Sunday bank robbery being investigated by Lakewood police

Font ResizeLocal NewsBy Ryan Parker
The Denver Postdenverpost.comPosted: 12/23/2012 02:03:43 PM MSTDecember 23, 2012 11:20 PM GMTUpdated: 12/23/2012 04:20:35 PM MST


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Police hunt for suspects who failed to rob liquor store

Font ResizeColorado NewsBy Garrison Wells
The Gazettedenverpost.comPosted: 12/22/2012 03:05:26 PM MSTDecember 22, 2012 11:14 PM GMTUpdated: 12/22/2012 04:14:53 PM MST

Police searched for three men who tried to rob a liquor store on north Academy Boulevard on Saturday morning.

Two of the men were heavily armed, one with a pistol-grip shotgun and the second with a long shotgun, said Sgt. Tony Erickson, who responded to the 9:42 a.m. call.

"They were masked and in there with shotguns," Erickson said. "Fortunately, the clerk was not at the counter, she was in the office and locked the door."

Not finding anyone to rob, the pair left Academy Boulevard Liquors, 1210 North Academy Blvd., and got into a dark-colored Toyota Camry behind the store driven by the third suspect and took off.

Read the complete story in The (Colorado Springs) Gazette.

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Lakewood police on alert for sexual assault suspect

Font ResizeLocal NewsThe Denver Postdenverpost.comPosted: 12/21/2012 06:08:10 PM MSTDecember 22, 2012 1:9 AM GMTUpdated: 12/21/2012 06:08:21 PM MST

Lakewood Police are asking for the public's help in finding a man who may be a suspect in three different sexual assaults.

One of the attacks happened at about 7 p.m. Tuesday, when a woman was walking to her car in the 7600 block of West Colfax Avenue.

The man sexually assaulted the woman, but the woman was eventually able to fight the man away. He then fled in a blue minivan.

Just 20 minutes later a man in a similar vehicle followed another woman in the 1900 block of South Kipling Parkway.

The man attacked the second woman, but she was able to spray him with pepper spray and escape.

Lakewood Police are investigating the possibility that the two attacks may be related to a similar attack that happened last week.

In that attack, a man driving a gold Plymouth Laser or Mitsubishi Eclipse on Dec. 10 in the 9000 block of West Dartmouth Avenue crashed into a woman's vehicle.

When the woman got out of her vehicle, the man sexually assaulted her.

The suspect is described as a white or light-skinned Hispanic in his 30s. He is described as being about 5 feet, 5 inches to 5 feet, 8 inches tall with a medium build, short dark blond or light brown hair and heavy acne.

The man may have scratches or injuries to his face and eyes from the assaults this week.

The minivan used in the two Tuesday attacks is described as a blue, early 2000s model Ford Windstar or Dodge Caravan.

The gold Plymouth Laser in the Dec. 10 incident is described as having no front plate, a cracked windshield and old body damage on the front driver's side.

Anyone with questions or information about these attacks is asked to call Detective Bryan Feik at 303-987-7536.

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Westminster police say boy made verbal threat against students

Font ResizeSuburbsBy 9Newsdenverpost.comPosted: 12/17/2012 10:17:02 PM MSTDecember 18, 2012 5:28 AM GMTUpdated: 12/17/2012 10:28:11 PM MST

WESTMINSTER —  Police say a teen boy has made a "significant threat" against students at Moore Middle School. School officials say the boy is a student there.

Sources tell 9NEWS the teen is currently on a mental health hold.

Westminster Police spokeswoman Cheri Spottke said police were notified of the threat Friday. 9NEWS has learned the threat was verbal.

Spottke couldn't get into the specifics of the threats because of the open and on-going investigation. For the same reason, she couldn't say if any weapons were found on the student.

Spottke said the teen was not in police custody, but authorities do have an arrest warrant for him. It's not clear when he will be taken into custody.

"He's not a danger to the school or the community," Spottke said.

Read the rest of the article at 9News.com

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Denver police seek white SUV after fatal hit-and-run at Sheridan and Yale

Font ResizeThe Denver Postdenverpost.comPosted: 12/16/2012 08:36:41 PM MSTDecember 17, 2012 3:51 AM GMTUpdated: 12/16/2012 08:51:11 PM MST

 Denver police are looking for a white mini-van that sped away after striking and killing a pedestrian at South Sheridan Boulevard near West Yale Avenue Sunday evening.

Police spokeswoman Raquel Lopez said the woman who was struck and killed was standing in a turn lane and was not in a crosswalk when she was struck at about 5:30 p.m.

"If the person had stopped, it appears the pedestrian was at fault," Lopez said.

She said the mini-van sustained damage, likely on its driver's side.

Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867, send a text message to CRIMES (274637) with the title DMCS, or send an e-mail to metro-denvercrimestoppers.com.

Earlier this year Gov. John Hickenlooper signed into law tougher penalties for hit-and-run drivers, who could face up to six years in jail for leaving the scene of a fatality, equivalent to drunk drivers who cause traffic deaths.

Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174, jbunch

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Police ID victim, suspect in Friday's hotel murder-attempted suicide

Font ResizeLocal NewsBy Jason Pohl
The Denver Postdenverpost.comPosted: 12/15/2012 12:30:03 PM MSTDecember 15, 2012 7:57 PM GMTUpdated: 12/15/2012 12:57:30 PM MST

Police have identified the victim and suspect in Friday night's apparent murder-attempted suicide in Westminster that left a female hotel employee dead and a man gravely wounded.

Police were called to Savannah Suites at 120th Avenue and Mariposa Street around 7 p.m. on a report of gunshots. When officers arrived on scene, they found front desk clerk Antida Archuleta, 20, dead, Westminster police spokeswoman Cheri Spottke said.

