Fans of the English singer and songwriter were forced to run for cover as the massive hail pellets rained down on the Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre, an open-air venue around ten miles west of Denver. The storm forced the gig to be called off.

“It was straight out of a horror movie,” on Twitter user wrote, sharing video of a deluge slamming down an outdoor staircase covered in what appeared to be hail pellets. The footage could not immediately be verified by NBC News. 

The West Metro Fire Rescue said at least seven people were transported to area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries in connection with the incident. 

“A total of 80 to 90 people treated on scene,” the fire department said. “Injuries include cuts and broken bones.”

Read the full story at NBCNews.com 

According to initial reports, the vehicle went about 200 to 300 feet down a cliff in Larimer County, Colorado State Patrol Master Trooper Gary Cutler said.

There were two adults, both of whom died, and three children in the vehicle, Cutler said. One of those children was flown by helicopter to a hospital, he said.

The rollover crash happened around 8:30 p.m. in the area of Pingree Park Road, the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

According to Telemundo Colorado, the surveillance video posted on Twitter by Colorado Parks and Wildlife on Monday, June 5, shows a black bear sniffing for food before effortlessly opening a parked truck’s passenger door.

CPW says the incident happened just before 3 a.m. and fortunately, no one was inside the vehicle and no food was inside.

The agency warned that bears are intelligent, and once they know that cars and homes hold tasty rewards, they learn how to open doors and repeat this behavior even when there was no food inside.

“This is why we preach for everyone in bear country to lock their cars and homes,” the agency tweeted. “Eventually, this bear will enter an occupied car or home and it will pay the ultimate price. Keep bears wild and alive!.”

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Mothers in workout leggings held signs bearing photos of their children and others settled into camping chairs and picnic blankets on the Capitol lawn for a sit-in organized by Here 4 the Kids, a group founded in March by the authors and social justice advocates Tina Strawn, of Texas, and Saira Rao, of Virginia.

The women, both mothers, said they were moved to act by the mass shooting in March at The Covenant School, a private Christian institution in Nashville, Tennessee, in which six people were killed, including three children.

So far this year, the Gun Violence Archive has tallied 276 mass shootings in the U.S. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers, according to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“Banning guns isn’t radical,” Rao said last week. “What’s radical is normalizing dropping our kids off at school and not knowing if we will pick them up alive. What’s radical is going to the mall and getting murdered. Banning guns, the No. 1 killer of our kids, is sensible.”

For more on this story, go to NBC News.

Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment put out alerts and advisories for Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon for much of the eastern half of the state, including Denver. It warned that air quality may be unhealthy during that period.

“People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion; everyone else should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion,” the department said.

Particle pollution led the air quality index along parts of the Front Range to reach 168 on Saturday, the department said. A reading between 151 and 200 indicates unhealthy conditions that can affect sensitive groups as well as some members of the general public.

An air quality alert was also in effect Saturday in Montana, with the greatest smoke concentrations in central and eastern parts of the state, according to the Department of Environmental Quality.

Utah’s Department of Environmental Quality said Friday that it was starting to see the smoke on its monitors in northern and eastern parts of the state. It urged residents to avoid outdoor exertion in areas with visible smoke or haze.

The smoke created widespread haze across Idaho earlier in the week, according to its Department of Environmental Quality.

The fires in Canada have been burning mostly in the province of Alberta, where thousands of residents have evacuated and regional officials have issued state of emergency alerts. There have also been fires in British Columbia.

In Calgary and Edmonton, the two biggest cities in Alberta, the health impact was determined to be of “very high risk” on Saturday by the Canadian government’s Air Quality Health Index. Sensitive groups such as children and older people were advised to avoid outdoor physical exertion and the general population was urged to limit outdoor activities.

There were 50 to 100 guests in the pool when the collapse occurred about 9:50 a.m. at the Gaylord Rockies resort near Denver International Airport, Aurora Fire Rescue said.

Ohio Apr 30

14 People Hospitalized After Roof Collapse Near Ohio State University

Texas Mar 15

7 Hospitalized After Tree Branch Falls on Family at Texas Zoo, Police Say

Large metal ductwork and mechanical parts that were mounted on the ceiling crashed down upon the pool deck and into the water, covering nearly the entire area of the pool, agency spokeswoman Sherri-Jo Stowell said.

The victims suffered injuries that ranged from penetrating wounds and cuts to “injuries consistent with being crushed,” she said. She declined to release ages of the victims, citing department policy.

Fire Chief Alec Oughton said crews were already at the resort, running up and down its stairs for physical training, when the collapse happened.

An operator who answered the phone at the resort hung up on a reporter who called seeking comment.

The resort will be conducting an investigation into the cause of the collapse and will be responsible for keeping guests out of the pool area, Oughton said.

The resort and convention center has more than 1,000 rooms, a water park and meeting spaces.

Aurora officials said they expect a thorough investigation and thanked first responders.

“Our hearts go out to all those who were injured today, to their families and to those traumatized by witnessing what occurred,” city spokesman Ryan S. Luby said in a statement.

Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik, Joseph Koenig and Zachary Kwak, all 18, each face identical charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, second-degree assault and attempted second-degree assault in the death of Alexis Bartell — and alleged attacks on six other cars in suburban Denver, First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King announced.

Two other drivers suffered minor injuries, according to investigators.

The office of Karol-Chik’s lawyer, Holly Gummerson, and Koenig’s lawyer, Tom Ward, declined to comment. A message left for Kwak’s lawyer, Emily Boehne, was not immediately returned. During a brief afternoon court hearing, the lawyers all declined to have the charges read.

According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Bartell was talking on the phone with a friend when she was hit by the rock on April 19. After the call went silent, the friend tracked Bartell’s location with a phone app and found the woman dead in her car, which had crashed into a field.

Karol-Chik told investigators that Koenig slowed down so Kwak could get a photo of Bartell’s car after it crashed into a field. He said all three got excited every time they hit a car with landscaping rocks taken from a Walmart parking lot, but acknowledged he felt “a hint of guilt” passing by her car, according to court documents.

Kwak said he took the photo because he thought that Karol-Chik or Koenig would want to have a “memento” of what had happened, according to the arrest affidavits.

Karol-Chik told investigators with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office that he and Koenig had thrown rocks and even a statue at passing cars on at least 10 other days before Bartell was killed. Kwak heard about what they had been doing and asked to join them, according to Karol-Chik’s account in the affidavits.

Karol-Chik and Kwak offered different accounts about who threw the fatal rock. Koenig did not speak to investigators after he was arrested, according to the arrest affidavits.

Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik told investigators that Joseph Koenig slowed down so Zachary Kwak could get a photo of the car where authorities say Alexa Bartell died after being hit in the head with a rock on April 19, according to arrest affidavits for the 18-year-olds. In a hint at a possible motive, Karol-Chik said all three got excited every time they hit a car with a rock that night but acknowledged he felt “a hint of guilt” passing by Bartell’s car, according to the documents.

Kwak said he took the photo because he thought that Karol-Chik or Koenig would want to have a “memento” of what had happened, according to the affidavits. Koenig did not speak to investigators after he was arrested, they said.

All three teens appeared briefly in court for the first time on Thursday but only spoke to answer short questions from the judge about whether they could hear and understood what was happening. A telephone message left for Kwak’s lawyer was not immediately returned. A person at the law firm appointed by the court to represent Karol-Chik declined to comment. Koenig is represented by a lawyer from the public defender’s office, which does not comment on cases to the media.

The three teens were arrested at their homes in the Denver suburb of Arvada this week after being identified as suspects with the help of cellphone tower data and another friend who had been hanging out with them earlier on April 19. Joseph Bopp also offered a possible explanation for the alleged rock-throwing, telling investigators that Koenig often participates in “destructive behavior” because “he likes causing ‘chaos,’” the documents said. Bopp told sheriff’s investigators he asked to be taken home after he saw the three others taking landscaping rocks from a Walmart parking lot and loading them into Karol-Chik’s pickup truck, because he said he knew something bad was going to happen, according to the documents.

Karol-Chik told investigators with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office that he and Koenig had thrown rocks and even a statue at passing cars on at least 10 other days before Bartell was killed. Kwak heard about what they were doing and asked to join them on April 19, according to Karol-Chick, the documents said.

Investigators believe the teens were involved in several other similar incidents in which rocks between 4 and 6 inches (10 and 15 centimeters) in diameter and weighing 3 to 5 pounds (1.4 to 2.7 kilograms) were thrown at cars in the area the night of Bartell’s death. Two other drivers suffered minor injuries.

According to the sheriff’s office, Bartell was talking on the phone with a friend when she was hit by the rock. After the call went silent, the friend tracked Bartell’s location with a phone app and found the woman dead in her car, which had crashed into a field.

Alexa Bartell, of Arvada, was talking on the phone with a friend when she was hit by the rock northwest of Denver on April 19. After the call went silent, the friend tracked Bartell’s location with a phone app and found the woman dead in her car, which had crashed into a field, said Karlyn Tilley, a spokesperson for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

Bartell was killed by the rock and not the crash, according to Tilley.

Joseph Koenig, Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak, all 18, were arrested at their homes in Arvada, Colorado, overnight Tuesday and Wednesday. Online jail records did not indicate if they have attorneys who can speak on their behalf.

Investigators believe the attack is linked to several other similar incidents in which rocks between 4 and 6 inches (10 and 15 centimeters) in diameter and weighing 3 to 5 pounds (1.4 to 2.7 kilograms) were thrown at cars in the area the night of Bartell’s death.

The attacks started just after 10 p.m. and involved at least seven vehicles. In addition to Bartell’s death, two drivers suffered minor injuries.

It’s unclear which of the teens was driving during the attacks, but all three are suspected of throwing rocks at vehicles.

Investigators say mobile device forensics and tips from the public helped lead them to the suspects, who could face additional charges.

It ended in virtually the same spot, with the Buffaloes huddled around their new coach and the crowd cheering.

Sanders and the Buffaloes certainly staged quite a show Saturday with the stands full of fans eager to catch a glimpse of what could be in store come fall.

In more of a glorified practice than a spring game due to the snowy conditions, the Buffaloes showed something they haven’t in a hot minute — promise.

“I’m amazed and just stoked,” said Sanders, who’s overhauling a squad that went 1-11 last season. “Today was phenomenal. I’m really happy, appreciative and thankful.”

All of it was quite a spectacle. There was the kickoff by Peggy Coppom, a big Buffaloes fan in her 90s who Sanders enticed to boot the ball to begin the action.

“Her kickoff was phenomenal. Went through the uprights and everything,” joked Sanders, who called her the MVP.

The announced attendance was 47,277 fans, which was more than the last nine versions of the spring game combined.

Sanders stood out in his cowboy hat, puffy vest with “Prime” stenciled on it and the gold whistle dangling from his neck. He had his play-calling sheet clipped to his side, but he was more motivator than play-caller as he stood behind the line of scrimmage.

It was like one big Colorado reunion, with Buffaloes football royalty showing up to watch. Names like Jeremy Bloom, Michael Westbrook, Kordell Stewart, Mason Crosby and Alfred Williams were there to show support.

Even the national championship trophy was in attendance, giving fans a chance to dream.

“I’ve never seen this type of energy. This is the spring game, remember, a scrimmage,” Bloom said with a laugh. “It’s unbelievable. Coach Prime has exceeded everybody’s expectations. I think a lot of people knew, including me, that if we could get him here, the buzz would be back. I don’t think anybody imagined this — even in your wildest expectations.”

The stars on the field were quarterback Shedeur Sanders and receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter, the two transfers who followed Coach Prime to Boulder from Jackson State.

“We’re heading in a great direction,” said Shedeur Sanders, who wore gold-colored cleats. “Everybody had a great time.”

Under his winter coat, Coach Prime wore a shirt that read, “I ain’t hard 2 find,” a slogan he’s adopted to attract top-level players. His assistant coaches donned sweatshirts with “We Coming” — another of Sanders’ slogans. They’re definitely starting to arrive, too, with numerous recruits on hand for the game.

The elder Sanders was hoping for a 55-degree day and sun. Instead, he got 32 degrees and snow, which made it so that Ralphie, the school’s live buffalo mascot, couldn’t run the field.

This was really the first thing that didn’t go according to Sanders’ plan since he signed on in December.

The Buffaloes energized the fans right away with Shedeur Sanders connecting with Hunter for an early 14-yard score.

Get used to that combination.

“We just try to be in sync,” Hunter said.

The snow, which had to be plowed off the field, caught Hunter off guard.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know about this, Coach. We might have to move this indoors,’” Hunter said. “I hope the pictures came out well.”

Coach Prime makes his players earn their jersey numbers through their play on the field. Hunter has earned his (No. 12). Receiver Montana Lemonious-Craig — a holdover from last season — may be next in line after coming up with several big catches, including a 98-yard touchdown.

And while Shedeur Sanders technically hasn’t earned his number yet, he was wearing No. 2 — the number he wore while compiling big numbers at Jackson State.

“I was looking for certain people to do certain things,” said Deion Sanders, whose team opens the season at TCU on Sept. 2. “And the certain people that I was looking for to do certain things, they did those things really, really well.”

There were wrinkles to work out, of course. Especially on special teams, where the Buffaloes had an extra point and long field goal blocked.

“Hot garbage,” Sanders said. “I don’t want to see that anymore.”

Before the game, several big names in Buffaloes history showed up to mingle with fans, sign autographs and see what could be in store. Although optimistic about the prospects of a turnaround, former NFL player Alfred Williams — a member of Colorado’s 1990 national title team — is tempering his immediate expectations.

“Overnight is probably not realistic,” Williams said of success. “But I would think that if we can get in the conversation to be bowl eligible, that would be fantastic.”

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The Boulder, Colo., property is up for sale for nearly $7 million dollars, according to a Zillow listing. The former Ramsey family home — where JonBenét’s father John Ramsey discovered his daughter’s body in the basement — is described in the ad as “an impressive Boulder estate with timeless appeal in an unbeatable location.”

This is the third time the house will change owners since the Ramseys bought the property in 1991, according to NBC News.

The family sold the property in 1998 to a group of investors, according to the Denver Post. The outlet reported that Carol Schuller Milner, the daughter of televangelist Robert H. Schuller, and her husband Tim Milner purchased the estate in 2004, eight years after JonBenét was asphyxiated and bludgeoned to death in 1996.

JonBenét’s murder remains unsolved. The young beauty pageant queen was initially reported missing by her mother Patsy Ramsey — a former Miss West Virginia — after she discovered a ransom note in the early morning of Dec. 26, 1996. The note demanded $118,000 in payment, though John found JonBenét dead later that day when he searched around the house for a second time.

