Author: Blair Miller
Child abuse, trespassing charges for 2 who caused Amber Alert in Denver Sunday
DENVER – The woman accused of kidnapping her biological daughter with another man Sunday, setting off an Amber Alert, faces child abuse and trespassing charges after the incident.
Meshelle Jasmine Branch, 21, is accused of breaking into and taking her 22-month-old daughter from the girl’s grandmother’s home on East 104th Avenue in Thornton around 9 a.m. Sunday morning.
The grandmother had an active protection order against Branch that prohibits her from being at the grandmother’s home or having contact with the child, which Branch is also charged with violating, in addition to the child abuse and first-degree criminal trespassing charges.
Branch, along with 28-year-old Robert Owens, allegedly took the toddler, who has a severe heart condition that requires close monitoring, though it’s still unclear why.
The Amber Alert was issued around 12:45 p.m. Sunday — nearly four hours after the kidnapping. Branch and Owens turned themselves in at the Lone Tree Police Department around 1:30, along with the child, who was cleared medically at a nearby hospital and returned to her grandmother.
Branch and Owens, both of Lakewood, remain in custody Monday. Thornton police say the investigation into the case remains ongoing.
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Amid calls for review of Colo. wells following explosion, agencies caution against rush to judgment
DENVER – Officials continue to urge people not to jump conclusions as to why a Colorado oil and gas operator shut in 3,000 of its wells following a home explosion in Firestone that killed two men.
The Frederick-Firestone Fire Protection District on Friday said it wouldn’t release any further information about the April 17 explosion until it has determined the final cause and origin. Brothers-in-law Mark Martinez and Joey Irwin died in the explosion, which occurred while the two were installing a hot water heater at the home. Continue reading
US marijuana sales on 4/20 up 20 percent from 2016, report says
DENVER – States with legal marijuana programs had their most-successful 4/20 marijuana holiday ever this year, seeing a 20 percent increase in total sales over 2016, according to a report.
MJ Freeway, which tracks U.S. retail marijuana sales, says nationwide sales topped $45 million on April 20 and were 20 percent higher than last year’s numbers.
The organization says it saw a 13 percent increase in the number of orders placed across the country, and that the average amount spent was $77.21.
The increase in sales was predicted by MJ Freeway because more states have legalized marijuana over the past year, but the organization predicted sales would be slightly lower.
Colorado has yet to finalize its numbers for 4/20 or April, but estimated it transferred $16.3 million in taxes in February alone. The state sold about $1.3 billion in marijuana last year, which brought the state around $200 million in tax revenue.
4/20 is generally the day that sees the most marijuana sales, followed by New Year’s Eve and July 4.
Either medical or recreational marijuana, or both, are available in 28 states and the District of Columbia.
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Sen. Bennet files legislation to help Arturo Hernandez-Garcia, Colorado man facing deportation
DENVER – U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet has filed a private bill aimed at keeping a Denver-area man picked up for deportation by federal immigration agents this week from being removed from the country.
Arturo Hernandez-Garcia, 44, was detained at work by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents earlier this week.
Bennet filed private legislation – usually aimed at specific people’s situations, often involving immigration cases – on Thursday to try and stop Hernandez-Garcia from being deported. He also reached out to ICE to request a time extension in deciding Hernandez-Garcia’s case.
“Arturo has been a valued member of our community for nearly two decades,” Bennet said in a statement. “As a business owner, he has contributed to our economy and has always worked hard to support his family. He should not be a priority for deportation.”
Hernandez-Garcia was among the first undocumented immigrants in the country to use a church as a place of sanctuary from federal agents when he spent 9 months at Denver’s First Unitarian Church in 2015.
He left the church after he was told he wasn’t a priority for deportation, despite ICE having given him final removal orders.
ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok told Denver7 earlier this week that Hernandez-Garcia would be held in ICE custody until he is removed.
Hernandez-Garcia first came to the U.S. through El Paso, Texas in January 2003 on a six-month work visa, according to ICE, but outstayed his visa. He was first targeted for deportation after his 2010 arrest on an assault charge for a fight at work – a charge that was later dropped.
