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Caven’s report exposes how failed policies fueled Colorado crime and created a safety crisis
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Caven’s report exposes how failed policies fueled Colorado crime and created a safety crisis

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Elizabeth Caven's Crisis of Safety report merits serious attention. It is grounded in empirical data and addresses one of the most urgent public policy failures facing Colorado: the collapse of public‑safety outcomes amid rising crime, diminished law‑enforcement presence, and liberal reform policies that weaken accountability. According to Advance Colorado’s public‑safety section, the state is “in the midst of a crime tsunami,” with property theft and violent crime at 25‑year highs. 1. Data‑Driven Approach The report builds on strong factual foundations: credible crime‑rate increases (for both property and violent crime), sharp rises in auto theft, and clear indicators of diminished police per capita. For example, the Common ...
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Justices to Rule on Whether Drug Use Voids the Right to Bear Arms
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Fox21, Approved, National

Justices to Rule on Whether Drug Use Voids the Right to Bear Arms

By Zach Schonfeld | FOX21 The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up whether a federal crime that bans gun possession for drug users is constitutional. At the Trump administration’s urging, the justices will wade into this issue this term, making it the latest front in the battle over the Second Amendment. A decision is expected by next summer.  “This is the archetypal case for this Court’s review,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court filings.  Federal law prohibits anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from possessing a firearm. Violations carry up to 10 years in prison.   The charge is prosecuted regularly. U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson, an appointee of former President Obama, recently noted in ...
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Colorado Justices Say Old Statute Didn’t Cover AI-Generated Child Pornography
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Justices Say Old Statute Didn’t Cover AI-Generated Child Pornography

By: Michael Karlik | The Denver Gazette Colorado law prior to 2025 did not criminalize, as a means of sexually exploiting a child, the use of artificial intelligence to generate nude images depicting real children, the state Supreme Court concluded on Monday. The legislature acted this year to clearly establish a crime for someone to have or share fake, yet “highly realistic,” images of children that are explicitly sexual. However, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a teenager’s 2023 creation of “deepfake” porn was also illegal at the time. No, it was not, the court concluded. “Unfortunately, it took our legislature time to catch up to the recent advances in generative-AI technology,” wrote Justice Carlos A. Samour Jr. in the Oct. 13 opinion. Therefore...
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Colorado: Where Criminals Come to Stay and Play
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado: Where Criminals Come to Stay and Play

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The FBI recently released detailed data on more than 14 million criminal offenses from calendar year 2024, reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program by participating law enforcement agencies. More than 16,000 state, county, city, university, college, and tribal agencies, covering around 95.6% of the population of the United States, submitted data to the UCR Program through the National Incident-Based Reporting System and the Summary Reporting System. By overlaying Census Bureau population estimates on the FBI data for individual states and territories, a curious party (like yours truly) can see how many violent or property crimes occur per 100,000 people—and thus see how crime rates vary between states. Because th...
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Lawmakers Face Public Backlash After Violent Suspect Freed Under New Incompetency Law
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Colorado Politics, Approved, Local

Lawmakers Face Public Backlash After Violent Suspect Freed Under New Incompetency Law

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics A high-profile case out of Weld County involving an attempted murder has renewed debate about the state’s competency laws and public safety. The case arose from an incident last spring, in which a group of men led by 21-year-old Debisa Ephraim allegedly attacked a man and his friends in downtown Greeley. After Ephraim was found incompetent to stand trial, his charges, which included attempted murder, were dropped, and he was released from the Weld County Jail earlier this month. The office of Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams posted a video of the Greeley attack on X, saying Ephraim had been released under a 2024 law that, he said, required individuals declared incompetent and unlikely to be restored to be released from jail. “The state le...
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Expert weighs in: Prosecution’s weak spot surfaces in Charlie Kirk assassination case
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Fox News, Approved, National

Expert weighs in: Prosecution’s weak spot surfaces in Charlie Kirk assassination case