Colorado Dec 21, 2021

Police Won't Rule Out DNA to Solve 1996 JonBenet Killing in Colorado

Colorado May 2, 2022

JonBenet Ramsey's Father Supporting Petition for Outside Agency to Test DNA

True Crime Documentaries Worth Watching This Spring

Over the years, authorities investigated John, Patsy — who died in 2006 after a cancer battle — and JonBenét’s brother Burke Ramsey as possible suspects of the crime, according to NBC News. However, they were all cleared by investigators in 2008 after DNA testing suggested that the suspect was someone outside of the family.

“To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry,” Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy wrote in an apology to the family. “No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion.”

At the time, John expressed hope he would one day find justice for his late daughter.

“Certainly we are grateful that they acknowledged that we, based on that, certainly could not have been involved,” he told KUSA-TV, an Denver-based NBC affiliate. “But the most important thing is that we now have very, very solid evidence and that’s always been my hope, at least in the recent past, that that would lead us to the killer eventually as the DNA database grows and is populated.”

The 17-year-old who shot two deans at Denver East High School on Wednesday, was arrested on a weapons charge in 2021 shortly before he was expelled from Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado, the source said. 

Classmates at Overland High School flagged posts about guns on the teen’s social media, prompting police to visit his parents’ home, the source said. His parents let the officers in and they found a rifle with a “high capacity magazine and a silencer” in his room. The teen was charged with a felony but the court dropped the charge and instead put him on one-year probation for the incident, the source said.

School shootings Mar 23

Denver High School Shooting Suspect Found Dead in Nearby County, Authorities Say

Crime and Courts Mar 23

Juror Names To Be Kept Secret at Trump Rape Lawsuit Trial, Judge Rules

A representative for Cherry Creek School District said the suspect was “disciplined for violating board policy” during the 2021-2022 school year and consequently “removed from Overland High School.” It is unclear if the weapons incident was the violation.

It is unclear if the teen’s previous weapons’ charge prompted his safety plan. Both the Denver Public School District and the Cherry Creek School District declined to provide details about the teen’s safety plan, citing privacy for minors under state and federal law.

The 17-year-old who shot two deans at Denver East High School on Wednesday, was arrested on a weapons charge in 2021 shortly before he was expelled from Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado, the source said. 

Classmates at Overland High School flagged posts about guns on the teen’s social media, prompting police to visit his parents’ home, the source said. His parents let the officers in and they found a rifle with a “high capacity magazine and a silencer” in his room. The teen was charged with a felony but the court dropped the charge and instead put him on one-year probation for the incident, the source said.

School shootings Mar 23

Denver High School Shooting Suspect Found Dead in Nearby County, Authorities Say

Crime and Courts Mar 23

Juror Names To Be Kept Secret at Trump Rape Lawsuit Trial, Judge Rules

A representative for Cherry Creek School District said the suspect was “disciplined for violating board policy” during the 2021-2022 school year and consequently “removed from Overland High School.” It is unclear if the weapons incident was the violation.

It is unclear if the teen’s previous weapons’ charge prompted his safety plan. Both the Denver Public School District and the Cherry Creek School District declined to provide details about the teen’s safety plan, citing privacy for minors under state and federal law.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

Cornelius Ellis was arrested and charged with assault following the 9:42 p.m. incident at the Antiques Billard Museum bar, in Colorado Springs, the Colorado Springs Police Department said in a statement.

The owner of the bar told KRDO-TV that the fight broke out after Ellis allegedly made “uncomfortable advances” toward some bartenders. But when another customer got involved, the argument turned physical, and then Ellis bit the man’s nose off.

In the surveillance video obtained by KRDO, Ellis can be seen bodying another man onto the floor, before getting on top of him.

When officers arrived at the scene, witnesses and the victim provided investigators with information that led to the arrest of Ellis, officer Robert Tornabene with the Colorado Springs Police Department told KRDO. Ellis was then taken to El Paso County Jail.

James Toliver Craig, 45, drove his wife, 43, to a local hospital on Wednesday as she was dealing with “severe headaches and dizziness.” Authorities said her condition “deteriorated rapidly” from there and was declared “medically brain dead” soon after.

The Aurora Police Department’s Major Crimes Homicide Unit launched an investigation and found that Craig’s wife had been poisoned. Soon after doctors made the decision to take her off life support, police obtained a warrant for first-degree murder and booked Craig at 2 a.m., according to the Aurora Police Department.

“When the suspicious details of this case came to light, our team of officers and homicide detectives tirelessly worked to uncover the truth behind the victim’s sudden illness and death,” Division Chief Mark Hildebrand said. “It was quickly discovered this was in fact a heinous, complex and calculated murder. I am very proud of our Major Crimes Homicide Unit’s hard work in solving this case and pursuing justice for the victim.”

It’s not yet clear what Craig’s wife was poisoned with.

Following ceremonial drumming and singing and an acknowledgement of the tribes that once occupied the surrounding landscape, the bison were loaded onto trucks for relocation to tribal lands.

About a half-dozen of the animals from Colorado will form the nucleus of a new herd for the Yuchi people south of Tulsa, Oklahoma, said Richard Grounds with the Yuchi Language Project.

The herd will be expanded over time, to reestablish a spiritual and physical bond broken two centuries ago when bison were nearly wiped out and the Yuchi were forced from their homeland, Grounds said.

He compared the burly animals’ return to reviving the Yuchi’s language — and said both language and bison were inseparable from the land. Bison were “the original caretakers” of that land, he said.

“We’ve lost that connection to the buffalo, that physical connection, as part of the colonial assault,” Grounds said. “So we’re saying, we Yuchi people are still here and the buffalo are still here and it’s important to reconnect and restore those relationships with the land, with the animals and the plants.”

The transfers also included 17 bison to the Northern Arapaho Tribe and 12 to the Eastern Shoshone Tribe — both of Wyoming — and one animal to the Tall Bull Memorial Council, which has members from various tribes, city officials said.

Wednesday’s transfer came two weeks after U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland issued a bison conservation order meant to further expand the number of large herds on Native American lands. Haaland also announced $25 million to build new herds, transfer more bison from federal to tribal lands and forge new bison management agreements with tribes, officials said.

American bison, also known as buffalo, have bounced back from near-extinction in the 1880s but remain absent from most of the grasslands they once occupied.

Across the U.S., 82 tribes now have more than 20,000 bison, and the number of herds on tribal lands have grown in recent years. The animals have been transferred to reservations from other tribes, from federal, state and local governments and from private ranches.

Tens of millions of bison once roamed North America until they were killed off almost entirely by white settlers, commercial hunters and U.S. troops. Their demise devastated Native American tribes across the continent that relied on bison and their parts for food, clothing and shelter.

The animals transferred to the tribes Wednesday descend from the last remnants of the great herds. They were under care of the Denver Zoo and kept in a city park before being moved to foothills west of Denver in 1914.

Surplus animals from the city’s herd were for many years auctioned off, but in recent years city officials began transferring them to tribes instead, said Scott Gilmore, deputy executive director of Denver Parks and Recreation.

Gilmore said the land acknowledgement statement read out loud during Wednesday’s ceremony underscored the historical importance of the area to the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute and dozens of other tribes that once lived in the area. But he added those were just “words on a piece of paper.”

“What we’re are doing is putting action to those words for Indigenous people. Buffalo are part of the land, they are part of their family,” Gilmore said. “They are taking their family members back to their ancestral home.”

To date, 85 bison from Denver have been transferred to tribes and tribal organizations. City officials said the shipments will continue through 2030.

The murder of JonBenet, a 6-year-old beauty queen, captivated the public, making international headlines and prompting feverish cable news coverage. While her family lived under a cloud of suspicion for years, the case has never been solved. In 2008, prosecutors formally apologized to her parents and brother, clearing them of any involvement in her death.

JonBenet’s body was discovered by her father, John Ramsey, in a rarely used room in the basement of the family’s sprawling property hours after her mother, Patsy Ramsey, called 911 to report a ransom note at the bottom of a staircase on the morning of Dec. 26, 1996.

Colorado May 2, 2022

JonBenet Ramsey's Father Supporting Petition for Outside Agency to Test DNA

Colorado Dec 21, 2021

Police Won't Rule Out DNA to Solve 1996 JonBenet Killing in Colorado

Property records show the Ramseys purchased the five-bedroom house in 1991 for $500,000. In 1998, they sold the house for $650,000 to a group of investors, according to The Denver Post.

Read more at NBCNews.com.

The announcement comes nearly three months after a gunman opened fire on the club Nov. 19, killing five people and injuring 17. The suspect was taken down by patrons of the club and later arrested and charged with 305 criminal counts, including first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault and bias-motivated crimes. 

“It was 20 years ago that I fought through a very different time in our country to ensure our community would have a safe space to gather and commune,” Matthew Haynes, the founding owner of Club Q said in a statement. “To everyone who has asked me to reopen the club, I assure you we are working very hard to bring our home back. We look forward to being able to gather as one community again.”

MASS SHOOTINGS Dec 6, 2022

Suspect in Colorado LGBTQ Club Shooting Charged With Hate Crimes

shooting Nov 21, 2022

Mothers, Friends, Performers Among Dead at Colorado LGBTQ+ Club Shooting

Club Q and the city of Colorado Springs are partnering with HB&A, a women-owned local architecture firm for the rebuilding plan. The initial design concepts will be delivered within the next six weeks, according to Monday’s announcement, and they will include enhanced security measures, an interior gutting of the space and a “permanent standing tribute” to honor the five people killed: Daniel Aston, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh and Derrick Rump. 

Read more at NBCNews.com.

According to Grand Junction Police Department, the full-sized truck plowed through the front doors of the department’s public lobby at around 12:30 p.m., and eventually crashed into the building’s elevators.

The truck crushed a retaining wall that divided the department’s employees from the lobby. It also destroyed the lobby’s benches where people would have been waiting in order to report a crime, police said in a statement.

Surveillance video showed officers and detectives quickly swarming the truck following the crash before taking the suspect into custody without incident and unharmed.

None of the 11 people inside were harmed, police said.

According to the arrest affidavit, before the crash, the 45-year-old suspect had placed at least 90 calls to the police department over the last few years to report “strange happenings” that turned out to be unfounded. 

The documents say the suspect recently had become increasingly frustrated with law enforcement and would hang up on them and swear at them over the phone. 

On the day of his arrest, the suspect told police he had left home to leave town in the morning but realized he was being followed by several cars.

As he became more paranoid, the man told police he began making erratic turns which eventually led him to crash his truck into the department’s lobby, police said.

The man later confessed he knew it was “dumb” but “he knew what he needed to do in order be heard,” according to the affidavit. 

The suspect was arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder, attempted first-degree assault, attempted vehicular homicide, attempted vehicular assault, criminal mischief, and reckless endangerment.

Damage is estimated to be between $100,000 and $1,000,000, investigators said.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

A bear became the star of its own show after discovering a camera at a park in Colorado and taking hundreds of selfies shared on social media this week by park officials.

Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks shared some of the photos on Twitter on Monday, saying the bear appeared in 580 photos on the camera that’s intended to monitor wildlife.

Jan 15

Watch: Bear Makes Trespassing Wholesome by Jumping Into California Private Pool

Florida Dec 15, 2022

‘He Didn't Want the Salad': Black Bear Caught Stealing Florida Man's Chick-fil-A Off Doorstep

“Recently, a bear discovered a wildlife camera that we use to monitor wildlife across #Boulder open space. Of the 580 photos captured, about 400 were bear selfies,” the tweet read. “Read more about we use wildlife cameras to observe sensitive wildlife habitats.”

In some of the photos the bear appears to look straight at the camera lens, while in others he shyly looks way.

The photos were originally captured last year and shared on Instagram, the agency said.

“These cameras play an important role in identifying important wildlife areas,” Philip Yates, a spokesperson for the Boulder OSMP, told NBC News. “The information we collect from them is used to recommend habitat-protective measures to help protect sensitive natural areas.

“We are fortunate to live in an area with a rich diversity of wildlife species, and these cameras help us to learn what animals are really out there, and what they are up to over the course of a day, a week, or even years.”

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Troopers took the Colorado teen and her 11-year-old passenger into protective custody. Authorities also found a gun, marijuana and drug paraphernalia in the SUV.

Nebraska State Patrol said a trooper spotted the Nissan Pathfinder Monday night on Interstate 80 driving 35 mph, which is under the minimum speed limit for that highway. When the trooper tried to pull the vehicle over, the young driver sped away, sparking a police pursuit.

During the 16-minute chase, police said the 13-year-old hit speeds of over 100 mph.

Troopers used stop sticks, a tire deflation device, to slow down the SUV. The driver then pulled off the interstate at a nearby exit.

The young female driver was cited for flight to avoid arrest, willful reckless driving, carrying a concealed weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia and numerous traffic violations, a spokesperson for the agency told NBC News. The 11-year-old male passenger was cited for carrying a concealed weapon and possession of drug paraphernalia.

It wasn’t immediately clear if they had lawyers representing them.

Officials in the Denver suburb of Englewood shut down the city library last week within a couple of hours of getting test results Wednesday showing that the contamination in the facility’s restrooms exceeded state thresholds, city spokesman Chris Harguth said.

Other spaces such as countertops also tested positive for lower levels of the drug and will require specialized cleaning, he said. The larger-scale remediation work will include removing tainted surfaces, walls, ductwork and exhaust fan equipment.

The city of about 33,000 just south of Denver decided to test for the drug after officials in the nearby college town of Boulder closed its main library after finding meth contamination, Harguth said.

It is the latest example of the balancing act urban libraries have to navigate between making their facilities be welcoming to all while keeping them clean and safe. When a rash of overdoses in libraries were reported in the mid 2010s as the opioid crisis grew across the United States, some libraries were equipped with the antidote Naloxone, known by the brand name Narcan.

So far it seems library closures triggered by methamphetamine contamination are limited to Colorado, according to spokesman Raymond Garcia of the American Library Association, which is unaware of any happening elsewhere across the country in recent years. The group declined to comment on whether drug use has been increasing in libraries, citing a lack of up-to-date data.

Health officials say meth residue can be an irritant, causing symptoms like an itchy throat, a runny nose and bloodshot eyes. But secondary exposure isn’t believed to cause long-term, chronic health concerns, Harguth said.

Drug use is not common in the Englewood library, but reports of it have increased in recent months as colder weather led more people to seek shelter there, with only a small number of them using, library director Christina Underhill said. More broadly, the library has attracted more homeless people since fully reopening after closing at the beginning of the pandemic.

