By Rocky Mountain Voice Editorial Board
The sixth installment of RMV’s COvid Chronicles covers the week Colorado dropped the mask—just not in the way you’d hope. Restrictions vanished for rioters, but stayed in place for students and small businesses. It wasn’t science guiding policy. It was politics. No, it’s not short. Neither was the fallout.
The sixth installment of RMV’s COvid Chronicles covers the week Colorado dropped the mask—just not in the way you’d hope. Restrictions vanished for rioters, but stayed in place for students and small businesses. It wasn’t science guiding policy. It was politics. No, it’s not short. Neither was the fallout.
Looking back five years later, it’s hard not to feel for everyday, taxpaying Coloradans. As May 2020 ended, COVID cases dropped, testing surged — and all people wanted was a little common sense.
Instead, they stayed home from work, logged into Zoom again and again, and watched their kids graduate by car window, ski-lift, or rope rappel — masked, of course.
Then they turned on the news. And who were the headlines about? Not employees. Not the sick or elderly. Kids? You kid! This is The Child Sacrifice State, after all — and Colorado’s leaders eagerly traded away children’s well-being for the comfort of able-bodied adults still lounging in lockdown.
No, the real VIPs were criminals, prisoners and protestors — the approved kind. They got the passes, the platforms, the pulpit. Ordinary Coloradans were told to stay silent and stay home.
These are the COvid Chronicles for May 24–31, 2020…
COvid Chronicles catch-up
• Introducing The COvid Chronicles: How fear and force reshaped Colorado
• COvid Chronicles April 1-15, 2020: Fifteen days that changed Colorado forever
• COvid Chronicles April 16-30, 2020: From tattletales to tyranny
• The COvid Chronicles May 1–7, 2020: Seven days that set the stage for open rebellion
• The COvid Chronicles May 8–15, 2020: C&C made headlines. Polis made an example. Colorado made up its mind.
• The COvid Chronicles May 16–23, 2020: Deaths dipped—but the definition got slippery
May 24
By late May 2020, it was increasingly clear who Colorado media were spotlighting as the pandemic’s most vulnerable — and whose stories were being sidelined. On Sunday, the Colorado Springs Gazette devoted its front-page centerpiece to a sprawling co-authored report titled:
Locked up during virus outbreak
The focus? Colorado’s prison population. Not the children still confined to their bedrooms. Not the small-business owners with locked doors. Not even crime victims filing reports through a mandated face mask — but incarcerated individuals.
The “Colorado Watch: Criminal Injustice” piece by Christopher Osher and Evan Wyloge cited an internal Department of Corrections report, obtained via CORA, predicting that 150–170 inmates and 73–83 correctional officers could be “killed” by COVID in state prisons — not including federal, county, or private facilities. At the time the analysis was conducted, only eight prisoners and six staff had tested positive statewide.
Yet by the end of the first wave, the number of inmate COVID deaths in state prisons stood at two.
Fast forward to January 2021: the Colorado Health Institute reported 32 total deaths among 16,177 confirmed correctional cases — a fatality rate of 0.19%. Even so, Colorado’s initial vaccine rollout prioritized “incarcerated people” in Phase 2, ahead of many elderly or medically vulnerable Coloradans. Gov. Jared Polis reversed course only after public backlash.
Whether the report’s projections were overestimated or simply outdated, the Gazette’s framing left readers with the impression that prisons were imminent epicenters of mass casualty — a message echoed by the ACLU, DOC officials and reform advocates.
One revealing detail buried 30 paragraphs into the article involved Cornelius Haney — a 40-year-old parolee released early due to COVID concerns who was later arrested for allegedly murdering a 21-year-old woman in East Colfax. A sobering example of the policy tradeoffs at stake, but one that received relatively little attention in the piece.
Still, the ACLU — quoted throughout as the article’s primary authority — along with the DOC’s “analysis” and the Gazette’s investigative team, made the case for cutting the prison population by fiat from 89% capacity to 75%.
“The increase in coronavirus cases in correctional facilities comes at a crucial juncture,” Osher and Wyloge wrote. “Executive orders from Gov. Jared Polis aimed at addressing COVID-19 in the state’s correctional facilities were set to expire Saturday. Late Friday afternoon, Polis let substantial portions of those executive orders expire, disappointing civil rights and prison reform advocates.”
The debate over data, risk and policy would only grow more complicated from there.
May 25
As became painfully common during Colorado’s halting “reopening” under Gov. Jared Polis, restaurateurs, staff and patrons were granted permission on this Monday to resume in-person dining by June 1 — bestowed like a blessing from the Boulder Flatirons on high.
