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What’s missing: Questions raised about immigration details in Colorado crime coverage
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

What’s missing: Questions raised about immigration details in Colorado crime coverage

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Free State Colorado: our local media ignores the fact that a sex offender is here illegally In a funny coincidence I noticed a couple of stories, one national and one local, about essentially the same topic. They’re both about how the media has a problem with selective attention.* In particular to the two different stories, it’s how the lefty media ignore the illegal immigrants do in this country. The first link below is to a Fox News op ed about this topic, spurred (though not limited to) the murder of Sheridan Gorman in Chicago by an illegal immigrant. Especially noteworthy was just how little—see the image heading this post—time the big networks devoted to her murder and the man committing it. Closer...
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Colorado Faces Elevated Wildfire Risk As Conditions Outpace Historic Fire Seasons
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The Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Faces Elevated Wildfire Risk As Conditions Outpace Historic Fire Seasons

By Nick Smith | The Gazette Colorado’s blistering, dry and breezy conditions have fire officials on edge as the state braces for a wildfire season forecast to be worse than during the Waldo Canyon fire in 2012. Officials warn that wildfires are becoming more frequent, more destructive and larger. “We are not looking good for fire this year,” Colorado Springs Fire Marshal Kris Cooper told the city council on Monday. “It’s got the fire department on pins and needles.” According to Tracy LeClair, a spokesperson for The Wildland Fire Management Section of the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, conditions are a “magnitude worse” than those ahead of major historic wildfires in the state, such as the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fire...
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Polis pushes for new prison as critics question Colorado spending priorities
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Polis pushes for new prison as critics question Colorado spending priorities

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Does Colorado need to open (or build) a new prison? Governor Polis’ office seems to think so. Per the Sun article linked at bottom (quoted with links left intact): “Gov. Jared Polis’ office told state lawmakers Wednesday that Colorado must immediately move to open a new prison to handle projected growth in inmate numbers, a revelation that comes as the legislature is cutting social services to address a $1 billion state budget shortfall and despite the General Assembly’s pushback on much smaller funding requests for more beds at existing prisons.” Given what I’d seen before about asking for more beds, I’m betting wanting a whole new prison made some jaws drop alright. I’ll leave it to you to read th...
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Former Colorado Teacher Of The Year Finalist Sentenced To 14 Years In Student Abuse Case
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CBS Colorado, Approved, Local

Former Colorado Teacher Of The Year Finalist Sentenced To 14 Years In Student Abuse Case

By Logan Smith | CBS Colorado A finalist for 2025 Colorado Teacher of the Year violated the terms of her probation and continued to contact one of her former students after she'd been criminally charged for having a relationship with the student and fired from her teaching position, according to a court document. Tera Johnson-Swartz was sentenced on March 19 to 14 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections. Two cases were filed against her - the first following a grand jury investigation into the relationship, the second after detectives learned that Johnson-Swartz was trying to maintain contact with the student. The student confirmed those attempts, according to the arrest affidavit in the second case. In an interview, the student said his former teacher walked u...
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Going the wrong way: Colorado’s fentanyl deaths rise while the rest of the nation falls
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Going the wrong way: Colorado’s fentanyl deaths rise while the rest of the nation falls

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice While much of the country is finally beginning to turn the corner on fentanyl, Colorado is heading in the opposite direction. And the human cost is staggering. Colorado’s numbers are still moving up—synthetic opioid deaths have climbed 17 percent since December 2024. Elsewhere, the trend has started to turn. Across the country, overdose deaths have dropped 26.9 percent, according to the CDC, the steepest one-year decline of the crisis and the lowest levels since 2019. Colorado isn’t just behind. It stands apart. A March 2026 report from the Common Sense Institute puts that gap into focus: 1,620 excess deaths. In other words, that’s how many more Coloradans died from synthetic opioid overdoses between ...
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Colorado Lawmakers Clash Over Prison Spending As State Budget Tightens
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Lawmakers Clash Over Prison Spending As State Budget Tightens

By Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette The Polis administration is asking for hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the state’s prison system, just as Colorado’s legislators are bracing for a worsening fiscal outlook. The request sets up a clash over priorities at a time when the state faces a nearly $1.5 billion shortfall. The administration is seeking to add prison beds amid overcrowding, though advocates on both sides of the spectrum disagree over its cause. Some advocates have argued that the crisis is partly the result of a backlog of inmates awaiting parole placement. Others maintained that the “crisis” resulted from Democrats’ policies that ultimately seek to release offenders back into communities. On Wednesday, the governor asked budget writers f...
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Colorado House panel advances immigration bill after hours of testimony
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado House panel advances immigration bill after hours of testimony

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice After hours of testimony that moved between legal arguments, the House Judiciary committee advanced a sweeping immigration bill Tuesday. House Bill 26-1276 passed the committee on a 6–5 vote. The "Protect Safety of Individuals Who Are Immigrants" bill, sponsored by Reps. Elizabeth Velasco and Lorena García, focuses on how state and local entities interact with federal immigration enforcement through information sharing, task-force reporting, detention oversight and the use of public resources. Velasco told the committee the bill grew out of what sponsors saw as gaps in existing law. "This bill was written in response to issues…as well as growing concerns that we are seeing across Colorado and the nation," she said. That includ...
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Colorado Lawmakers Reject ICE Oversight Bill After Bipartisan Pushback
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado Lawmakers Reject ICE Oversight Bill After Bipartisan Pushback

By Taylor Dolven and Olivia Prentzel | The Colorado Sun Local police chiefs opposed the bill. Two Democrats voted with Republicans to reject it. Colorado lawmakers rejected a bill Tuesday that would have required state and local police to intervene when federal immigration agents use excessive force. The bill would have also prohibited state and local police officers from hiding their identities, subjected federal officers to state criminal and civil penalties and required police officers to attend training on immigration enforcement. Two Democrats — Rep. Chad Clifford of Centennial and Rep. Cecelia Espenoza of Denver — joined the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee to kill House Bill 1275 after hours of testimony against it from police...
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Democrats Sound Alarm Over “Secret” ICE Facilities Publicly Listed Online
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Uncategorized, Approved, DENVER7, State

Democrats Sound Alarm Over “Secret” ICE Facilities Publicly Listed Online

By: Natalie Chuck | Denver7 Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen is joining the chorus of Democratic leaders demanding answers from ICE. DENVER — Several Democratic politicians in Colorado are sounding the alarm over what they call "secret" ICE facilities after an online news outlet published an article last week. But are they really a secret? On Wednesday, Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen took to multiple social media platforms, expressing her concerns over "secret ICE holding cells." In her posts, Rep. Pettersen attributed her claims to the Colorado Times Recorder, which posted an article saying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained people for weeks at a time in "secretive" facilities. The Recorder's article was written an...
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Colorado Sees Strong Concealed Carry Permit Numbers Despite New Restrictions
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado Sees Strong Concealed Carry Permit Numbers Despite New Restrictions

By: Mike Krause | Complete Colorado DENVER– Despite a Democrat-led state legislature hostile to the lawful carrying of concealed handguns, new data show at least 27,901 Coloradans still subjected themselves to the government scrutiny and costs required to become concealed handgun permit (CHP) holders in 2025, while another 21,871 renewed existing permits.  That’s according to a recently published County Sheriffs of Colorado annual report. Notably, the report lacks data from Adams, Garfield, Pueblo and San Juan counties, which combined accounted for over 5,000 new permits in the prior year, meaning the numbers for 2025 may well be under-reported. Regardless, while the number of new permits trails the 29,495 issued in 2024, it outpaces the 25,218...
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