“We’re very accommodating,” Underhill said. But “there are some individuals who abuse this space and unfortunately put us in this position.”

Brenda Folsom, who was picking up her grandchildren from school near Englewood’s library on Thursday, said she has seen an increase in drug use in the area over the last two years, particularly at her local park. She is concerned her 3- and 8-year-old grandsons, who go to the library with their father, and other curious children might pick up needles and other drug paraphernalia in its bathrooms.

“I think if they would clean their restrooms a little more or paid attention to the restrooms and stuff or the people going in there, they wouldn’t have this problem,” Folsom said. In her view, the library should have better security and more frequent checks of the facilities.

Boulder officials suggested that their city’s library closure last month was the result of strict state rules for cleaning up meth once testing reveals it. They also pointed out that standards for how much meth contamination is acceptable were developed with an eye toward homes, where frequent exposure is more likely than in public buildings.

Colorado’s rules are “some of the most conservative in the nation, using an abundance of caution to protect infants and children from exposure,” the city said in a Dec. 28 statement.

The Boulder library has since reopened, but its bathrooms remain closed as crews do decontamination work including replacing fans and vents, spokesperson Annie Elliott said. Once that is done, the bathrooms will remain locked and anyone needing to use them will have to ask a staff member or security guard for access.

The Englewood library has made some changes to help homeless people who go there. An outreach group comes each Monday to offer services like help getting identification, food vouchers and housing, according to Underhill.

However after some library users said they did not feel safe, the city hired security guards last year, she said. It also established a code of conduct with the aim of helping librarians be able to enforce rules.

Englewood also recently increased funding to add more staff in hopes of deterring drug use, according to the library’s website.

“The use of the library has changed,” Underhill said. “More people are coming to use it as a shelter area.”

___

Slevin reported from Denver.

Aurora officer Douglas Harroun, 32, was charged with third-degree assault against an at-risk adult following Wednesday’s encounter, Sentinel Colorado reported. He is represented by the state public defender’s office, which does not comment on open cases.

According to an arrest affidavit, Harroun and his wife were driving up to the apartment complex as the disabled woman was walking her unleashed dog in the middle of the road, forcing Harroun to drive slowly behind her as he approached the parking garage.

The woman yelled at Harroun for following her, and he and his wife then got into a verbal argument with her, according to the affidavit. Witnesses told investigators Harroun then punched the woman in the face and four for five additional times in the head after she fell to the ground.

The 49-year-old woman, who has a chronic pain disorder that affects the nerves in half of her body, was taken to a hospital with undisclosed injuries.

Harroun has been suspended indefinitely without pay, according to the police department, which is opening an internal affairs investigation.

Harroun was hired in 2020 and was placed on paid administrative leave after his involvement in a non-fatal shooting while he was on-duty New Year’s Eve, according to the department. He was still on administrative leave from that shooting at the time of his arrest following Wednesday’s confrontation.

A man who put three failed explosive devices inside a worship hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in suburban Denver before killing his wife and himself there on Christmas morning is suspected of causing an explosion at a union building, police said Wednesday.

Shortly before Sunday’s murder-suicide, Enoch Apodaca, 46, entered the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 68 building with a bucket and there was a “large explosion” shortly after he left, Thornton police said. The building, which police described as Apodaca’s “place of business,” was closed and no one was hurt. The bucket was similar to one used at the worship hall, police said.

Just over a year before the explosion and shootings, a representative of Apodaca’s former employer, Sturgeon Electric Company Inc., said Apodaca told a Local 68 representative that he would shoot his wife and the union representative, and then “will come after the people responsible” after he and his wife lost their jobs. The accusation came in an application for a protection order, first reported by The Denver Post. The document noted that Apodaca had been fired in June 2021 but did not say why.

According to police, Apodaca and his wife, identified by the coroner as 44-year-old Melissa Martinez, arrived at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Thornton at around 9 a.m., about a half hour before the first meeting of the day was scheduled. The couple had previously been members but were no longer welcome there, police said.

Apodaca directed his wife to back up a truck to a window before breaking the window with a hammer and putting the explosive devices inside, police said. Apodaca then shot her before shooting himself, they said.

One of the devices appeared to start a fire while two church members were inside the hall, police said. One of them used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames. None of the devices detonated but a bomb technician found that one of them nearly did before malfunctioning or being extinguished, police said.

No explosives were found in the couple’s home, police said. Instead, investigators found personal belongings that had been apparently set out and marked to be given to specific family members.

The Post also reported Wednesday that police in nearby Westminster had received seven calls to respond to Apodaca’s home since September 2021, including one on Sept. 13, 2021, in which a person warned police that Apodaca was threatening violence, using drugs and withdrawing from his family after he and his wife lost their jobs. In the service records provided to the newspaper for three of those calls, there was no record that the cases progressed past the initial call, it said.

An officer responded to Apodaca’s home in response to the Sept. 13, 2021, call, which was made by a cousin. But no report was written because the officer did not find any crime had been committed, Westminster police spokesperson Sgt. Ray Esslinger told The Associated Press.

If you or someone you know needs help, please contact the National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988, or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting ‘Home’ to 741741, anytime.

That’s a level of scrutiny long sought by Lucy Molina whose daughter goes to school near Colorado’s only petroleum refinery. Three years ago Molina had just stepped outdoors when she noticed a coating of ash on her Nissan Altima that wiped off on her fingers. Then she received a message that her daughter’s school was locked down and panicked. She later learned the refinery had malfunctioned, spewing a clay-like material into the air. She’d heard of lockdowns for shootings, but never for pollution.

Since then she’s pushed for community air monitoring and stronger protections, but says it all feels too late. She’s lived here for 30 years, and her kids are already young adults.

“If we would have known” years ago, she said. “We would have moved.”

Advocates say the Suncor refinery too often malfunctions, spiking emissions. They say Colorado rarely denies permits to polluters, even in areas where harmful ozone already exceeds federal standards.

Federal investigators said in the letter they will scrutinize the state’s oversight of Colorado’s biggest polluters including the Suncor oil refinery in North Denver where Molina lives, and whether the effect of that pollution on residents is discriminatory.

Suncor did not respond to a request for comment.

But it is already harder for oil and gas companies to get their air permits in Colorado than in some other energy-producing states, said John Jacus, chair of the Colorado Chamber of Commerce board of directors and an environmental compliance attorney. He said recent allegations that the state’s permit review process was faulty had the effect of slowing air permitting, a blow to business.

“It would be really good for air quality to shut everything down, but that’s not good for society,” Jacus said, adding there needed to be a balance between environmental protection and economic activity.

The EPA launched its investigation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It has been going on since March but went little noticed until Wednesday’s letter, which explains its scope. The Act allows the EPA to negotiate agreements with states to promote equity. The Biden administration has stepped up its enforcement of environmental discrimination.

Colorado officials said they welcome the EPA review, more community participation and are reviewing their permitting policies to ensure they are focused on environmental justice.

“We’ve always prioritized the health and wellbeing of every Coloradan no matter their zip code, but we know we have even more to do,” said Trisha Oeth, our Director of Environmental Health and Protection in a statement.

But the EPA has found those priorities lacking at times.

The agency scrutinized the state’s handling of Suncor. Colorado’s only oil refinery is roughly 90 years old and is a major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the state.

In March, the EPA objected to a key air permit for the facility that state regulators were still reviewing 10 years after its original expiration date. The agency raised “significant environmental justice concerns” and said that the public wasn’t given enough opportunity to weigh in. The EPA didn’t object when the state issued a revised permit.

In July, the agency also said the state had issued permits for a mine, oil and gas wells and other small polluters even though they could contribute to violations of federal air quality standards. Colorado said it would improve its reviews, but balked at revisiting its permitting decisions.

There are some signs the agency chose Colorado because it could prove a willing partner.

“Colorado has been one of the states that has been a leader in addressing environmental justice in the legislature,” said KC Becker, the head of the EPA region that includes Colorado and a former state legislative leader.

Colorado has strengthened air monitoring requirements. It increased funding for air permit reviews. The state’s greenhouse gas reduction plan aims to reduce pollution in overburdened areas. It also worked with the EPA to ensure inspections target the most polluted areas and when companies reach settlements for wrongdoing, they pay for projects that benefit communities.

The EPA may have an easier time convincing Colorado to change than it would, say, Texas, said Jeremy Nichols, head of climate and energy programs at WildEarth Guardians.

Colorado’s changes have “given EPA an opening to say, ‘well, if that is what you are committed to then let’s really test this out, let’s see you prove your mettle here,’” said Nichols.

Nichols said Colorado is too deferential to industry. He wants to see the state deny permits much more often.

Ian Coghill, an attorney with Earthjustice that is challenging the Suncor permit, says the push and pull between the EPA and state hasn’t yielded major improvements. Revisions to Suncor’s permit, he said “didn’t change a lot.”

He is hopeful the civil rights investigation will force the state to make changes and detail the cumulative effect of pollution from industry on residents of North Denver.

“I’m definitely optimistic,” he said.

A man killed his wife and then himself at a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in suburban Denver, Thornton police said Sunday.

A fire was reported at the hall around 9 a.m. before another caller told police that a man had shot a woman and then himself, authorities said.

The man and woman were former members of the congregation, police said. Their names have not been released.

Luis Sanchez lives across the street and heard two gunshots Sunday morning. He told The Denver Post that he looked outside and saw a woman lying on the ground.

“It’s very sad,” he said.

Later Sunday, police said that three incendiary devices were found at the scene, rendered safe and collected with the help of the Adams County Hazardous Materials Unit, according to NBC affiliate KUSA.

The Sherrelwood Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses released a statement Sunday afternoon:

“We are shocked and deeply saddened by the unprovoked attack and loss of life at our Kingdom Hall in Thornton. We are cooperating with the authorities as they carry out their investigation into the event. Our hearts go out to the family and friends of those who have been traumatized by the heinous actions that took the life of an innocent victim and threatened the lives of many others. We are praying for the families of all those affected.” 

Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann also released a statement about the violent act:

“The Thornton City Council and myself are saddened by the violent actions that took two lives in our city. This kind of violence is always shocking but particularly on Christmas Day. We understand the Thornton Police Department is in the early stages of the investigation and we will learn more in the days to come. For now, our hope is that we all can take time to focus on those we love and find a way to hold them close today.”

If you or someone you know needs help, please contact the National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988, or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting ‘Home’ to 741741, anytime.

Michael Anderson, a 25-year-old bartender at Club Q, described how his place of work was a safe haven for him and many others before a 22-year-old shooter turned a drag queen’s birthday celebration into a massacre on Nov. 19. Five people were killed and 25 were injured before the shooter armed with an AR-15-style semiautomatic weapon was subdued by patrons.

“This shooter entered our safe space and our home with the intention of killing as many people as possible, as quickly as possible,” Anderson said. “They used a military-style weapon that exists solely for the intention of killing other human beings, and began to hunt us down as if we were disposable, as if our lives meant nothing.”

James Slaugh testified about watching his sister, Charlene, bleed on the nightclub floor after a bullet ripped through her right arm. “My heart melted as she tried to dial 911 with her good arm. I called out to her and I heard no response,” he said. The siblings were there to celebrate Transgender Day of Remembrance before several pops rang out in between the pounding club music. James Slaugh also was among those shot.

Wednesday’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee came as lawmakers race to finish their work for the year. To the frustration of many Democrats, the year-end agenda doesn’t include legislation to ban semiautomatic firearms due to firm Republican opposition.

The House passed legislation in July that would ban assault weapons for the first time since 2004, but it failed to pass in the Senate. Republicans dismiss the bill as an attack on Second Amendment rights.

Wednesday’s hearing also came on the 10-year anniversary of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, that took the lives of 20 students and six teachers. Mass shootings haven’t abated since then, with another deadly attack at a school occurring just this summer in Uvalde, Texas.

In the weeks after the attack in Texas and a grocery store shooting in Buffalo, New York, Congress made its most far-reaching response in decades to the nation’s run of brutal mass shootings by passing a package of bills that would toughen background checks for the youngest gun buyers and keep firearms from more domestic violence offenders, among other things.

But Democrats, including President Joe Biden, say far more action on guns is needed, particularly given that mass shootings frequently target specific ethnic groups and religions.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the chairwoman of the Oversight committee, said the hearing Wednesday was meant to show that violence against LGBTQ people does not happen in a vacuum.

“The attack on Club Q — and the LGBTQI+ community — is not an isolated incident, but part of a broader trend of violence and intimidation across the country,” Maloney said. She pointed to the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills passed in statehouses across the U.S. since 2018.

Matthew Haynes, the founding owner of Club Q, said the political rhetoric targeting the LGBTQI+ community can have deadly consequences due to the availability of semiautomatic weapons.

“We were lucky that night that the casualties were not much higher,” Haynes said.

Haynes, who is gay, was among the thousands of people who gathered Tuesday at the White House to watch Biden sign historic legislation protecting same-sex marriages.

“It was honestly the first joy and pride I have felt since the horrific shooting at Club Q,” Haynes said. But he criticized the 169 Republicans in the House who voted against the legislation.

“To the members of this committee I humbly ask, are LGBTQ people not part of your constituency?” he asked the panel. “Do you not represent us? While we wait for you to answer, we are being slaughtered and dehumanized across this country, in communities you took oaths to protect. LGBTQ issues are not political issues.”

In his opening statement, Rep, James Comer of Kentucky, the committee’s top Republican, said Republicans condemn all violence and hate, including the recent attack in Colorado.

But Comer accused Maloney and other Democrats on the panel of using the mass shooting at Club Q as a political tool to attack Republicans across the aisle, instead of focusing on rising crime.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, sat upright in a chair during the hearing and appeared alert. In an earlier court appearance just a few days after the shooting, the defendant’s head and face were covered with bruises and they were slumped over and had to be prompted by attorneys to respond to questions from a judge.

Investigators said the gunman entered Club Q, a sanctuary for the LGBTQ community in the mostly conservative city of Colorado Springs, just before midnight on Nov. 19 and began shooting during a drag queen’s birthday celebration. The killing stopped after patrons wrestled the suspect to the ground, beating them into submission, they said.

The suspect had been held on hate crime charges but prosecutors had said previously they weren’t sure if those counts would stick because they needed to assess if there was adequate evidence to show it was a bias motivated crime.

District Attorney Michael Allen had noted that murder charges would carry the harshest penalty — likely life in prison — but also said it was important to show the community that bias motivated crimes are not tolerated if there was evidence to support the charge.