But there was a catch.
Restaurants would be limited to 50% capacity or 50 people total, whichever was fewer — a constraint that deflated hope for many business owners. According to the Colorado Restaurant Association, 80% of surveyed restaurants were desperate to reopen at even half capacity. Still, 9% said they’d have to close permanently within a month if restricted to 50%.
The announcement followed earlier variance approvals for counties like El Paso and Douglas, where state health officials allowed limited reopening based on local case and testing data.
Along with restaurants, other slivers of normal life were allowed to return: daytime summer camps, private campgrounds and ski areas — though at that point, only Arapahoe Basin still had snow.
For many laid-off workers, the news brought a wave of relief. The financial and psychological toll of prolonged shutdowns had pushed thousands to the brink. Glendale sous chef Brian Dicht told The Denver Post’s Joe Rubino that after a month and a half, he hadn’t heard a peep from the state’s unemployment line.
“All I have gotten from unemployment since I filed my claim was a PIN number,” Dicht said. “…I would literally be homeless if it weren’t for my parents.”
Dicht’s story was far from unique. Rubino reported the state was receiving 10,000 to 20,000 calls a day and leaving 40% to 80% of them unanswered. Colorado Department of Labor and Employment deputy executive director Cher Haavind said 86% of claims filed since mid-March had been processed — meaning at least 77,000 people had been rejected or were still waiting.
May 26
In 2025, more than five years after COVID-era policies shattered public trust in Colorado’s transit system, most residents still avoid buses and light rail. It’s gotten so bad that CDOT shut down its main Bustang stop in Colorado Springs — Tejon and I-25 — in December 2024, citing violent crime tied to the entrenched street vagrant population that took root during the pandemic.
With horror stories echoing up and down the Front Range, and firsthand experiences just as grim, Gov. Polis and fellow officials have quietly shelved their public-transit pipe dreams — like the long-hyped Front Range Passenger Rail — as ridership remains nowhere close to viable.
On this Tuesday in May 2020, as RTD began easing its strictest COVID restrictions, Denver Post reporter John Aguilar captured what was already clear: transit ridership had cratered. RTD had suspended fares systemwide, inadvertently opening buses and trains to the growing population of drug-addicted street vagrants. With commuters still at home, ridership dropped by 60% — a generous estimate.
Left to face the fallout were masked, working-class “essential” employees — those without cars — navigating a system increasingly plagued by crime and disorder, from city buses to the Stranger Things-style “Upside Down” beneath Union Station.
RTD’s own survey found just 18% of 2,662 riders felt safe using the system. Defenders blamed fear of the virus, but RTD spokeswoman Tina Jaquez confirmed only 11 employees had tested positive after two months.
Even union head Lance Longenbohm acknowledged the deeper issue. “The buses have become a mobile shelter for the homeless,” one rider wrote. Another added, “Stop the homeless from riding around the city in the bus all day.” Longenbohm said, “We have to attract people back.”
May 27
If RTD and CDOT were wondering where all the public-transit riders went, the answer was simple: Coloradans preferred — gasp — driving their own cars to explore the state’s scenic gems. Turns out it’s tough to summit a 14er or descend into the Black Canyon via bus or light rail — who knew?
And for those still doubting how far Big Brother would go to guilt you into staying home, marketing professionals were more than happy to partner with media outlets to scold the public for their Memorial Day wanderlust.
The Denver Post’s Aldo Svaldi led his report with, “So much for staying within 10 miles of home,” firing a shot at freedom-minded travelers while referencing state-issued travel guidance.
Svaldi sourced “Daily Travel Index” data from Arrivalist — a “leading location intelligence platform in the travel industry.” According to GPS data pulled from personal mobile devices, Colorado (out of 49 states not named Alaska) saw the largest percentage increase in trips of 250 miles or more over Memorial Day Weekend — a 185% jump from prior weekends, compared to a 48.5% increase nationally.
Shame, shame, Colorado. Everybody knows your name.
May 28
As Colorado’s COVID hospitalizations fell to their lowest point since tracking began — just 335 total and seven new patients in a single day, down from the April peak of 250 new hospitalizations daily — the “summer of peace and love” kicked off in downtown Denver.
Three nights earlier, a black man named George Floyd had died 900 miles away in Minneapolis, and bystander footage appeared to show it happened under the knee of a white police officer.
With that, quarantine was over. All of Gov. Polis’ rules and restrictions were tossed aside. Justice — or more precisely, social justice — demanded it.
