Author: Kirk Mitchell
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Police bomb turns Colorado Springs neighborhood feud over broken tree branch into federal legal battle
A fierce neighborhood conflict that exploded after a 13-year-old boy swung on a tree branch outside a Colorado Springs townhome until the limb snapped shows no sign of ending five years later. Neighbors menaced each other with baseball bats. The aggrieved tree owner, Ronald Dwayne Brown, fired a gun. Colorado Springs police deployed a robot…
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Man arrested after threatening to turn Colorado business into ‘Las Vegas part 2’
The FBI has arrested a Brooklyn, N.Y., man after he sent pictures of two MAC-11 submachine guns to officials of a Denver business and threatened to turn it into Las Vegas II. FBI agents arrested Victor Casillas, 34, Tuesday night in midtown Manhattan, said John Marzulli, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn. Casillas is…
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Gun theft a growing problem in Colorado
Dragon Man Mel Bernstein believed his store — stocked with thousands of guns, including 200 machine guns — was impenetrable. A pack of seven German shepherds, chain-link fences, reinforced steel doors and 36 surveillance cameras have kept thieves at bay for decades. But Bernstein’s store was just as vulnerable as dozens of others across Colorado.…
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Solving gun store burglaries has become a top ATF priority in Colorado
Solving gun store burglaries has become a top ATF priority in Colorado, said William Henderson, assistant special agent in charge of the ATF’s Denver field division. In fact, records show the problem is growing faster in Colorado than in the rest of the country. The theft of guns is troubling because they get into the hands of…
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Skywest Airlines employee fired after kidney failure awarded $2.45 million
Kidney failure was only the beginning of John Hayes’ hardships. The former Skywest Airlines employee also learned he was out of a job shortly after he returned to work from medical leave. Hayes sued Skywest claiming discrimination and on Monday, a U.S. District Court jury in Denver awarded him a $2.45 million verdict including $450,000 in…
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50 animals die in “hellish” conditions at home of former Colorado pet shop owners
Prosecutors have filed 72 animal cruelty charges against a Thornton couple after authorities discovered 50 dead animals and 2,000 others including hedgehogs, snakes and mice in a shed and basement reeking of urine and feces. The grisly discovery was made the same day the third of three family members was sentenced on animal cruelty charges…
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Lawsuit says spilled tea at Colorado Starbucks disfigured woman, killed dog
A woman is seeking more than $75,000 in a federal lawsuit after she and her dog were severely scalded when an improperly lidded cup of very hot tea spilled on them at a Denver Starbucks drive-thru window, killing the dog and disfiguring the woman. Deanna Salas-Solano’s dog Alexander was so severely burned that he died…
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Colorado company gave away eclipse glasses that damaged Castle Rock woman’s eyes, lawsuit says
Attorneys seek class-action status in a lawsuit filed in Denver District Court against a Denver company that gave away “unsafe and hazardous” glasses for viewing the solar eclipse, claiming they damaged a Castle Rock woman’s eyes. The lawsuit was filed Sept. 2 on behalf of Kendall Heise and Kim Heise of Castle Rock against Europtics…
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Lawsuit alleges Aurora cops assaulted woman who drove boyfriend with gunshot wound to the hospital
An Aurora woman says after she rushed her boyfriend who had a bullet wound to the hospital, a police officer threw her to the ground, choked her and stomped on her head, according to a federal lawsuit. OyZhana Williams sued the officer and two others Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Denver claiming the officers…
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Denver-born suspected serial killer hid remains of woman, 3 girls in barrels
Born Terry Peder Rasmussen in Denver in 1943, the serial killer suspect was also known as Robert “Bob” Evans. Rasmussen had been sought in the disappearance of one of his girlfriends in New Hampshire and died in 2010 while serving a sentence for killing another girlfriend. (Supplied photo via Denver Post)