Allen did not detail the charges in Tuesday’s hearing but said they included “many counts of bias motivated crimes.” He declined at a later news conference to discuss what evidence prosecutors found to back the hate crimes charges.

“We are not going to tolerate actions against community members based on their sexual identity,” Allen said. “Members of that community have been harassed, intimidated and abused for too long.”

Judge Michael McHenry ordered the arrest warrant affidavit in the case to be unsealed on Wednesday, over the objections of the suspect’s attorney who said he was concerned about the defendant’s right to a fair trial due to publicity surrounding the case.

Colorado Nov 21, 2022

US Army Veteran Recounts Disarming Colorado Gunman: ‘It's What I Was Trained to Do'

Colorado Nov 22, 2022

Club Q Was a Safe Haven for LGBTQ Community Before Deadly Colorado Shooting

The shooter, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns according to defense court filings, was arrested at the club by police. They have not entered a plea or spoken about the events.

Allen said the suspect being nonbinary was “part of the picture” in considering hate crime charges but he wouldn’t elaborate.

Experts say someone who is nonbinary can be charged with a hate crime for targeting fellow members of the same group because hate crime laws are focused on the victims, not the perpetrator. But bringing a hate crime case to conviction can be difficult, because prosecutors must prove what motivated the defendant, a higher standard than usually required in court.

Colorado prosecutors will need concrete evidence such as statements the gunman may have made about the shooting, Frank Pezzella, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said.

“It’s got to be more than he shot up Club Q,” he said.

According to witnesses, the gunman fired first at people gathered at the club’s bar before spraying bullets across the dance floor during the attack, which came on the eve of an annual day of remembrance for transgender people lost to violence.

More than a year before the shooting, they were arrested on allegations of making a bomb threat that led to the evacuation of about 10 homes. The gunman threatened to harm their own family with a homemade bomb, ammunition and multiple weapons, authorities said at the time. They were booked into jail on suspicion of felony menacing and kidnapping, but the case was apparently later sealed and it’s unclear what became of the charges. There are no public indications that the case led to a conviction.

Ring doorbell video obtained by the AP shows the gunman arriving at their mother’s front door with a big black bag, telling her the police were nearby and adding, “This is where I stand. Today I die.”

Rule for the designer and the justices will expose not only same-sex couples but also Black people, immigrants, Jews, Muslims and others to discrimination, liberal groups say.

Rule against her and the justices will force artists — from painters and photographers to writers and musicians — to do work that is against their faith, conservative groups argue.

Both sides have described for the court what lawyers sometimes call “a parade of horribles” that could result if the ruling doesn’t go their way.

The case marks the second time in five years that the Supreme Court has confronted the issue of a business owner who says their religion prevents them from creating works for a gay wedding. This time, most experts expect that the court now dominated 6-3 by conservatives and particularly sympathetic to religious plaintiffs will side with Lorie Smith, the Denver-area designer in the case.

But the American Civil Liberties Union, in a brief filed with the court, was among those that called Smith’s argument “carte blanche to discriminate whenever a business’s product or service could be characterized as ‘expressive,’” a category of businesses that could range from “luggage to linens to landscaping.” Those businesses, they said, could announce, “We Do Not Serve Blacks, Gays, or Muslims.”

Smith’s attorneys at the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom say that’s not true. “I think it’s disingenuous and false to say that a win for Lorie in this case would take us back to those times where people … were denied access to essential goods and services based on who they were,” said ADF attorney Kellie Fiedorek, adding, “A win for Lorie here would never permit such conduct, like some of the hypotheticals that they’re raising.”

Supreme Court Sep 9, 2022

Supreme Court Blocks Recognition of LGBTQ Campus at Yeshiva University

Same-Sex Marriage Jun 8, 2022

Same-Sex Marriage Advocates Push for Post-Roe Protections

Smith’s case follows that of Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who objected to creating a wedding cake for a gay couple. The couple sued, but the case ended with a limited decision. Phillips’ lawyer, Kristen Waggoner, is back before the high court Monday arguing for Smith.

Smith wants to begin offering wedding websites, but she says her Christian faith prevents her from creating websites celebrating same-sex marriages. That could get her in trouble with state law. Colorado, like most other states, has a public accommodation law that says if Smith offers wedding websites to the public, she must provide them to all customers. Businesses that violate the law can be fined, among other things.

Smith, for her part, says Colorado’s law violates the Constitution’s First Amendment by forcing her to express a message with which she disagrees.

Among Smith’s other opponents are the Biden administration and 20 mostly Democratic-leaning states including California, New York and Pennsylvania. The states told the court in one of 75 legal briefs filed by outside groups in the case that accepting Smith’s arguments would allow for widespread discrimination.

“A bakery whose owner opposed mixed-race relationships could refuse to bake wedding cakes for interracial couples,” the states said. A “real estate agency whose owner opposed racial integration could refuse to represent Black couples seeking to purchase a home in a predominantly white neighborhood; or a portrait studio whose proprietor opposes interracial adoption could refuse to take pictures of white parents with their Black adopted children.”

Those race-based examples could get particular attention on a court with two Black justices, Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who are married to white spouses and another justice, Amy Coney Barrett, who has two adopted children who are Black. But the states gave an example involving a person’s national origin too. “A tattoo studio could ink American flag tattoos on customers born in the United States while refusing to sell identical tattoos to immigrants,” they said.

Brianne Gorod of the Constitutional Accountability Center, representing a group of law professors, hypothesized other examples of what could happen if Smith succeeds at the high court.

“A web designer could refuse to create a web page celebrating a female CEO’s retirement — violating Colorado’s prohibition on sex discrimination — if he believed all women have a duty to stay home and raise children. Similarly, a furniture-maker — who considers his furniture pieces to be artistically expressive — could refuse to serve an interracial couple if he believed that interracial couples should not share a home together. Or an architect could refuse to design a home for an interfaith couple,” she told the court.

Smith’s supporters, however, among them 20 mostly Republican-leaning states, say ruling against her has negative consequences, too. A lawyer for the CatholicVote.org education fund told the court that if the lower court ruling stands and Smith loses, “a Jewish choreographer will have to stage a dramatic Easter performance, a Catholic singer will be required to perform at a marriage of two divorcees, and a Muslim who operates an advertising agency will be unable to refuse to create a campaign for a liquor company.”

The Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty put it differently, telling the court that a Jewish baker could have to fulfill the request of a Neo-Nazi who wants a cake saying “Happy November 9th!” — a reference to Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when Nazis burned synagogues and vandalized Jewish businesses throughout Germany and Austria.

Alan B. Morrison, a constitutional law expert at Georgetown University, underscored that Smith doesn’t currently do wedding websites, making the case particularly speculative and, he says, problematic. Still, Morrison chuckled at some of the hypothetical scenarios both sides came up with, suggesting they are “a bit overblown.”

The examples, he said, are “the kind of thing a law professor would think of.”

Petty Officer 2nd Class Thomas James made his first public comments on the shooting in a statement issued through Centura Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs, where James is recovering from undisclosed injuries suffered during the attack.

Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said that James was one of two men who helped to stop the shooter who walked into Club Q late on Nov. 19 with multiple firearms, including a semiautomatic rifle, and killed five people. At least 17 others were injured when a drag queen’s birthday celebration turned into a massacre.

James reportedly pushed a rifle out of the shooter’s reach while Army veteran Rich Fierro repeatedly struck the shooter with a handgun the shooter brought into the bar, officials have said.

“If I had my way, I would shield everyone I could from the nonsensical acts of hate in the world, but I am only one person,” James said in a statement. “Thankfully, we are a family and family looks after one another.”

Patrons of Club Q have said the bar offered them a community where they felt celebrated, but that the shooting shook their sense of safety.

“I want to support everyone who has known the pain and loss that have been all too common these past few years,” James said. “My thoughts are with those we lost on Nov. 19, and those who are still recovering from their injuries.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, the first openly gay man elected governor in the United States, appeared on two Sunday morning TV shows saying he would support increasing licensing requirements for semiautomatic weapons, improving mental health services and better use of red flag laws that allow courts to remove weapons from people having mental health crises and who may be a danger to themselves and others. He also urged the toning down of anti-LGBTQ political rhetoric.

“We know that when people are saying incendiary things, somebody who’s not well-balanced can hear those things, and think that what they’re doing is heroic when it’s actually a horrific crime that kills innocent people,” Polis said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’

James ended the statement by urging young members of the LGBTQ community to be brave.

“Your family is out there. You are loved and valued,” James said. “So when you come out of the closet, come out swinging.”

Colorado Shooting Coverage:

shooting Nov 21, 2022

Mothers, Friends, Performers Among Dead at Colorado LGBTQ+ Club Shooting

Colorado Nov 27, 2022

Colorado Springs Reflects On Itself After Tragedy

Colorado Nov 24, 2022

Owner of Colorado LGBTQ Club: Shooting Comes Amid New ‘Type of Hate' From Politicians

With a growing and diversifying population, the city nestled at the foothills of the Rockies is a patchwork of disparate social and cultural fabrics. It’s a place full of art shops and breweries; megachurches and military bases; a liberal arts college and the Air Force Academy. For years it’s marketed itself as an outdoorsy boomtown with a population set to top Denver’s by 2050.

But last weekend’s shooting has raised uneasy questions about the lasting legacy of cultural conflicts that caught fire decades ago and gave Colorado Springs a reputation as a cauldron of religion-infused conservatism, where LGBTQ people didn’t fit in with the most vocal community leaders’ idea of family values.

For some, merely seeing police being careful to refer to the victims using their correct pronouns this week signaled a seismic change. For others, the shocking act of violence in a space considered an LGBTQ refuge shattered a sense of optimism pervading everywhere from the city’s revitalized downtown to the sprawling subdivisions on its outskirts.

“It feels like the city is kind of at this tipping point,” said Candace Woods, a queer minister and chaplain who has called Colorado Springs home for 18 years. “It feels interesting and strange, like there’s this tension: How are we going to decide how we want to move forward as a community?”

Five people were killed in the attack last weekend. Eight victims remained hospitalized Friday, officials said.

In recent decades the population has almost doubled to 480,000 people. More than one-third of residents are nonwhite — twice as many as in 1980. The median age is 35. Politics here lean more conservative than in comparable-size cities. City council debates revolve around issues familiar throughout the Mountain West, such as water, housing and the threat of wildfires.

Residents take pride in describing Colorado Springs as a place defined by reinvention. In the early 20th century, newcomers sought to establish a resort town in the shadow of Pikes Peak. In the 1940s, military bases arrived. In the 1990s it became known as a home base for evangelical nonprofits and Christian ministries including broadcast ministry Focus on the Family and the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys.

“I have been thinking for years, we’re in the middle of a transition about what Colorado Springs is, who we are, and what we’ve become,” said Matt Mayberry, a historian at Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.

The idea of latching onto a city with a bright future is partly what drew Michael Anderson, a Club Q bartender who survived last weekend’s shooting.

Two friends, Derrick Rump and Daniel Aston, helped Anderson land the Club Q job and find his “queer family” in his new hometown. It was more welcoming than rural Florida where he grew up.

Still, he noted signs the city was more culturally conservative than others of similar size and much of Colorado: “Colorado Springs is kind of an outlier,” he said.

Now he’s grieving the deaths of Rump and Aston in the club shooting.

Leslie Herod followed an opposite trajectory. After growing up in Colorado Springs in a military family — like many others in the city — she left to study at the University of Colorado in liberal Boulder. In 2016 she became the first openly LGBTQ and Black person elected to Colorado’s General Assembly, representing part of Denver. She is now running to become Denver’s mayor.

“Colorado Springs is a community that is full of love. But I will also acknowledge that I chose to leave the Springs because I felt like when it came to … the elected leadership, the vocal leadership in this community, it wasn’t supportive of all people, wasn’t supportive of Black people, wasn’t supportive of immigrants, not supportive of LGBTQ people,” Herod said at a memorial event downtown.

She said she found community at Club Q when she would return from college. But she didn’t forget people and groups with a history of anti-LGBTQ stances and rhetoric maintained influence in city politics.

“This community, just like any other community in the country, is complex,” she said.

Club Q’s co-owner, Nic Grzecka, told The Associated Press he’s hoping to use the tragedy to rebuild a “loving culture” in the city. Even though general acceptance the LGBTQ community has grown, Grzecka said false assertions that members of the community are “grooming” children has incited hatred.

Those who have been around long enough are remembering this week how in the 1990s, at the height of the religious right’s influence, the Colorado Springs-based group Colorado for Family Values spearheaded a statewide push to pass Amendment 2 and make it illegal for communities to pass ordinances protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination.

Colorado Springs voted 3 to 1 in favor of Amendment 2, helping make its narrow statewide victory possible. Though it was later ruled unconstitutional, the campaign cemented the city’s reputation, drawing more like-minded groups and galvanizing progressive activists in response.

The influx of evangelical groups decades ago was at least in part spurred by efforts from the city’s economic development arm to offer financial incentives to lure nonprofits. Newcomers began lobbying for policies like getting rid of school Halloween celebrations due to suspicions about the holiday’s pagan origins.

Yemi Mobolade, an entrepreneur running for mayor as an independent, didn’t understand how strong Colorado Springs’ stigma as a “hate city” was until he moved here 12 years ago. But since then, he said, it has risen from recession-era struggles and become culturally and economically vibrant for all kinds of people.

There has been a concerted push to shed the city’s reputation as “Jesus Springs” and remake it yet again, highlighting its elite Olympic Training Center and branding itself as Olympic City USA.

Much like in the 1990s, Focus on the Family and New Life Church remain prominent in town. After the shooting, Focus on the Family’s president, Jim Daly, said that like the rest of the community he was mourning the tragedy. With the city under the national spotlight, he said the organization wanted to make it clear it stands against hate.

Daly noted a generational shift among Christian leaders away from the rhetorical style of his predecessor, Dr. James Dobson. Whereas Focus on the Family published literature in decades past assailing what it called the “Homosexual Agenda,” its messaging now emphasizes tolerance, ensuring those who believe marriage should be between one man and one woman have the right to act accordingly.

“I think in a pluralistic culture now, the idea is: How do we all live without treading on each other?” Daly said.

After a sign in front of the group’s headquarters was vandalized with graffiti reading “their blood is on your hands” and “five lives taken,” Daly said in a statement Friday it was time for “prayer, grieving and healing, not vandalism and the spreading of hate.”

The memorials this week attracted a wave of visitors: crowds of mourners clutching flowers, throngs of television crews and a church group whose volunteers set up a tent and passed out cookies, coffee and water. To some in the LGBTQ community, the scene was less about solidarity and more a cause for consternation.