In October 2012, a federal immigration judge granted a 60-day voluntary departure request, but those turned into final deportation orders in December 2012, when he failed to voluntarily remove himself from the U.S., according to ICE.
In 2014, an appeal of his deportation was dismissed, but the Board of Immigration Appeals extended his voluntary departure date through Aprill 2014. However, when he didn’t leave, a final order of removal became active again, according to ICE. He had applications for stays of removal denied in May 2014 and March 2015, according to ICE.
Hernandez-Garcia has a wife and two daughters – one of whom was born in the U.S., which generally kept him safe under the Obama administration’s directive that protected undocumented parents of citizen children.
The First Unitarian Church has also been a sanctuary haven for Jeanette Vizguerra, a Mexican national who took sanctuary at the church earlier this year when she was scheduled to be deported. Vizguerra was named as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year last week, and is one of at least two women in the Denver area currently in sanctuary.
Bennet also issued a private bill seeking relief for Vizguerra in March. His calls for relief come amid an increased focus under the Donald Trump administration to deport anyone living in the country illegally – something Bennet has been loudly opposed to.
He called Hernandez-Garcia’s case “yet another example of this Administration’s misguided immigration policies that do not align with our national priorities and values.”
It’s unclear exactly what effect, if any, the private bill might have on Hernandez-Garcia’s case at this time.
Hernandez-Garcia and Vizguerra’s cases are among several high-profile immigration cases that are currently ongoing in the Denver area.
There is a march in front of the ICE detention facility in Aurora scheduled for Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to protest Hernandez-Garcia’s detainment.
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Mitt Romney’s nephew, Doug Robinson, is running for governor of Colorado in 2018
DENVER – Doug Robinson, Mitt Romney’s investment banker nephew, officially kicked off his candidacy for Colorado’s governorship in 2018 Friday with an appearance at a Highlands Ranch GOP breakfast.
Robinson becomes the third Republican to enter the already-packed governor’s race, after 18th Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler and self-funding former state lawmaker Victor Mitchell.
But State Treasurer Walker Stapleton could also enter the race in the next few months, according to the Denver Post, and four Democrats, including Rep. Ed Perlmutter, have already announced their candidacies to try and succeed John Hickenlooper in 2018.
A recently-retired investment banker, Robinson’s campaign sites say he’ll bring “conservative leadership” to Colorado and touts work with a nonprofit he chaired that helped train kids on technology.
The Post reports that Robinson said he received support from his uncle, Romney, and that the father of five said in a letter to Colorado Republicans that he is a “committed Republican.”
He touted himself as an outsider in Colorado politics, despite him helping run Romney’s 2012 Colorado campaign and his pondering of a 2016 Senate run against Michael Bennet that never came to fruition.
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Denver police chief allays concern within undocumented community over deportation fears
DENVER – Denver’s mayor praised a federal judge’s decision Tuesday to block an executive order by President Donald Trump that would strip federal funding from so-called sanctuary cities – just around the same time that the city’s police chief tried to calm fears in Denver’s immigrant communities.
Denver Police Chief Robert White laid out the city’s plan on how its officers work with federal immigration officials under the Trump administration at a community meeting Tuesday that brought standing-room-only crowds. He started by noting that there have been an uptick in the number of immigration officers in the city, but told the crowd not to worry. Continue reading
Questions abound after oil company’s decision to shutter wells near site of Firestone home explosion
DENVER – Seven active oil and gas wells were shut down in the Firestone neighborhood where a house exploded during a water heater installation on April 17, killing two, state oil and gas officials said Thursday.
The information came as the head of Colorado’s oil and gas commission held a news conference Thursday morning to give more insight into the state’s involvement in the ongoing investigation into the explosion, that led one of the state’s top energy companies to shutter 3,000 wells on Wednesday. Continue reading
Greeley man found dead in crash was shot beforehand, coroner says
GREELEY, Colo. – A man who was found dead after a crash Tuesday morning was shot before he crashed into a retaining wall in Greeley, the Weld County coroner confirmed Thursday.