The alleged shooter, Seth Wilkinson, 20, was also found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He survived his injuries, but his condition remains unknown, according to a Saturday news release.

Both parties were from Brighton, and it is believed the victim and shooter knew each other and had some sort of prior relationship.

At the time of the shooting, parts of the hotel were cordoned off. People staying at the hotel were allowed into their rooms through alternate entrances.

Investigators continue to actively work on the case, and no additional details were immediately available.

Jason Pohl: 303-954-1729, jpohl

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Arvada police seek accused child molester who failed to show for trial

Font ResizeThe Denver Postdenverpost.comPosted: 12/13/2012 04:35:02 PM MSTDecember 13, 2012 11:41 PM GMTUpdated: 12/13/2012 04:41:00 PM MST


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Aurora police arrest man accused of hitting 14-year-old with his car

Font ResizeThe Denver Postdenverpost.comPosted: 12/13/2012 04:41:42 PM MSTDecember 13, 2012 11:45 PM GMTUpdated: 12/13/2012 04:45:50 PM MST


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Denver car burglar finds, takes semi-automatic pistol, police say

Font ResizeThe Denver Postdenverpost.comPosted: 12/13/2012 05:32:34 PM MSTDecember 14, 2012 12:35 AM GMTUpdated: 12/13/2012 05:35:20 PM MST


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Denver police honor 3 citizens who helped others

Font ResizeLocal NewsBy Sadie Gurman
The Denver Postdenverpost.comPosted: 12/13/2012 05:38:29 PM MSTDecember 14, 2012 6:44 AM GMTUpdated: 12/13/2012 11:44:44 PM MST

Denver police Detective Alan Breneman wouldn't necessarily advise others to do what Patrick Morris did the night gunshots sounded outside his southwest Denver home. But he is glad Morris did it, nevertheless.

As it had too many times before, the gunfire on South Umatilla Street rustled Morris awake. But rather than hit the floor in fear, Morris got dressed and ventured outside, determined to find its source.

Soon enough, he did. As Morris started driving, he spotted a man hanging out of the passenger-side window of a maroon Mitsubishi, waving a handgun. So he did what any other concerned — and admittedly a little insane — citizen would do: He followed the car.

His calls to 911 and persistence Dec. 11, 2011, helped officers corral their suspect, Fernando Marquez. They also earned Morris a commendation Thursday from the Police Department, which described his efforts as "a valiant act in the face of danger."

Also honored were 12-year-old Giana Rispoli, daughter of Officer Michael Rispoli, who helped save a drowning child, and Gunnar Greenemeier, who installed windows on a woman's vehicle after it was riddled with bullets in a gang-related shooting.

Morris' case landed on Breneman's desk. Had Morris not cornered the gunman, the detective said, the crime might have gone unsolved. Such gang-related shootings often happen overnight, and no one sees or hears a thing.

"It's really frustrating," Breneman said. But this time, he had "something workable."

"He confessed to shooting the gun randomly, that he wasn't targeting a specific house," Breneman said. Marquez, 22, described by Breneman as an associate of a Denver gang, pleaded guilty to illegal discharge of a firearm and is in prison for three years.

Morris, a 43-year-old plumber, later learned that gunshots pierced the home of an elderly couple.

"It goes on around here all the time, at 3:30 a.m. If I don't try to find out who it is, no one else will," said Morris, who is something of a neighborhood vigilante. He said he has been trying to help police capture criminals for 20 years, and it's not the first time he has been successful. "I don't want to see these people do it. I want it to come to an end."

Sadie Gurman: 303-954-1661, sgurman

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There is no national record on the use of police force against American citizens nationwide, even though private police groups and the FBI keep a close watch on the number of cops killed and assaulted on the job, reports Radley Balko at The Huffington Post.

A New York Times article from 2001 cited by Balko states that although an early ’90s law requires the Justice Department to gather and report on the use of force by police, individual departments are not required to report data they themselves have collected. A decade later, a Las Vegas paper that attempted to get at the figures described the same situation:

“We don’t have a mandate to do that,” said William Carr, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which collects crime data from every corner of the country. ....

“It would take a request from Congress for us to collect that data,” said Mr. Carr of the FBI, adding that budgetary constraints would likely prevent the collection of detailed data on police shootings.

That’s a red herring. Police already track everything from domestic violence to child abuse to murder, and police routinely lobby state and federal lawmakers to put new crimes into statute.

Balko guesses that a bill proposing the collection of such data would be “aggressively opposed” by the public safety lobby, just as most efforts to make police activities more transparent have been, and that Congress wouldn’t be likely to put up a fight.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

Radley Balko at The Huffington Post:

The same problem exists with data on any other police use of force—it simply doesn’t exist. I’ve tried to accumulate official data on the way police departments use their SWAT teams and similar paramilitary police units—how often they’re deployed, for what reasons, how many times they raid the wrong address, and so on. Not only does that data not exist at the national level, only Maryland requires police departments to report it at the state level. (And that Maryland law—passed after the botched police raid on Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo—was opposed by every police agency and interest group in the state.)

And so as the federal government continues to give local police agencies military guns and vehicles, grants to buy more military guns and vehicles, grants to start SWAT teams and tactical task forces, and grants to hire more cops, the feds really make no effort to see what sort of effect all of that is having on how and how often police use force and violence against American citizens.

The net result of all of this is a one-way flow of information that probably colors the way we think about the relationship between police and the communities they serve. When we get comprehensive data each year about the cops who were killed and assaulted in the line of duty over the last 12 months, but no data on how many people were killed and assaulted by police—justifiably or not—over the same period, it bends the debate toward more support for giving cops more power, more weapons, and more authority.

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