Colorado Springs native Ashlyn May, who grew up in a Christian church but left when it didn’t accept her queer identity, said one woman from the group in the tent asked if she could pray for her and a friend who accompanied her to the memorial.

She said yes. It reminded May of her beloved great-grandparents, who were religious. But as the praying carried on and the woman urged May and her friend to turn to God, she felt as if praying had turned into preying. It unearthed memories of hearing things about LGBTQ people she saw as hateful and inciting.

“It felt very conflicting,” May said.

Nic Grzecka’s voice was tinged with exhaustion as he spoke with The Associated Press on Wednesday night in some of his first comments since Saturday night’s attack at Club Q, a venue Grzecka helped build into an enclave that sustained the LGBTQ community in conservative-leaning Colorado Springs.

Authorities haven’t said why the suspect opened fire at the club before being subdued into submission by patrons, but they are facing hate crime charges. The suspect has not entered a plea or spoken about the incident.

Grzecka said he believes the targeting of a drag queen event is connected to the art form being cast in a false light in recent months by right-wing activists and politicians who complain about the “sexualization” or “grooming” of children. Even though general acceptance of the LGBTQ community has grown, this new dynamic has fostered a dangerous climate.

“It’s different to walk down the street holding my boyfriend’s hand and getting spit at (as opposed to) a politician relating a drag queen to a groomer of their children,” Grzecka said. “I would rather be spit on in the street than the hate get as bad as where we are today.”

Earlier this year, Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature passed a bill barring teachers from discussing gender identity or sexual orientation with younger students. A month later, references to “pedophiles” and “grooming” in relation to LGBTQ people rose 400%, according to a report by the Human Rights Campaign.

“Lying about our community, and making them into something they are not, creates a different type of hate,” said Grzecka.

Grzecka, who started mopping floors and bartending at Club Q in 2003 a year after it opened, said he hopes to channel his grief and anger into figuring out how to rebuild the support system for Colorado Springs’ LGBTQ community that only Club Q had provided.

City and state officials have offered support and President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden reached out to Grzecka and co-owner Matthew Haynes on Thursday to offer condolences and reiterate their support for the community as well as their commitment to fighting back against hate and gun violence.

Grzecka said Club Q opened after the only other gay bar in Colorado Springs at that time shuttered. He described that era as an evolution of gay bars. Decades ago, dingy, hole-in-the-wall gay venues were meant largely for finding a hookup or date, said Grzecka. But he said once the internet offered anonymous ways to find love online, the bars transitioned into well lit, clean non-smoking spaces to hang out with friends. Club Q was at the vanguard of that transition.

Once he became co-owner in 2014, Grzecka helped mold Club Q into not merely a nightlife venue but a community center – a platform to create a “chosen family” for LGBTQ people, especially for those estranged from their birth family. Drag queen bingo nights, friendsgiving and Christmas dinners, birthday celebrations became staples of Club Q which was open 365 days a year.

In the aftermath of the shooting, with that community center having been torn away, Grzecka and other community leaders said they are channeling grief and anger into reconstituting the support structure that only Club Q had offered.

“When that system goes away, you realize how much more the bar was really providing,” said Justin Burn, an organizer with Pikes Peak Pride. “Those that may or may not have been a part of the Club Q family, where do they go?”

Colorado Shooting Coverage:

Colorado Nov 22, 2022

63-Year-Old Colorado Club Shooting Survivor Wants to ‘Be Resilient' After Chaos

Colorado Nov 21, 2022

US Army Veteran Recounts Disarming Colorado Gunman: ‘It's What I Was Trained to Do'

shooting Nov 21, 2022

Mothers, Friends, Performers Among Dead at Colorado LGBTQ+ Club Shooting

Burn said the shooting pulled back a curtain on a broader lack of resources for LGBTQ adults in Colorado Springs. Burn, Grzecka and others are working with national organizations to do an assessment of the community’s need as they develop a blueprint to offer a robust support network.

Grzecka is looking to rebuild the “loving culture” and necessary support to “make sure that this tragedy is turned into the best thing it can be for the city.”

“Everybody needs community,” he said.

The suspect could be seen slumped over in a chair with injuries visible on the suspect’s face and head in a brief video appearance from jail. The suspect appeared to need prompting by defense attorneys and offered a slurred response when asked to state their name by El Paso County Court Judge Charlotte Ankeny.

The suspect was beaten into submission by patrons during Saturday night’s shooting at Club Q and released from the hospital Tuesday. The motive in the shooting was still under investigation, but authorities said he faces possible murder and hate crime charges.

Hate crime charges would require proving that the shooter was motivated by bias, such as against the victims’ actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. The charges against the suspect are preliminary, and prosecutors have not yet filed formal charges. The suspect is represented by Joseph Archambault, a chief trial deputy with the state public defender’s office. Lawyers from the office do not comment on cases to the media.

Defense attorneys said late Tuesday that the suspect is nonbinary. The attorneys’ footnotes assert that the suspect is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.

Court documents laying out the suspect’s arrest were sealed at the request of prosecutors.

Local and federal authorities have declined to answer questions about why hate crime charges were being considered. District Attorney Michael Allen noted that the murder charges would carry the harshest penalty — life in prison — whereas bias crimes are eligible for probation. He also said it was important to show the community that bias motivated crimes are not tolerated.

Colorado Shooting Coverage:

Colorado Nov 22, 2022

Club Q Was a Safe Haven for LGBTQ Community Before Deadly Colorado Shooting

shooting Nov 21, 2022

Mothers, Friends, Performers Among Dead at Colorado LGBTQ+ Club Shooting

shooting Nov 20, 2022

Despite Prior Bomb Threat, Gay Club Shooting Suspect Evaded Colorado Red Flag Gun Law

The weekend assault took place at a nightclub known as a sanctuary for the LGBTQ community in this mostly conservative city of about 480,000 about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Denver.

A longtime Club Q patron who was shot said the club’s reputation made it a target. In a video statement, Ed Sanders said he thought about what he would do in a mass shooting after the 2016 massacre of 49 people at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

“I think this incident underlines the fact that LGBT people need to be loved,” said Sanders, 63. “I want to be resilient. I’m a survivor. I’m not going to be taken out by some sick person.”

Authorities said the suspect used a long rifle and was halted by two club patrons including Richard Fierro, who told reporters that he took a handgun from the suspect, hit them with it and pinned them down with help from another person until police arrived.

The victims were Raymond Green Vance, 22, a Colorado Springs native who was saving money to get his own apartment; Ashley Paugh, 35, a mother who helped find homes for foster children; Daniel Aston, 28, who had worked at the club as a bartender and entertainer; Kelly Loving, 40, whose sister described her as “caring and sweet”; and Derrick Rump, 38, another club bartender known for his wit.

The suspect is identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22.

Bedayn is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Associated Press reporters Bernard Condon in New York, Jake Bleiberg in Dallas, Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles and news researcher Rhonda Shafner from New York contributed.

They are some of the 17 people wounded by gunfire Saturday when a 22-year-old man went on a shooting rampage at Club Q, a well-known club for the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs. On Tuesday, they shared the horror of seeing their loved ones shot down in front of them, as well as the hope they felt as people helped each other in the chaos.

Ed Sanders, 63, said he had been waiting in line at the bar, had made his way up to the front and given the bartender his credit card when he was hit in the back — right between the shoulder blades. Surprised, he turned to look at the gunman, only to be hit again in the thigh as another volley of shots were fired.

“I fell. And everybody fell,” Sanders said in video statements released Tuesday by UCHealth Memorial Hospital Center. “It was very traumatic. I shielded another woman with my coat … there was a lot of chaos.”

James Slaugh said he, his boyfriend and his sister were getting ready to leave the club when, “all of a sudden we just hear, ‘pop, pop, pop.’ As I turn, I took a bullet in my arm from the back.”

Slaugh, who spoke to The Associated Press from his hospital bed, said he watched others around him fall — including his boyfriend, who was shot in the leg, and his sister, who had bullet wounds in 13 places. He quickly called the police, heard several more shots, then nothing. The scariest part of the shooting, he said, was not knowing whether the gunman would fire again.

Five people were killed in the shooting, which stopped after the gunman was disarmed by patrons.

The motive for the attack is still being investigated and the man has not been formally charged. Police say he was armed with multiple firearms, including an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, and possible hate crimes are being considered.

“I want to be resilient. I’m a survivor,” Sanders said. “I’m not going to be taken out by some sick person.”

Colorado Nov 22, 2022

Club Q Was a Safe Haven for LGBTQ Community Before Deadly Colorado Shooting

Colorado Nov 21, 2022

US Army Veteran Recounts Disarming Colorado Gunman: ‘It's What I Was Trained to Do'

shooting Nov 21, 2022

Mothers, Friends, Performers Among Dead at Colorado LGBTQ+ Club Shooting

Sanders has been a patron of Club Q for 20 years and even went to the club’s opening night decades ago. He wore a hospital gown and had an oxygen tube in his nose in the video recorded by the hospital.

He said that after the 2016 Pulse gay nightclub shooting in Florida, which killed 49 people, Sanders thought about what he would do if something similar happened at Club Q — but he never dreamed it would become reality.

“I’m smiling now because I am happy to be alive,” Sanders said. “I dodged a major event in my life and came through it, and that’s part of who I am as a survivor.”

Sanders knew many of the victims, including the “door lady” and two bartenders who died. Sanders said that after the shooting, people who weren’t hit were helping each other “just like a family would do.”

Sanders said the shot to his back missed vital organs but broke a rib. He said he now has a concave wound in his back and will need skin grafts. Sanders was also shot in the thigh, and said “that was the most blood.”

“I think this incident underlines the fact that LGBT people need to be loved,” Sanders said.

For Slaugh, Club Q was a place where he felt safe after coming out as gay at age 24. It was where he met his partner, Jancarlos Del Valle, eight months ago, and it was where they took his sister, Charlene, on Saturday night to cheer her up from a recent breakup, as well as the death of their mother from COVID-19 a year ago.

Slaugh said that after the gunman was subdued, the club instantly became a community again. Patrons grabbed paper towels to try to stop bleeding wounds. One man told Slaugh he would be OK and kissed him on the forehead.

“That was such a reassurance to me,” he said. “That hope stayed there.”

Del Valle and James were rushed to one hospital and Charlene, who had more extensive injuries, was taken to another. James said he did not find out what happened to his sister until the next day. A community of support has formed around the Slaughs, including a GoFundMe campaign to pay for medical bills. Messages have poured in from around the world.

“Being shot, being a victim of this whole thing — it left me with a sense of more hope than anything else, especially with everyone coming together,” he said. “This is not a time to be afraid. This is not a time to let in one awful person. This is a time to come together.”

But on Monday she recalled how the rainbow lights bounced around the room and the lively crowd shared her excitement. Congleton, 19, said she went from feeling like she had been merely tolerated in public to “being celebrated. … It’s really special not to feel alone.”

In the mostly conservative city of Colorado Springs, Club Q has long been a go-to spot for members of the LGBTQ community — a safe space where many felt they could let down their guard and just be themselves. It’s a place where LGBTQ teenagers can’t wait to be old enough to enter. It’s one of the first spots new LGBTQ residents are sent to meet others in the community and feel a sense of belonging.

But that sense of safety was shattered this weekend when a gunman entered the club as people were drinking and dancing — killing five people and leaving 17 with gunshot wounds. As the community mourned the lives lost, many were also grieving because it happened at a place that’s seen as a sanctuary for many longing to fit in.

“We weren’t out harming anyone. We were in our space, our community, our home, enjoying ourselves like everybody else does,” said Joshua Thurman, who was on the dance floor when the shooting started. “How can we now do anything knowing something like this can happen?”

An 18-and-up gay and lesbian nightclub, Club Q features dancing, drag shows, karaoke and drag bingo, according to its website. Its Facebook page boasts “Nobody Parties like Club Q!,” and posts flyers for a Halloween party, a shots party, as well as trivia. Some described it as a cozy, welcoming place that drew those who wanted to sit down for a meal and relax, as well as those who wanted to dance into the morning hours.

shooting Nov 21, 2022

Mothers, Friends, Performers Among Dead at Colorado LGBTQ+ Club Shooting

Colorado Nov 21, 2022

Colorado Springs Gunman Faces Murder and Hate Crime Charges

The club’s doors remained closed after the shooting, as many people left flowers at a growing memorial nearby.

Stoney Roberts, the southern Colorado field organizer for One Colorado, an LGBTQ advocacy group, described it as a sacred space and said the shooting felt like a “desecration.”

Roberts, who identifies as a nonbinary trans person, graduated from high school in 2007 and couldn’t wait to be old enough to go to Club Q, which, Roberts said, back then was one of the only safe spaces in Colorado Springs for LGBTQ people.

“I came of age there,” said Roberts, who performed in Club Q’s drag shows from 2009 through 2011. “If it were not for Club Q, if it were not for the experiences I had there, I would not be the person I am.”

A sense of home for members of the LGBTQ community is what Matthew Haynes, one of the club’s co-founders, hoped to create when he started the club two decades ago.

“There have been so many happy stories from Club Q,” Haynes told The Colorado Sun. “People meeting and relationships being born. So many celebrations there. We’re a family of people more than a place to have a drink and dance and leave.”

Colorado’s laws are now among the country’s friendliest to LGBTQ people, though it wasn’t always that way, and Colorado Springs was particularly unwelcoming.

The city of 480,000 located 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Denver has long held a prominent place for the American evangelical Christian movement. Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian ministry that lobbied for years against LGBTQ rights, has its headquarters there.

After the attack, Focus on the Family president Jim Daly said in a statement that the shooting “exposes the evil and wickedness inside the human heart. We must condemn in the strongest terms possible the taking of innocent life.”

The city’s extensive military presence also contributes to its conservative slant. It’s home to the United States Air Force Academy, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Peterson Space Force Base and a large Army base, Fort Carson. Many military veterans also live there.

After the shooting, Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said in a statement that Club Q is a safe haven for LGBTQ people, and “every citizen has the right to be safe and secure in our city; to go about our beautiful city without fear of being harmed or treated poorly.”

Congleton and Ashlyn May, 18, said growing up in Colorado Springs they often felt they had to keep their true selves hidden. May recalled being looked at with disgust when, in a middle school class, she proposed that Queen’s song “I Want to Break Free” was about exploring coming out as gay.

Even now, “it’s scary to hold hands in public,” Congleton said.

