You witness it. I knew my minutes were kind of up. I knew Jamal was supposed to come on the court. … And then I see Jamal motioning to Coach, like, ‘Keep him in. Let him play.’ I saw Pope doing the same thing for C.B. So that was a really cool moment for C.B. and myself.”

    For Jackson in particular, the vote of confidence was revitalizing. In the first 30 games of the season, he averaged 13.2 points on 48.6% shooting, including 38.1% from 3-point range. He led the Nuggets to a handful of wins in November when Murray was out with a strained hamstring. In the next 35 games entering this matchup, Jackson shot 38.7% from the floor and 30.9% from outside, averaging only 7.4 points and scoring in double figures only 10 times.

    After the win in Miami, he has still gone a season-long 10 consecutive games without touching double digits, but seven of his nine points Wednesday were scored during the game-clinching burst.

    He says his teammates have been urging him to take those shots despite the drop in efficiency.

    “They want me to continue to be myself. Continue to be aggressive. They’ve been kind of upset at me for not playing my game the last few,” Jackson said. “So then I started playing aggressive. Even still in the midst of missing shots. I think I had a 1-for-9 night. I had like a 1-for-7. But just hearing the encouragement from my teammates … once you have a great group like that — front office, coaches, teammates — believing in you like that, you can’t do anything but start believing in yourself again. So like I said: Hit a slump. Had some dark days. Tough days. But having that encouragement has made it easier to come out here and keep attacking, keep pushing ahead and just live with the results.”

    Jackson’s defining quality is his one-on-one scoring capability. There have been flashes in recent games when he puts the moves on an opposing guard but simply misses the shot he generates.

    “That’s the annoying part,” he said. “I think the reassuring part is that I can still get to a spot and get to a shot. So that’s always the best part. I think once I’m not able to get to a shot, that would be a little worrisome. That’s probably when you’ve gotta hang it up. … Just knowing I can still get there. And now it’s on me to go ahead and continue to get in the gym and find a way to complete the play. So that’s really what I’ve been trying to focus on. Footwork. Having my confidence down, and just continuing to trust in the reps, trust in the work.”

    Jackson’s rotations have changed recently. He’s not sharing the floor with Murray much anymore, after a stretch of games in which Malone tried a variation of the second unit that deployed both point guards at the same time. Instead, Justin Holiday is filling the extra backcourt spot in that lineup; Jackson is subbing back in with Jokic to give Murray a brief rest. That’s why Jackson was on the floor as a competitive NBA Finals rematch entered the last five minutes.

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    Bennett Durando

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  • Denver Post Issues Urgent Appeal To Voters About GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert

    Denver Post Issues Urgent Appeal To Voters About GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert

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    In a blistering editorial at the weekend, the newspaper’s board urged voters not to vote for the Donald Trump loyalist. The title of the article couldn’t have been clearer: “Endorsement: Please, don’t give your vote to Lauren Boebert.”

    “We beg voters in western and southern Colorado not to give Rep. Lauren Boebert their vote,” the editorial began.

    Boebert “has spent her time and efforts contributing to the toxic political environment in this nation,” the board wrote. And instead of discussing issues relevant to Coloradans, she just “slings mud,” it added.

    The board called out Boebert’s “casual yet crass cruelty, which she puts on display on a daily basis while in Washington, D.C.”

    Last week, Boebert’s GOP primary challenger took the unusual step of endorsing her Democratic rival Adam Frisch, a former member of the Aspen City Council.

    “We grieve that this is who represents our great state in Congress – a state known for our moderate positions and our policy-first approach to politics,” the newspaper said. “Rejecting all Boebert has come to represent – angry rants without offering real solutions — is important for the 3rd Congressional District, Colorado and this great nation.”

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