It also demanded, as Denver Post reporter Noelle Phillips wrote in the paper’s first coverage of the George Floyd protests, turning downtown Denver and the blocks around Polis’ Gold Dome Capitol into a riotous dystopia that, in the days ahead, would make Gotham City cringe and The Joker jealous.
Credit to Phillips — in this first report, she clearly hadn’t received the memo that no matter what masked rioters destroyed or who they harmed, this wasn’t a superspreader risk like the Boulder Creek revelers the week before or the anti-lockdown protestors a month earlier. No, this was “mostly peaceful.”
She described the scene: “What started as a small, peaceful protest… escalated into chaos Thursday evening after someone fired gunshots near the Capitol.” She continued, “Protesters threw fireworks at cops, prompting another round of tear gas around 12:30 a.m. The crowd then sprinted down Broadway to 12th Street where police again gained control.”
The streets didn’t quiet until 1:30 a.m., prompting Gov. Polis to admit he was “absolutely shocked.”
House Majority Leader Alec Garnett told the Post the legislature’s shutdown was to “allow space for protests that we expect to continue on Friday and into the weekend.” By the end of that night, the Capitol — where lawmakers had just returned after a two-and-a-half-month COVID hiatus — was covered in graffiti. A police car and a state senator’s truck had their windows smashed. Protestors blocked both directions of I-25 until police used pepper spray to disperse them. At the Capitol, they surrounded a police vehicle while another car, trapped by protestors, ran over at least three people on Lincoln Street before fleeing.
All this despite Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen issuing a statement expressing sympathy for Floyd’s family, denouncing Chauvin’s use of force, and confirming it would have violated DPD policy.
State Rep. Leslie Herod, D-Denver, was among the lawmakers caught too close when shots rang out — from the direction of, yes, a public-transit station. “State Patrol is on scene. They told us all to get down and run. They worked to clear the scene,” Herod said. “They (the shots) came from down by the RTD bus stop, up toward the Capitol. I did not see who shot; I was not looking at that. It was multiple shots.”
May 29
That was fast.
Just hours after gunfire rang out near an RTD bus stop during downtown Denver’s chaotic protests, RTD officials shut down transit routes to and from the city center.
One day after Denver Post reporter Noelle Phillips gave a relatively unfiltered account of the Capitol-area destruction, fellow reporter Conrad Swanson picked up the narrative — and handed down a verdict. Months before new evidence was made public and years before Derek Chauvin’s conviction by a jury, Swanson wrote that “the crowds are protesting the death of George Floyd, a black man killed by a Minneapolis police officer earlier this week.” No “alleged,” no nuance — just “killed.”
Meanwhile, RTD shut down Union Station, rerouted Civic Center buses, axed the L Line, and scrambled half the alphabet: H, C, E, W, B, G. Only a few letters left to cancel.
Down in Colorado Springs, The Gazette ran an AP story about the arson of a police precinct in Minneapolis — placed next to a front-page article about a death in police custody right there in the Springs. The victim, Chad Burnett, 49, was a 6-foot-7 bike shop worker who, like Floyd, reportedly exhibited erratic behavior before his death. According to The Gazette, he struggled with five officers after allegedly brandishing a knife and was tased before losing consciousness.
The key difference? Burnett was white. No protests. No murals. No slogans. No marches down Nevada Avenue or graffiti on the Antlers Hotel.
Back in Denver, police and media quickly moved to sanctify not just Floyd but the very protestors who’d shattered downtown the night before — and who, as the Post reported, were planning more action over the weekend in Denver and Boulder.
Chief Paul Pazen and Mayor Michael Hancock appeared to cast blame not on protestors who blocked roads and surrounded vehicles, but on the driver of an SUV who, after being swarmed, honked repeatedly before hitting the gas. “After the male protester is thrown off the car,” the Post’s Sam Tabachnik wrote, “the driver appears to swerve toward him, nearly running him over. The SUV then speeds down Broadway and out of sight.” Hancock told the Post, “I mean, whoa! It seemed pretty intentional. But you know — I think they had some pretty solid leads on who it is, and we’ll get it taken care of. …I think they have a pretty good idea of who they’re looking for.”
Just to be clear, Hancock was referring to the driver — not the protestors who surrounded his vehicle and climbed on its hood while ignoring his repeated warnings.
Meanwhile, Noelle Phillips walked back her previous reporting with a new piece titled Voices from the George Floyd protest in Denver, opening once again by stating Floyd was “killed,” in what looked like an attempt to earn back social-justice points at the expense of journalistic ethics.