But Club Q gave them a place to be themselves. May regularly attends bingo on Wednesday evenings, where a drag queen’s compliment about an outfit tore away their insecurities. “Yes, I am hot!” said May, who was excited to bring their queer younger sister to Club Q for bingo this week to show her “it’s okay to be queer, and it’s okay to love who you love.”

Justin Godwin, 24, and his friend visited Club Q for the first time Saturday and left in an Uber just minutes before the shooting. He said he’s been thinking of all the people who were dancing, sitting at the bar and enjoying the night.

“They’re all there for different reasons, whether they’re regulars, their first time, they’re celebrating something. It’s just supposed to be a fun environment where we feel safe, where people aren’t judging you, giving you looks or anything,” Godwin said. “You’re just being yourself, like no matter how you look, like everyone just feels welcome.”

“It’s just crazy to think someone had the intentions to go in there and just do any harm to anybody,” he said. “It’s just sad for people who find a home somewhere and it gets ruined.”

Korrie Bovee, who identifies as queer, said Club Q has been the cornerstone of a community of like-minded people who have each others’ backs, in a city where verbal harassment is not uncommon and freedom to be oneself is not always found in schools or churches.

“My kids live here,” the 33-year-old said, wiping a tear from her eye. “It’s just hard to know I’m raising my kids in this context.”

Roberts said that as a Black queer person, most places in Colorado Springs seem welcoming, but there is always that “underlying nuance of realizing where you are.”

At Club Q: “You can take a deep breath and you can be your authentic self.”

__

Forliti reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas and David Crary in New York contributed.

First he dove to duck any potential incoming fire, and then he moved to try to disarm the shooter.

“It’s the reflex. Go! Go to the fire. Stop the action. Stop the activity. Don’t let no one get hurt. I tried to bring everybody back,” he said Monday outside his home.

Fierro is one of two men police are crediting with saving lives by subduing a 22-year-old gunman who went on a shooting rampage Saturday night at Club Q, a well-known gathering place for the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs.

Fierro was there with his daughter Kassy, her boyfriend and several other friends to see a drag show and celebrate a birthday. He said it was one of the group’s most enjoyable nights, until the shooting started.

“I just know I got into mode, and I needed to save my family — and my family was at that time everybody in that room,” he said.

Fierro told reporters that once his instincts kicked in, he and another man approached the shooter. He grabbed the attacker’s body armor and began punching him while the other man, Thomas James, began kicking him. The suspect reached for a handgun, but Fierro grabbed it from him. He also told James to kick away the shooter’s AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.

When a performer who was there for the drag show ran by, Fierro told them to kick the gunman. The performer stuffed a high-heeled shoe in the attacker’s face and also tried to subdue him, Fierro said.

“I love them,” Fierro said of the city’s LGBTQ community. “I have nothing but love.”

Fierro and James, about whom little was known as of Monday evening, pinned the shooter down until officers arrived minutes later.

Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said Monday that Fierro acted courageously.

“I have never encountered a person who had engaged in such heroic actions who was so humble about it,” Vasquez said. “He simply said to me, ‘I was trying to protect my family.’”

Fierro served in the military for 15 years, doing tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, before leaving as a major. He said saving lives is “what I was trained to do.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” he said, adding he was there to watch his daughter’s junior prom date perform. “I’m not a hero, I’m just some dude,” he said.

The mass shooting left five dead and at least 17 wounded by gunfire. The suspect, who was said to be carrying multiple guns and additional ammunition magazines, faces murder and hate crime charges.

Colorado Shooting Coverage:

shooting Nov 21, 2022

Mothers, Friends, Performers Among Dead at Colorado LGBTQ+ Club Shooting

Colorado Nov 21, 2022

Colorado Springs Gunman Faces Murder and Hate Crime Charges

Fierro’s wife, Jess, said via Facebook that her husband had bruised his right side and injured his hands, knees and ankle. “He was covered in blood,” she wrote on the page of their brewery, Atrevida Beer Co.

Though his actions saved lives, Fierro said the five deaths — including his daughter’s boyfriend, Raymond Green Vance — were a tragedy both personal and for the broader community.

“There are five people that I could not help. And one of which was family to me,” he said, as his brother put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

Fierro said he doesn’t remember if the gunman responded as he yelled and struggled to subdue him, but he has thought about their next interaction.

“I’m gonna see that guy in court,” Fierro said. “And that guy’s gonna see who did him.”

Source: The Gun Violence Archive
Amy O’Kruk/NBC

Metz reported from Salt Lake City. Associated Press reporter Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed.

Club regulars and newcomers — gay and straight, transgender and cisgender — flocked to Club Q over the weekend to dance, enjoy a comedy show or work behind the bar. What began as a typical Saturday evening of dancing and drinking at the preeminent LGBTQ establishment in the conservative-leaning Colorado city south of Denver ended in tragedy when a gunman entered and began spraying bullets before he was tackled and subdued.

In the mostly conservative city of Colorado Springs, Club Q has long been a go-to spot for members of the LGBTQ+ community — a safe space where many felt they could just be themselves. But that was shattered this weekend.

The Colorado Springs Police Department also identified Thomas James and Richard Fierro as the two civilians “whose heroic actions stopped the suspect and saved lives.”

These are the victims:

Daniel Aston

Daniel Aston, 28, grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma and moved to be closer to family in Colorado Springs two years ago. He worked as a bartender and entertainer at Club Q and cherished the venue as a sanctuary where as a transgender man he could be himself and perform to a lauding audience, his mother Sabrina Aston told The Associated Press.

The self-proclaimed “Master of Silly Business,” Aston had a propensity for making others laugh that started as a child when he would don elaborate costumes and write plays acted out by neighborhood kids. In college, where he was president of his school’s LGBTQ club, he put on fundraisers with ever-more flashy productions.

″(Daniel’s shows) are great. Everybody needs to go see him,” his mother said. “He lit up a room, always smiling, always happy and silly,” she said.

Derrick Rump

Derrick Rump, 38, a bartender at Club Q, was remembered as a loving person with a quick wit who adopted his friends as his family.

His mother, Julia Thames, said in a statement that Rump was “a kind loving person who had a heart of gold.”

“He was always there for my daughter and myself when we needed him; also his friends from Colorado, which he would say was his family also,” she said in the statement.

Rump’s friend, Anthony Jaramillo, told CBS News that Rump was “loving, supportive, with a heavy hand in his drink pouring, and just a really good listener and would not be afraid to tell you when you were wrong instead of telling you what you wanted to hear and that was really valuable.”

Colorado Shooting Coverage:

Colorado Nov 21, 2022

Colorado Springs Gunman Faces Murder and Hate Crime Charges

shooting Nov 20, 2022

Despite Prior Bomb Threat, Gay Club Shooting Suspect Evaded Colorado Red Flag Gun Law

Kelly Loving

Kelly Loving, 40, had been talking to a friend on a FaceTime call from inside Club Q just minutes before the shooting started. Natalee Skye Bingham told The New York Times that the last thing she said to Loving was: “Be safe. I love you.”

“She was like a trans mother to me. I looked up to her,” Bingham said. “In the gay community you create your families, so it’s like I lost my real mother almost.”

Bingham, 25, said Loving, had only recently moved to Denver and was visiting the club while on a weekend trip to Colorado Springs.

“She was a tough woman,” Bingham said. “She taught me how it was to be a trans woman and live your life day to day.”

Loving’s sister, Tiffany Loving, told the newspaper that the FBI told her that her sister had been killed.

“She was loving, always trying to help the next person out instead of thinking of herself,” Tiffany Loving said.

“My condolences go out to all the families who lost someone in this tragic event, and to everyone struggling to be accepted in this world. My sister was a good person. She was loving and caring and sweet. Everyone loved her,” Tiffany Loving added in a separate statement released by the Colorado Springs Police Department.

Raymond Green Vance

Raymond Green Vance went to Club Q on Saturday night with his girlfriend, Kassy Fierro, and her father, Rich, the co-owner of Atrevida Beer Co., a local brewery in Colorado Springs. The group was there to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

“My sweet baby. ill never be able to heal from this. i want to wake up from this horrendous nightmare. i pray u hear me when i call for you. im so sorry. ill never forgive myself for taking everyone there. i will love you til the day i get to come back home to your arms,” Kassy Fierro wrote in a Facebook post Monday accompanied by a photo of the couple.

Vance’s mother confirmed her son’s death to The Colorado Springs Gazette.

Ashley Paugh

Ashley Paugh, 35, enjoyed hunting and fishing and just shot a deer last week, her sister Stephanie Clark told NBC News. A resident of La Junta, a 7,500-person town about a two-hour’s drive from Colorado Springs, Paugh was visiting for the day with a friend when they went to Club Q on Saturday night for a comedy act.

Clark said Paugh had a husband and an 11-year-old daughter, who is “devastated” by her death. It left the family reeling just days before Thanksgiving.

Associated Press News Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York and reporter Jesse Bedayn in Colorado Springs contributed to this report. Bedayn is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Online court records showed that the 22-year-old suspected gunman faced five murder charges and five charges of committing a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury in Saturday night’s attack at Club Q. He remained hospitalized with unspecified injuries, police said.

The charges were preliminary, and prosecutors had not filed them in court. The hate crime charges would require proving that the gunman was motivated by bias, such as against the victims’ actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

The attack was halted when a patron grabbed a handgun from the suspect, hit him with it and pinned him down until police arrived minutes later.

Court documents laying out what led to the suspect’s arrest have been sealed at the request of prosecutors, who said releasing details could jeopardize the investigation. Information on whether the suspect had a lawyer was not immediately available.

A law enforcement official said the suspect used an AR-15-style semi-automatic weapon, but a handgun and additional ammunition magazines also were recovered. The official could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Officials on Monday clarified that 18 people were hurt in the attack, not 25 as they said originally. Among them was one person whose injury was not a gunshot wound. Another victim had no visible injuries, they said.

Thirteen people remained hospitalized Monday, officials said. Five people have been treated and released.

Mayor John Suthers said there was “reason to hope” all of the hospitalized victims would recover.

Questions were quickly raised about why authorities didn’t seek to take the suspect’s guns away from him in 2021, when he was arrested after his mother reported he threatened her with a homemade bomb and other weapons.

Though authorities at the time said no explosives were found, gun-control advocates have asked why police didn’t use Colorado’s “red flag” laws to seize the weapons his mother says he had. There’s no public record prosecutors ever moved forward with felony kidnapping and menacing charges against the suspect.

The shooting rekindled memories of the 2016 massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people. Colorado has experienced several mass killings, including at Columbine High School in 1999, a movie theater in suburban Denver in 2012 and at a Boulder supermarket last year.

It was the sixth mass killing this month, and it came in a year when the nation was shaken by the deaths of 21 in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

The violence pierced the cozy confines of an entertainment venue long cherished as a safe spot for the LGBTQ community in the conservative-leaning city.

A makeshift memorial that sprang up in the hours after the attack continued to grow Monday, as a steady stream of mourners brought flowers and left messages in support of the LGBTQ community. The shooting site remained cordoned off.

“It’s a reminder that love and acceptance still have a long way to go,” Colorado Springs resident Mary Nikkel said at the site. “This growing monument to people is saying that it matters what happened to you … We’re just not letting it go.”

The club was one of few nightspots for the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs, residents said. Authorities were called at 11:57 p.m. Saturday with multiple reports of a shooting, and the first officer arrived at midnight.

Joshua Thurman said he was in the club with about two dozen other people and was dancing when the shots began. He initially thought it was part of the music, until he heard another shot and said he saw the flash of a gun muzzle.

Thurman, 34, said he ran to a dressing room where he hid with others. They locked the door, turned off the lights and got on the floor as they heard the violence unfolding, including the gunman being subdued.

“I could have lost my life — over what?” he said, tears running down his cheeks. “We weren’t out harming anyone. We were in our space, our community, our home, enjoying ourselves like everybody else does.”

Detectives were examining whether anyone had helped the suspect before the attack. Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said patrons who intervened during the attack were “heroic” and prevented more deaths.

Club Q is a gay and lesbian nightclub that features a drag show on Saturdays, according to its website. Club Q’s Facebook page said planned entertainment included a “punk and alternative show” preceding a birthday dance party, with a Sunday all-ages drag brunch.

Drag events have become a focus of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and protests recently as opponents, including politicians, have proposed banning children from them, falsely claiming that they are used to “groom” children.

The shooting came during Transgender Awareness Week and just at the start of Sunday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, when events around the world are held to mourn and remember transgender people lost to violence.

Colorado Springs, a city of about 480,000 located 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Denver, is home to the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Olympic Training Center, as well as Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical Christian ministry that lobbies against LGBTQ rights. The group condemned the shooting and said it “exposes the evil and wickedness inside the human heart.”

In 2015, three people were killed and eight wounded at a Planned Parenthood clinic in the city when a gunman targeted the clinic because it performed abortions.

Since 2006, there have been 523 mass killings and 2,727 deaths as of Nov. 19, according to The Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the U.S.

Bedayn is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Associated Press reporters Haven Daley in Colorado Springs, Colleen Slevin in Denver, Michael Balsamo in Washington, Jamie Stengle in Dallas, Jeff McMillan in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed.

Fort Lupton Police Department officer Jordan Steinke was charged with one count of criminal attempt to commit manslaughter, one count of second-degree assault and one count of reckless endangerment, the Weld County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Platteville Police Department Sgt. Pablo Vazquez is charged with one count of reckless endangerment, one count of obstructing a highway or other passageway, one count of careless driving and one count of parking where prohibited.

Steinke and Vazquez could not immediately be reached for comment. It was unclear whether either officer retained attorneys.

The officers responded to a reported road rage incident involving Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, 20, who was accused of threatening a woman with a gun, the Colorado Bureau of Investigations said.

Police stopped Rios-Gonzalez’s car right just past a set of railroad tracks, with the patrol SUV parked right behind her on the train’s crossing. She was detained on suspicion of felony menacing and handcuffed inside Vazquez’s police cruiser.

Police bodycamera and dashboard camera video captured the moment a Union Pacific freight train barreled down the tracks and slammed into the patrol vehicle, with the woman inside, as officers were searching her car.

Rios-Gonzalez suffered serious injuries in the crash, including a broken arm, multiple rib fractures, loss of several teeth and injuries to her head and legs, according to her attorney.

Her attorney did not immediately return NBC’s request for comment.

NBC affiliate KUSA reported the Platteville Police Department had placed Vazquez on administrative leave following the incident. His employment status was not clear Tuesday.

The Fort Lupton Police Department, which is handling the criminal investigation related to the incident, did not immediately respond to NBC News’ inquiry Tuesday about Steinke’s employment status.