Police had said from the beginning of the investigation that they were treating the death of Alberto Ruiz, 33, as a homicide after witnesses told officers the crash happened after they heard sounds similar to explosions and that they had seen a pickup truck speeding away from the scene.
Ruiz was an employee at Estes Valley Asphalt and was driving one of the company’s trucks when he was killed. Friends told Denver7 he had been working at a construction site in the area before the incident.
“It doesn’t seem real. Like one minute he’s working and the next minute he’s gone,” said Roy Varela, a good friend of the victim. “We were just with him on Easter. We had a BBQ at the park. Everything was fine. And then this — everything happened so fast.”
The Greeley Police Department says the pickup seen leaving the scene is a tan/gold 1998-2002 model Chevrolet S-10 ZR2 with black fender flares. It still has not been located or identified.
Anyone with more information about the case is asked to call Greeley police at 970-350-9600.
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Colorado police found 262 pounds of marijuana on side of road on 4/20
MANITOU SPRINGS, Colo. – Somebody dumped 262 pounds of marijuana on the side of a road in Manitou Springs on 4/20.
The Manitou Springs Police Department recovered the pot, which was stuffed into 11 55-gallon trash bags, along the side of the road near Crystal Hills Boulevard, according to KRDO.
Police had been tipped off to suspicious activity at a vacation rental home about 1.5 miles away earlier in the day, but upon investigating found nothing suspicious.
But before finding the marijuana, officers were tipped off again to two men seen driving a white van up to the rental home and leaving shortly afterward. Police valued the marijuana at $1.5 million.
KRDO reports that police believe the van and the marijuana are connected, though officers never found the van. They are asking anyone with information to call the El Paso County Dispatch Center at 719-390-5555.
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National marijuana movement shows no signs of slowing Colorado, which now has more pot biz than ever
DENVER – The recreational marijuana industry is catching up to the medical industry in Colorado in terms of the number of licenses issued by the state, and a tiny northeastern Colorado town has one of the highest concentration of licenses in the state.
The new insight into the state’s burgeoning marijuana industry comes from a compilation of state data by Paul Seaborn, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business, in his latest report: “Colorado Marijuana Market Report.”
Seaborn used monthly marijuana licensing data from the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division to note changes in the number of licenses issued statewide over the past several years.
He notes that there are now more active marijuana businesses in Colorado than ever before – a blow to the notion that the wave of other states legalizing marijuana might hurt the nation’s first legal recreational industry.
In fact, Seaborn found, the recreational industry has nearly caught up to the medical industry in terms of the number of businesses operating in the state.
The report says that recreational businesses now account for 47.5 percent of marijuana business in Colorado (up from 45.5 percent in December 2016), and that medical businesses made up 52.5 percent (down from 54.5 percent in December).
The report adds that retail dispensary, cultivation and manufacturing licenses have increased in number since December, while their medical counterparts have decreased.
Colorado legalized medical marijuana in 2000 and implemented its recreational program in 2014 after voters approved its legalization in 2012. Recreational marijuana sales outpaced medical sales last year, when the state sold $1.3 billion worth of pot.
Denver continues to account for more than one-third of the state’s licenses, according to the report, which found that Colorado Springs, Boulder, Pueblo and Pueblo West rounded out the top five. Trinidad surpassed Aurora for the first time in numbers of active licenses.
But cracking the top 15 cities in terms of the number of licenses for the first time was tiny Log Lane Village – a town of about 900 near Fort Morgan along I-76 in northeastern Colorado.
There are 18 active business licenses in the tiny town, meaning there is one business license for roughly every 50 people in the town. By comparison, Denver has about one license per every 560 residents, when using July 2016 population data.
The report shows that 121 towns and cities in Colorado now have at least one active marijuana business license.
Native Roots and LivWell continue to have the largest number of licenses, and Green Solution has the third-most. But Seaborn’s report says that no single business has more than 2.1 percent of the state’s licenses.
For more, read the full report here.
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