By Michael Ruiz | Fox News Text messages between Tyler Robinson and partner lack timestamps while crime scene return timing disputed PROVO, Utah — One of the biggest vulnerabilities in the case against Charlie Kirk's accused assassin, Tyler Robinson, could be the prosecution's timeline, according to a prominent Utah defense attorney — and she expects the defense to drag discovery in the case on for up to a year before he finally gets a preliminary hearing. Kirk, a 31-year-old father of two, was shot and killed around 12:20 p.m. on Sept. 10 while speaking at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University. He was a founder of the conservative student group, which had a national footprint and is credited for a resurgence of youth support for the Republican Party. "There’s jus...
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Grieving Dad Tells Congress Why America Must Stop Releasing Repeat Offenders
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The Daily Signal, Approved, Commentary, National

Grieving Dad Tells Congress Why America Must Stop Releasing Repeat Offenders

By Jarrett Stepman | Commentary, The Daily Signal “I will fight until my last breath for my daughter. You need to fight for the rest of our children, the rest of the innocents, and stop protecting the people that keep taking them from us, please.” Those were the words of Stephen Federico, the father of a 22-year-old woman who was allegedly killed by a man who had faced 40 criminal charges in the years before her murder. He gave his impassioned testimony about the need for keeping more criminals behind bars at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Monday. Federico’s heartbreaking testimony vividly highlighted one of the clearest reasons America’s Democrat-run cities face a serious crime problem: repeat offenders end up back out on the streets after being given countless chances by...
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No Signatures, No Recall: Aurora DA Stays in Office
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kdvr.com, Approved, Local

No Signatures, No Recall: Aurora DA Stays in Office

By Heather Willard | KDVR Fox31 DENVER (KDVR) — An effort to recall a Colorado district attorney whose office prosecuted an attempted kidnapping case at an elementary school that ended with the suspect walking free due to competency issues has failed. The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office and 18th Judicial District Attorney Amy Padden both confirmed that as of Tuesday night’s deadline, no signatures on the petition to recall Padden from office had been turned in. The petition needed 75,875 registered Arapahoe County voters to trigger the recall election, Padden said. In July, Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky announced she was launching a campaign to try and remove Padden from office after registered sex offender Carmen Galligan walked free. Galligan was charged in con...
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Castle tow truck driver receives 16 year prison sentence for auto theft scheme
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DENVER7, Approved, Local

Castle tow truck driver receives 16 year prison sentence for auto theft scheme

By Sydney Isenberg | DENVER 7 The 23rd Judicial DA's Office confirmed to Denver7 that sexual exploitation of a child/possession of child sexual abuse material charges against Brian Chacon were dropped as part of a plea deal. DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. — A Castle Rock tow truck driver was sentenced to 16 years in prison for orchestrating an auto theft scheme that spanned across the Denver metro area. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office said its investigation began in December 2023 after a detective with the Auto Theft Unit was assigned a stolen vehicle case. The detective later learned that the case may be related to several incidents involving Eagle Wing Towing. According to the 23rd Judicial District Attorney's Office, between April 2023 and February 2024, Brian Chacon, 34, owner o...
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DA Slams Court Over Probation Sentence For Convicted Stalker
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kdvr.com, Approved, Local

DA Slams Court Over Probation Sentence For Convicted Stalker

By Maddie Rhodes | KDVR Fox31 DENVER (KDVR) — Prosecutors are speaking out after a Douglas County judge decided to sentence a man convicted of assault and stalking to probation. The 23rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office said Taylor Wayne Burrows, 31, of Lakewood, was convicted of assault and stalking. While the victim and prosecutors were looking for a prison sentence, the district attorney’s office said the judge sentenced him to probation and told Burrows to “work on his demons.” This comes after Burrows was convicted of assaulting his former fiancée, Aubrey Cadwell, in 2023 in her Highlands Ranch home. Burrows accused Cadwell of cheating on him, then strangled her before she could escape to a neighbor’s home. Burrows was arrested, then in 2024, he strangled another person in...
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