The crash closed both lanes of West 6th Avenue between North Kalamath Street and North Federal Boulevard.

Videos and photos of aftermath from NBC affiliate KUSA show mangled vehicle and drivers exiting their vehicles and walking down the road as tow trucks move inoperable cars to a nearby lot.

No deaths were reported and police said injuries to drivers and passengers were minor.

Denver Police spokesperson Doug Schepman said slick roads after snowfall Thursday night was the likely cause.

The road has since been reopened.

Just after 1:50 p.m., officers responded to several 911 calls reporting multiple people shot on the 1400 block of Verbena Street.

A man was pronounced dead at the scene. Three men and two women were transported to a nearby hospital where three remained in critical condition and one with non-life threatening injuries, Denver Police Commander Matt Clark said in a press conference.

Investigators believe three suspects inside a vehicle going north on Verbena Street got out and fired multiple gunshots at the victims standing on the corner before fleeing east on Colfax. The gunmen later switched to a dark-colored vehicle near the intersection of 12th Avenue and Yosemite Street.

NBC’s local affiliate KUSA-TV reported officers were investigating an area centered around a convenience store at 8332 E. Colfax Ave.

Anyone with information is asked to call 720-913-7867. 

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The crash happened Sept. 17 after police in Platteville, Colorado, pulled over Yareni Rios-Gonzalez following a 911 report about a road rage incident with a gun, according to NBC affiliate 9News. A Platteville officer parked the cruiser on the tracks while a Fort Lupton officer placed Rios-Gonzalez inside.

Shortly after the arrest, video obtained by the local news station shows a Union Pacific freight train colliding with the police car. 

Rios-Gonzalez, of Greeley, is recovering at home with nine broken ribs, a broken arm, a fractured sternum and numerous other injuries to her head and back, her attorney, Paul Wilkinson, told 9News.

“She is bedridden,” attorney Paul Wilkinson told 9News, who added that she also later learned she had a fractured leg. “She’s still really, really hurt.”

The Weld County District Attorney’s Office told 9News on Monday that a potential road rage case against Rios-Gonzalez is still being reviewed. There are no charges yet for Rios-Gonzalez for the road rage incident. The police officers involved in the train crash incident have also not been charged.

The names of the officers involved have not been released. Platteville Police Chief Carl Dwyer previously told NBC News that the officer involved from his department was placed on paid administrative leave while an investigation is completed.

cold case Sep 26, 2022

Body of Virginia 17-Year-Old Who Went Missing in 1975 Identified

Crime and Courts Sep 26, 2022

Man Arrested in California Plotted ‘Las Vegas-Style' Mass Shooting: Police

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said an officer with the Platteville Police Department found the vehicle and stopped it near U.S. 85 and County Road 36. Rios-Gonzalez stopped just beyond the railroad tracks, and the patrol officer stopped behind it on the tracks.

Two Fort Lupton officers arrived, CBI said, and the officers conducted a high-risk traffic stop. They detained Rios-Gonzalez on suspicion of felony menacing and put her in the back of the Platteville Police car, according to CBI.

Videos released on Sept. 23 by the Platteville and Fort Lupton police departments show that officers were not initially aware that Rios-Gonzalez was in the patrol vehicle when it was hit by a train. 

The Fort Lupton Police Department provided a video that is eight minutes long and contains edited portions of clips after the local news station filed a records request.

As the officers searching the truck discussed whether Rios-Gonzalez might have tossed a gun out a window before she pulled over, a train horn could be heard in the distance. One officer shouted an expletive and said, “Oh my God” multiple times. Another officer could be heard yelling, “Stay back!” An officer standing by the patrol car that Rios-Gonzalez was in ran before it was struck by the train.

About two seconds after that, the train slams into the patrol car and is pushing it down the tracks.

About 20 seconds later, the Platteville officer is heard saying, “Hey, was she in there?”

He moves closer to the Fort Lupton officer and repeats himself, saying, “Was she in there? Was she in there? Was she in there?”

The Fort Lupton officer replies, “Oh my God, yes she was.”

She immediately radios for medical assistance. Both officers run toward the crash scene, but the clip ends before they arrive.

Some of the video released shows the moments when police pulled over Rios-Gonzales, who was a suspect in an earlier road rage call and placed her in the police patrol car on the tracks.

In that portion of the video, Rios-Gonzales appears to comply with officers’ requests and answers their questions.

At one point, it’s noted that a “round” is found near the driver’s side door and a gun holster is found in the vehicle. Just before the video provided to 9NEWS ends, an officer searching the vehicle is heard saying, “There’s your gun.”

Stine, Rios-Gonzalez’s attorney, who in an interview on Monday to NBCNews said he plans to sue on her behalf, described the officers’ actions as “unspeakably negligent.”

“It’s potentially criminal and beyond my comprehension how this could happen the way that it happened,” he said. “It’s indescribable. You cannot describe it unless you actually see it — how irresponsible this was.”

Stine said Rios-Gonzalez worked as a TSA agent and “is very upset about what happened.”

NBC News and NBC affiliate 9News contributed to this report.

The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the crash and the number of fatalities.

No one with the sheriff’s office could be immediately reached Saturday for additional information.

The collision was first reported at 8:54 a.m., according to NBC affiliate KUSA of Denver.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

Alan Lee Phillips, 71, was arrested last year in the mountain hamlet of Dumont, west of Denver, after local, state and federal authorities using DNA evidence identified him as a suspect in the killings of Annette Schnee, 21, and Barbara “Bobbi Jo” Oberholtzer, 29.

A Park County jury in Fairplay deliberated for just five hours before convicting Phillips of eight counts late Thursday, including first-degree murder after deliberation and first-degree murder involving felony kidnapping and robbery, Rob McCallum, a spokesman for the Colorado Judicial Department, said Friday.

Phillips faces life in prison when he is sentenced at a hearing set for Nov. 7.

Local, state and federal authorities used DNA testing to help identify Phillips as a potential suspect. A miner and automobile mechanic, Phillips had lived in the area over the past four decades. He was arrested in early 2021.

Authorities said the two women, whose bodies were found in separate locations, had no connection. Both were believed to be hitchhiking outside Breckenridge, a ski resort town about 60 miles (96 kilometers) southwest of Denver, when they disappeared on Jan. 6, 1982.

Friends and family discovered Oberholtzer’s body the next day in a snow drift on the summit of 11,542-foot (3,463-meter) Hoosier Pass, near Breckenridge, one day after she disappeared. Schnee’s body was discovered six months later, fully clothed, by a boy fishing in a creek in rural Park County. Both women had been shot.

Investigators said Phillips was rescued the night that the women disappeared from the top of nearby Guanella Pass when his truck got stuck during a snowstorm, KUSA-TV reported. The victims did not know Phillips or each other.

“Bobbi Jo was a fighter and is a hero. She fought back and because of that we were able to get DNA evidence to convict Annette and Bobbi Jo’s killer after all this time,” Linda Stanley, district attorney for the 11th Judicial District, said in a statement.

“This absolutely gives hope to people,” said Deputy District Attorney Mark Hurlbert, who helped prosecute the case. “This case being so old, this (verdict) shows there’s no case that can’t be solved.”

Phillips was represented by the public defender’s office, which does not comment on cases.

Those are a few of the dire consequences that could result if states, cities and farms across the American West cannot agree on how to cut the amount of water they draw from the Colorado River.

Yet for years, seven states that depend on the river have allowed more water to be taken from it than nature can replenish. Despite widespread recognition of the crisis, the states missed a deadline this week to propose major cuts that the federal government has said are necessary.

And again, the government failed to force harsh decisions and stopped short of imposing the cuts on its own, despite previous threats to do so.

Any unilateral action from federal officials would likely move conversations from negotiating tables to courtrooms and delay action even longer.

The river, which cascades from the Rockies down to the deserts of the Southwest, quenches the thirst of 40 million people in the U.S. and Mexico and sustains a $15 billion-a-year agricultural industry.

But for a century, agreements governing how it’s shared have been based on faulty assumptions about how much water is available. With climate change making the region hotter and drier, that discrepancy is becoming impossible to ignore.

Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the two largest reservoirs that hold Colorado River water, have fallen to dangerously low levels faster than anyone expected. The decline threatens to disrupt hydroelectric power production and water sent to cities and farms.

Though everyone agrees the stakes are high, states and the U.S. government have struggled to reach a consensus on what to do.

People have “been hoping to stave off this day,” said Felicia Marcus, a former top water official in California, which holds the largest right to the river’s water. “But now I think we can’t expect Mother Nature to bail us out next year. The time for some of these really hard decisions is now.”

The river is also tapped by Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Mexico and some tribes.

For years, officials have issued warnings about the state of the river, but also reassured people that the system won’t crash. That two-part message was front and center this week, when the states failed to meet a deadline set by the Bureau of Reclamation for them to propose 15% to 30% cuts to their water use.

As the deadline passed Tuesday, the potentially dramatic moment amounted to a shrug. Officials said they still have faith the states will reach a deal if given more time.

Visiting California the next day, Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton repeatedly dodged questions about what might happen next. She’s given no specifics about what the bureau’s more aggressive actions might look like, or when they might happen.

The federal government, she said, “is ready to move forward on our own.” But officials “will continue to talk to everybody about what the process is.”

Not everyone is satisfied with that approach.

“I’m asking them to at least lay out very clearly how that threat will be imposed,” Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager John Entsminger said.

Entsminger and his counterparts in Arizona, Utah and California, as well as local officials in and around Phoenix, also repeated what has become a common refrain: They said they were gravely concerned about the river’s future, yet wanted to reassure their water users that the river won’t stop flowing imminently.

“This is not a situation where people should be concerned about, you know, water running out in days or weeks or even months. But it’s very clear that this entire river system is experiencing something that’s never happened before,” said Wade Crowfoot, California’s natural resources secretary.

The cuts would force hard decisions about who has to live with less. Water bills could rise as states tap other sources and adopt technology such as wastewater recycling to make up the difference.

In some places, officials have voluntarily implemented strict conservation measures, including limiting lawn watering and paying farmers not to plant fields, even banning new water hookups. The climate legislation signed Tuesday by President Joe Biden provides $4 billion that could be used to pay Colorado River users to cut back, but it’s not clear how that would work.

The river’s shrinkage has inflamed tensions between Rocky Mountain states and their downstream neighbors over who should shoulder the burden. It also pits growing cities against agricultural regions.

In Pinal County, Arizona, Kelly Anderson grows specialty crops for the flower industry and leases land to alfalfa farmers whose crops feed cattle at nearby dairy farms. He expects about half of the area to go unplanted next year, after farmers in the region lose all access to the river.

Though farmers use most of the water, they have less wiggle room to conserve than cities, which can more easily recycle water or tap other sources. The river is a lifeblood in places like California’s Imperial Valley, which grows vegetables like broccoli, onions and carrots. Water shortages could send ripple effects throughout the food system.

States aren’t the only ones at the table. Native American tribes hold some of the oldest water rights and occupy a unique position in negotiations because the federal government is required to protect their interests.

The Colorado River Indian Tribes along the Arizona-California border have contributed water to boost Lake Mead in the past. They could be called on again.

“Our senior rights do not mean we can or should sit on the sidelines,” Colorado River Indian Tribes Chairwoman Amelia Flores said. “We won’t let this river die.”

Upper basin states — Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming — argue that they shouldn’t face cuts because they historically haven’t used all the water they were promised a century ago.

They want to protect their share in anticipation of population growth and haven’t pursued policies that save water as much as states like Arizona and Nevada.

Zach Frankel, executive director of the Utah Rivers Council, said many in the Rockies cling to an erroneous belief that their water rights are safe, cuts will continue to hit their downstream neighbors and one wet winter could reverse the river’s decline.

“If we don’t agree about what the crisis is, we’re not going to have the impetus to come up with a solution,” he said.

Arizona, Nevada and California say they’re willing to put water or money on the table, but so far that hasn’t been enough to yield an agreement.

A growing chorus of veteran officials and environmental advocates say both the states and the federal government are sending muddled messages by stressing the gravity of the situation yet delaying meaningful action.

James Eklund, an attorney and former director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said the shrinking reservoirs present an opportunity to rethink how to manage the river and incentivize conservation — if only officials will take it.

Bureaucrats, he said, continue to think they can postpone changes. The problem is “that doesn’t really work here because no action means we’re driving toward a cliff.”

___

Ronayne reported from Madera, California. Associated Press Writer Felicia Fonseca contributed from Flagstaff, Arizona.

“I’ve always seen childbirth in movies and the TV shows, but never the real thing. It was definitely eye-opening,” Lucas of Longmont, Colorado, told TODAY Parents. “It’s something new and amazing that’s happening to this family. That’s wonderful — but also crazy.”

The couple, Tessa Rider and Matthew Jones, arrived at the pool about 10:30 a.m. Jones said the baby was positioned in such a way that he rested on Rider’s nerves and hip, causing her intense pain that only lessened when she was in the pool. After getting in the water, Rider began floating peacefully on a pool noodle. A few minutes later, she said she needed to get out of the pool because she was in labor.  

“She looks at me and says, ‘We need to go,’” Jones, 29, of Longmont, Colorado, told TODAY Parents. “Tessa has barely made it out of the pool, she’s like two, three steps from the rail. She’s on all fours and she’s visibly in pain and also in the middle of the contraction.”Jones thought he’d grab their stuff and head to the car for the hospital but it soon became clear that would not happen. Lucas saw Rider “crawling out of the pool” and wondered if she was OK. At first, the lifeguard thought Rider was uncomfortable because she was so pregnant.

“I was like, ‘This doesn’t look great. Let me go over to see what’s happening,’” she said. “I walk on over to them and they say, ‘We’re having the baby.’”

Lucas said her “adrenaline kicked” in and she rushed for the emergency medical bags, towels and asked someone to call 911.

“I start trying to help in any way I can, trying to support her and make sure she’s comfortable,” Lucas said. “They’re both staying extremely calm, which helps me because I’m shaking a little. But I know I need to help and make sure I’m there with them in any way I can because I’m the lifesaver.”

Jones had also called 911 but when his wife tore off her bathing suit, he tossed the phone aside.

“Within seconds the baby’s heading is coming out,” Jones said. “The baby’s body comes out, along with a torrent of amniotic fluid from her water breaking as the baby comes out.”

Rider, 29, “is visibly in pain and shaking.” She didn’t deliver the placenta so the baby — who the coupled named Tobin or Toby for short — is still attached. Lucas relied on her instincts to bolster Rider, who is “shaking and in shock.”