She was joined by a platoon of Post reporters — Tiney Ricciardi, Saja Hindi, Elise Schmelzer — who ventured downtown not to interview the residents still locked in their homes, but the “peaceful” protestors who’d just stampeded through their neighborhoods. Among the quotes they published:
“I think it’s more important than the pandemic right now. I think it’s been an issue for a really long time and we need change,” said Leah Done of Aurora.
“I understand that they have a job to do, but it seemed like a pretty peaceful protest,” said Desmond Allen of Denver.
“They’re blocking us off so the people that need to hear it, can’t hear it,” said Aubrey Rose of RiNo. “The people over on Colfax are people of color. The people that need to hear this (expletive) are the people right here in the quickly gentrified Highlands. They’re blocking us so white people can’t hear the truth.”
But the Post didn’t just lionize the protestors — it made itself a victim too. In another Phillips piece, Post photographer Hyoung Chang claimed a police officer purposely targeted him despite clearly identifying himself as press. “I got two pepper ball shots from Denver Police during covering George Floyd rally,” Chang wrote on social media. “I wonder why two not one. My press ID might helped me little. #GeorgeFloyd #denverpost #denverpostphoto #newspaper #nppa #journalism.”
#Journalism, indeed.
The Colorado Press Association and Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition chimed in, quoted by Phillips as saying: “Police officers need to be reminded that journalists have a First Amendment right to cover public demonstrations without law enforcement interference.”
That narrative conveniently lined up with the Post’s announcement it was joining the global Trust Project — an effort to counter, in the paper’s own words, “faux local news sites and frightening headlines about the coronavirus (that) can leave readers and viewers struggling to tell which news is truthful and which is misleading, false and even dangerous.”
How’s that working out for you five years later, Denver Post?
Outside the George Floyd media frenzy that dominated the day, Colorado officials quietly rolled out a new term to keep Coloradans anxious despite plummeting case counts and rising testing. Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet gave it a name: “the muddled middle.” A muddle made even muddier by the masked marauders flagrantly flipping the bird to Colorado’s COVID edicts.
May 30
By now, the death of George Floyd — already described as a “killing” by Colorado journalists without trial or nuance — had become a blank check. It wasn’t just a reason to toss out COVID guidelines or riot on government property. It became justification to loot private citizens and businesses, too.
Credit to Denver Post reporter Saja Hindi, who covered the case of Sole Street Shoes owner Zach Monks. His shop on the 16th Street Mall was broken into three times in two nights, losing $25,000 in merchandise to 30 to 40 so-called protestors. “If the police can’t protect us,” Monks said, “then it’s time to call the National Guard.”
Hindi reported dozens of business owners awoke Saturday to shattered windows, stolen goods, and graffiti — just hours before thousands more protestors were expected to flood downtown. Jim Ilg, a minority operations manager at the 11th Avenue Hostel, said replacing the broken windows would cost $20,000 out of pocket — on top of a 20% drop in revenue since the pandemic began. “Twenty-thousand dollars,” Ilg said, “that would be a part-time worker’s wages for an entire year that was just destroyed in literally seconds. So they’re taking jobs away from people by destroying this.”
The destruction, not to mention the disruption to everyday life in LoDo, Capitol Hill, and surrounding neighborhoods, finally pushed city and state leaders to act. Mayor Hancock imposed an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for the weekend, and Gov. Polis activated the Colorado National Guard.
They were needed. Thousands descended on downtown early Saturday as Reps. Leslie Herod and James Coleman led chants of “Black Lives Matter” and “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Right beside them was Denver school board member Tay Anderson, who emceed much of Friday’s protest. Anderson, of course, would later face disgrace for predatory behavior toward minors in Denver Public Schools, as well as a string of radical policy proposals and dysfunction on the board.
By 4 p.m., DPD deployed tear gas after protestors rushed a police blockade and one agitator hurled something at officers near North Washington Street. The curfew went widely ignored — hundreds stayed out past 9 p.m.
Arrests stacked up: 34 on Thursday and Friday, with Saturday adding more chaos. Charges included arson, burglary, criminal mischief and weapons violations. Police recovered multiple assault rifles.
The afternoon gave way to another racially charged evening. As the Post described it, protestors “knelt in the streets with their hands up, chanting ‘Don’t shoot’ and ‘Why are you in riot gear? We don’t see a riot here.’”
“No riot to see here” — on a day when three officers and a civilian were severely injured in a hit-and-run near the Cathedral Basilica, and protestors lit fires in garbage cans and beneath the state Human Services Building at Sherman and 16th.