“There’s a funny picture of me sitting back-to-back with her so she could put her weight on me to support her and give her some relaxation and calm,” Lucas said. “I was trying to help in any way I can.”

Jones felt grateful that Lucas jumped in to help his wife.

“Natalie focused her attention and care on my wife so I could focus my attention and my car on my son,” he said. “Without her, I would not have been able to give that focus to Toby and make sure he was healthy and safe.”

Toby cried immediately and Lucas spoke with 911 operators when Jones couldn’t.

“We’re on the phone with the dispatcher, making sure the baby’s breathing,” she said. “We had to make sure his chest was rising and falling … I had to clean out the baby’s mouth to make sure the airway wasn’t blocked and that he had an open passage to continue breathing.”

When the ambulance arrived right before 11 a.m., the EMTs cut the umbilical cord and took mom and baby to the hospital. The two were healthy and “Toby was in perfect condition.”

“Contrary to the surrounding events of his birth, he is the most chill baby I ever had,” Jones said.  

Lucas feels like delivering a baby is just part of the job as lifeguard.

“You have to be prepared for anything,” she said. “Most days are sitting around and watching people but there are some days that you do have to be prepared.”

This fall, Lucas will attend San Diego State University studying criminal justice and swimming for a recreational team. She said this experience will make her a better lifeguard.

“I’ve only helped toddlers maybe like 4 or 5 that I’ve picked up from when they step off into the deep end. There was actually a woman probably three days earlier that she was choking in water and I almost had to jump in and give her the Heimlich,” Lucas explained. “(This experience) broadens more horizons.”

As for Jones and Rider, they’re grateful for everything Lucas did.

“There is nothing more personal and more heartwarming than someone supporting you while you bring a new person into the world,” Jones said.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Fox host says women who haven’t been pregnant aren’t ‘ripe’ enough to run for president
• 6 tips for traveling with a toddler every parent needs
• Hoda and Savannah rock out with Hoda’s daughters at Walker Hayes concert

A wealthy dentist from Pennsylvania accused of shooting and killing his wife in their cabin at the end of an African safari trip testified Wednesday that an unfamiliar shotgun they brought with them to hunt a leopard accidentally went off, wounding her as she hurried to pack early in the morning.

“I did not kill my wife. I could not murder my wife. I would not murder my wife,” Lawrence “Larry” Rudolph told jurors Wednesday.

His voice cracked at times as he testified for over two hours about his open marriage to Bianca Rudolph and her death in October 2016 in Zambia. He said he was in the bathroom when he heard the shot and came out and found his wife on the floor, bleeding.

Rudolph, 67, is charged with murder and mail fraud in what prosecutors describe as a premeditated crime. He faces a maximum term of life in prison or the death penalty if convicted of murder in the trial, which is being held in federal court in Denver because the insurance companies that paid him nearly $5 million for his wife’s death were based in Colorado.

Prosecutors allege Rudolph killed his wife of 34 years to be with his girlfriend, Lori Milliron, who is charged with lying to a grand jury and being an accessory after the fact. She is being tried alongside Rudolph. In opening statements, the prosecution told jurors that Rudolph was overheard blurting out “I killed my f—g wife for you!” during an argument with Milliron at a Phoenix steakhouse in 2020 after he learned that the FBI was investigating his wife’s death.

Rudolph denied confessing to his wife’s killing. He said he and Milliron were having an argument about their finances and how the COVID-19 pandemic, then at its start, would affect the Pennsylvania dental franchise that had made him a small fortune. But he was irritated because he said his top concern was the FBI’s probe.

Rudolph said what he actually said was “Now they’re saying I killed my f—- wife for you.”

After being close to divorce twice, Rudolph said he and his wife, who had two children, agreed to stay married in 2000 but pursue sexual relationships with other people. He said the tension in their marriage eased after that, describing themselves as “reasonably happy” in their arrangement. Rudolph said neither Milliron nor his wife issued him any ultimatums about ending his relationship with the other.

Rudolph’s lawyer, David Markus, has argued that Rudolph had no financial motive for murder. Rudolph was worth more than $15 million when his wife died and the insurance payout went into a trust for their children.

Zambian authorities determined two days after the Oct. 11, 2016, shooting that it was accidental, according to the defense. Investigators for the insurers who later paid $4.8 million reached the same conclusion.

Prosecutors counter that evidence shows Bianca Rudolph’s wounds came from a shot fired from 2 to 3.5 feet (1 meter) away.

The alleged admission happened during an argument between Lawrence “Larry” Rudolph and his girlfriend, Lori Milliron, at a Phoenix steakhouse after he learned in 2020 that the FBI was investigating his wife Bianca Rudolph’s shooting death in a small cabin in Zambia, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bishop Grewell said in a Denver courtroom.

“He killed his wife for HER!,” Grewell said, pointing at Milliron, who is charged with lying to a grand jury and being an accessory after the fact and is being tried alongside Rudolph.

Rudolph, 67, is charged with murder and mail fraud in what prosecutors describe as a premeditated crime. He faces a maximum term of life in prison or the death penalty if convicted of murder in the trial, which is being held in a Colorado courtroom because the insurance payouts were based here.

Rudolph has maintained his innocence. He told Zambian police his wife died while he was in the bathroom, suggesting she shot herself while trying to pack a shotgun the couple took on the trip.

“They’ve chosen speculation over science. They’ve chosen fiction over fact,” declared Rudolph’s attorney, David Markus, in an equally impassioned opening statement.

Markus argued that the Rudolphs, the parents of two children, were in a happy marriage in 2016 that over the years had its ups and downs because both had had extramarital affairs — but that both continued to take frequent big game hunting trips. Bianca Rudolph was long aware of her husband’s relationship with Milliron, he said.

Markus had the couple’s grown children stand in court to affirm to jurors they were there to support their father, who along with Milliron paid close attention to the opening statements.

Milliron’s attorney, John Dill, told jurors his client knew nothing about any alleged murder and suggested she is the victim of leading questions by investigators and the grand jury.

“This isn’t a trial about adultery,” Dill said.

No one witnessed the shotgun blast in the cabin, said Milliron’s attorney, John Dill. The shotgun occurred about 5 a.m. as local guides were in and out serving the couple coffee and helping them prepare for the return trip to the U.S., Markus said.

Within seconds, the guides were inside, finding Rudolph in distress and shock, Markus said. With support staff in and out that morning, the cabin’s doors open and window shades pulled up, Rudolph wouldn’t have had time to get away with shooting his wife, Markus argued.

Displaying a photo of the cabin — blood spattered on the floor, Bianca’s body covered by a black-striped white blanket, a 12-gauge Browning shotgun lying inside a soft case nearby — Markus argued that Bianca accidentally dropped the weapon, triggering the fatal shot in the heart, as she hurriedly packed up for the trip while Larry Rudolph was in the bathroom.

Zambian authorities determined two days after the Oct. 11, 2016, shooting that it was accidental, Markus said. Investigators for the insurers who later paid $4.8 million reached the same conclusion.

Prosecutors counter that evidence shows her wounds came from a shot fired from 2 to 3.5 feet away.

The government will prove that Rudolph, who built a small fortune with a Pennsylvania dental franchise, killed Bianca after receiving an ultimatum from Milliron, a former hygienist and manager of his office, that he divorce his wife, Grewell said.

Federal prosecutors, citing a U.S. consular official and others in Zambia, say Rudolph was in a hurry to have his wife cremated before returning home. A friend of Bianca’s, too, told the FBI she was suspicious because Bianca was a devout Catholic who would have opposed the practice.

But Markus displayed to jurors a copy of what he said was Bianca’s will stating she wanted to be cremated in the event of her death.

Markus argued that Rudolph had no financial motive for murder. His net worth was more than $15 million at the time; the insurance proceeds went into a trust for their children; and a prenuptial agreement with Bianca specified she’d get $2 million in case of a divorce, he said.

Rudolph plans to testify during the three-week trial, Markus said.

“He has the truth on his side,” Rudolph said.

Markus also told jurors that Rudolph’s alleged admission of guilt at the Phoenix restaurant was misheard by the witness. He claimed that what his client actually said was, “They’re saying I killed my f—g wife for you,” Markus said.

“If that is what this case depends on, I can’t believe we’re going to be here for three weeks,” Markus said.

The case has attracted attention from Zambia to Pennsylvania to Arizona, where the Rudolphs — and later Rudolph and Milliron — established a comfortable residence in the Phoenix-area enclave of Paradise Valley.

Rudolph had built a small fortune as a dentist and later owner of a dental sedation franchise in the Pittsburgh area. He was a familiar fixture on local TV, advertising his services. He met Bianca at the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied dentistry, and they married in 1982.

The couple took frequent trips abroad and had traveled to Kafue National Park in 2016 so Bianca could fulfill her wish of bagging a leopard.

On June 14, Virginia Havens of Idaho Springs, Colorado, was cooking dinner while her children, ages 11, 8, 7, and 4, played in the backyard and their father, Daniel, cleaned the car.

Suddenly, their 2-year-old dog Lady, a pit bull-Chihuahua mix, started barking aggressively in the yard.

“I heard my husband screaming, ‘Get in the house now’ and my kids crying, ‘Wolf!'” Havens, 37, told TODAY Parents, adding that she ran to her front door. “I had a surreal moment where I thought, ‘Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?'”

A “huge” mountain lion, which Haven estimated to be at least five feet long, was facing Lady.

According to Havens, Lady charged at the lion and the animals started fighting while the family ran inside.

Havens wanted to run back to help Lady, but it was too dangerous, so she fled to her daughter’s second-floor bedroom. There, she opened the window and hurled a pair of pink roller skates at the cat, to distract him from the bloody scuffle with Lady.

“I was frantic and my kids were crying,” said Havens, who called 911 from the house.

Officers arrived within five minutes and fired three non-lethal bean bag rifle rounds, two of which hit the lion, forcing it to retreat into the mountains.

Idaho Springs Police Chief Nathan Buseck told TODAY Parents that animal-on-animal attacks do not require the use of lethal force, although a responding officer was prepared to shoot the lion with a rifle had the family been in danger.

Lady survived the 20-minute fight and as she trotted toward the house, Havens was hopeful, despite her injuries.

“She was bloody and had a hole in her skull,” recalled Havens. “As she got closer, I could see her right eye bulging and she had labored breathing.”

Havens scooped up her dog and wrapped her in a towel. The family drove to Evolution Veterinary Specialists, an animal hospital nearby.

Lady was taken into triage, where doctors said her outlook was dim.

“She had three holes in her skull and the underside of her snout was punctured, which is why she couldn’t breathe well,” explained Havens. “Doctors couldn’t guarantee she’d live through the night.”

The Havens family made the devastating decision to put Lady down.

“Doctors gave Lady pain medication but she was whimpering uncontrollably,” said an emotional Havens, adding that she had prepared her children for Lady’s “owies.”

“The kids were in a puddle of tears but seeing Lady like that also helped them understand the reason to let her go,” said Havens. “We said goodbye and kissed Lady and thanked her.”

Havens said park rangers informed her family that the lion wouldn’t likely return because it didn’t make a kill.

According to the Native Animal Rescue shelter in Santa Cruz, Calif., once lions kill their prey, they eat the carcass until full, then bury the rest. After a fasting period, they return and continue eating.

Havens is comforted by the unlikelihood of the cat returning, but she’s wary about allowing her children to play in the yard as they have for the past nine years. According to Buseck, it’s not uncommon for a mountain lion to enter a residential yard, although bears tend to be a larger problem in the area.

While Lady will never be replaced, the family has welcomed another dog into their home: a puppy named Boaz.

A photo of Lady is now mounted on the Havens’ wall.

“Lady was our little angel,” said Havens. “She was a warrior.”

Related video:

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Halsey says they rewrote their will while pregnant because of previous miscarriages
• Elon Musk shares rare photo of himself with 4 older sons
• Andy Cohen is every parent traveling in video with upset kids: ‘Summer should be fun’

“He just wanted to listen to music,” Ridder, 31, told TODAY Parents.

Trying to keep the mood light, Ridder asked Brody, a sixth grader in Westminster, Colorado, about his yearbook. Earlier that day, Ridder had received an email stating that students would be bringing yearbooks home. Did he get lots of signatures?

Brody’s eyes filled with tears. 

“He said that he’d asked the kids in his class if they would sign his yearbook and some flat-out said no,” Ridder revealed. “A couple of his classmates jotted down their names — but there were no messages. There was nothing about how smart, funny and awesome he is.”

Brody handed his mom the yearbook so that she could take a look. What Ridder saw made her heart sink.

“He’d written a note to himself. It read, ‘I hope you make some more friends,’ and he signed his own name,” Ridder shared.

Ridder said Brody, who loves chess, fencing and dinosaurs, sits alone at lunch and plays by himself at recess. She said Brody’s peers don’t really understand his interests.

“He’s super intellectual and the kids in his age group have trouble relating to him,” Ridder explained. She said they also tease Brody because “his ears stick out” and he’s “extremely thin.”

“He cries to me pretty much every day,” Ridder said.

On May 24, Ridder reached her breaking point. That evening, she posted on the school’s Facebook page for parents.

“My poor son. Doesn’t seem like things are getting any better. 2 teachers and a total of 2 students wrote in his yearbook. Despite Brody asking all kinds of kids to sign it,” Ridder wrote. “So Brody took it upon himself to write to himself. My heart is shattered. Teach your kids kindness.”

“I honestly didn’t think much would come of it,” Ridder told TODAY. 

The next day, Ridder received a text from Brody. 

“Facebook this,” he wrote, alongside a picture of yearbook filled with messages and signatures. 

“He had messages from eighth-graders and even 11th graders,” Ridder said. “Brody’s exact words to me were, ‘This is the best day ever.’ Some kids even put their phones for Brody to contact them.”

“Hey dude, you’re freaking awesome. Stay that way.”

“Brody — you are the kindest little kid. You are so loved. Don’t listen to the kids that tell you different.”

“Brody — I hope you have an amazing summer! You’re worth it and you matter!”

“Hey buddy, never change, never put your head down.”

Ridder said the kids who had previously refused to write in Brody’s yearbook were suddenly “lining up” to sign.

Brody can’t stop smiling — he’s already talking about how excited he is for seventh grade.

“He’s on cloud nine,” Ridder said. 

Related Video:

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Boy gets bullied for his Tony Stark Halloween costume, makes a triumphant return
• How to prevent bullying and help if your child is bullied: 9 steps to take
• From enemies to friends: How two girls overcame bullying to build a friendship