Just your typical “fiery but mostly peaceful” protest.
Hindi noted more scenes of radical theater: “Just before 7 p.m., some white protesters tried to pull off plywood protecting the Colorado Supreme Court building. Black protesters yelled at them to stop, and others tried to reattach the boards.” She added, “A group of activists linked arms and sat on the ground in front of the Capitol. One woman called out, ‘If you’re white, hold the line,’ and more white protesters joined them in an attempt to circle the Capitol. Meanwhile, a group of protesters nearby attempted to clean graffiti off of the Scottish Rite Masonic Center at Grant and 14th.”
So what was Denver’s big idea to end the carnage?
Public Safety Director Murphy Robinson proposed a “virtual protest” — a Zoom event “to engage on the topics of racial injustice.”
“To my fellow young people,” Robinson said, “…As we take over leadership in this country, we cannot repeat the mistakes of previous generations. Let us be the generation that comes together and removes the needles of bigotry and racism. We must have a nonviolent approach that includes partnership with civil activism.”
And Denver City Councilman Chris Hinds, whose district was actively being ravaged? He chose to criticize law enforcement. “There were definitely some actions by law enforcement that I believe were a little overzealous,” he said.
May 31
On Sunday, Coloradans were formally introduced to the phrase “mostly peaceful” in newsprint. The Colorado Springs Gazette ran a triple-byline centerpiece from Liz Henderson, Marianne Goodland, and Alayna Alvarez, describing a 1,000-person protest in the Springs that turned “confrontational at night.”
Curiously absent was any mention of Chad Burnett — the “beloved” bike shop employee who died in police custody just days earlier and whose photo graced the Gazette’s front page. Instead, protestors invoked the name of De’von Bailey, a 19-year-old fatally shot in the back while fleeing police during a robbery investigation. A pistol was later found in his shorts. The 4th Judicial District Attorney ruled the shooting justified.
The Gazette closed its front-pager with a quote from protestor A.B. Lugo: “There is a pandemic that’s been around longer than the coronavirus. Racism is a pandemic, and it needs to be cured.”
Meanwhile in Denver, 83 protestors were arrested Saturday night for curfew violations. A few were also charged with property damage, weapons offenses, and throwing missiles. Among the injured was a police officer hospitalized with “major fractures” after being struck in a hit-and-run while apprehending another protestor. A second officer suffered a fractured leg.
DPD said the suspect was in custody, though charges were “pending” after police initially (and incorrectly) announced attempted murder charges. Did they backpedal under pressure from “mostly peaceful” protestors threatening to return that night?
Most Denverites were still stuck in partial COVID lockdown. So where else would they go? What else would they do? Idle hands, devil’s workshop.
Sunday night brought more chaos. Police used tear gas and munitions after demonstrators defied curfew, threw bottles, lit a dumpster fire, and smashed a 7-Eleven window. Chief Paul Pazen said protestors had launched “rocks, bottles, fireworks and explosives” at officers.
Denver Post reporter Shelly Bradbury hit all the proper narrative beats, calling George Floyd “the black man whose killing by police in Minneapolis sparked a national conflagration.” Guilty before trial — it’s just journalism now.
The Post also inserted itself into the story again, reporting that one of its reporters was shot four times despite shouting “Press!” at police.
Mayor Hancock, defending police actions on CNN, blamed “outside agitators” carrying knives, machetes, handguns, hammers, and even a baseball bat with metal spikes. “You don’t show up at peaceful demonstrations with assault weapons, handguns, baseball bats, golf clubs and flash-bang bottles with the intent of being peaceful,” he said.
Still, many blamed the police. Protestor Emily Graham told the Post the worst anyone had done was toss plastic water bottles. The graffiti reading “all pigs go to hell” and “kill them all” on state property? Apparently part of the package.
“I think there’s a big difference between harming bodies and harming property,” Graham said. “I think that the police presence in full riot gear and throwing tear gas is more violent than a little spray paint.”
Some protestors had finally seen enough — not of COVID, not of curfew, but of the carnage. Reilley Bray was one of them. After marching for two days, Bray helped scrub graffiti off the Capitol. “The violent aggression that comes in the evenings,” Bray said, “is destroying the Capitol and the city I love.”
And the pandemic that had brought Colorado to its knees?
No new deaths were reported that day. Hospitalizations hit their lowest number since March 28.
As if any of that mattered, as May melted into June — and into more Rocky Mountain madness, just past midnight.