Governor signs law inspired by dragging death
First reported on The Gazette, June 8th, 2011
“It’s a law.”
Gov. John Hickenlooper said that four times in Colorado Springs on Tuesday, when he signed four bills into law, including the bill inspired by tow truck driver Allen Rose’s gruesome death in February.
Rose was dragged to death when his leg became ensnared in a cable and he was pulled for more than a mile by an SUV he was attempting to tow.
Allen Rose Tow Truck Law Affects All Drivers
First reported on KRDO NewsChannel 13, Jun 6th, 2011
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The bill prompted by the dragging death of a Springs tow truck driver will be signed into law Tuesday. Allen Rose was killed in February after getting tangled in cable when the driver of an SUV he was towing drove away.
The first part of the Allen Rose Tow Truck Safety Act was proposed by Springs resident Mike Baier. It makes it a crime to get behind the wheel of a car being towed, and requires tow truck drivers to post a large sticker on the vehicle with a warning.
Senator Morse Heats Up Cold Cases
First reported in The Colorado Senate Press Office on Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
COLORADO SPRINGS—Senator John Morse (D-Colorado Springs) stood with state and local leaders, including members of Colorado Springs area law enforcement, to celebrate Katie’s Law going into full effect today.
“DNA is a powerful tool for law enforcement,” said Sen. Morse. “This law will save lives, prevent crime, and ensure that criminals are brought to justice.”
Sen. Morse sponsored Senate Bill 241, named for Katie Sepich, whose brutal rape and murder was solved with the help of DNA evidence. Her killer had been arrested previously, but his DNA was not collected until later. Had this law been in effect, her killer could have been found much sooner, perhaps before taking Katie’s life. The bill was signed into law in 2009.
Cannabiz
First reported in the Colorado Springs Independent on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
May-be too much?
Some folks accuse District Attorney Dan May of cherry-picking facts and stats, often unrelated to medical marijuana, to manufacture his very public case against centers. Others feel he's simply and rightly highlighting need-to-know cases of marijuana-induced harm.
Either way, it prompts a question: Should the district attorney, whose chief job is law enforcement — not creation — be filling this role? For thoughts on May's approach, we made a few calls.
Deborah Cantrell, previously of Yale Law School and now associate professor of legal ethics at the University of Colorado at Boulder Law School, says she hasn't followed Colorado Springs developments closely enough to opine on May specifically. From her perspective: "We want our DA to be representative, right? That's the real question. When we elect a DA, we're saying that person is a representative of a certain constituency, and we want that person to act on behalf of the constituency."
Opposing candidates each claim documents back up their plagiarism charges
First reported in the Gazette on Monday, August 16th, 2010
Two state Senate candidates who accuse each other of plagiarism produced documentation Sunday that didn’t quite get to the bottom of their competing claims.
Republican Owen Hill and Libertarian Doug Randall each are running against incumbent Democrat Sen. John Morse in Colorado Senate District 11, which covers much of Colorado Springs’ downtown, west-side and southeast neighborhoods.
The campaign websites for Hill and Randall each contain extended passages on various issues — jobs, education, fiscal policy — that are almost identical. Each candidate accuses the other of stealing the words.
On Sunday, Randall provided The Gazette with printouts that he said were e-mails between him and his sister and brother. The printouts contained passages that bear a strong resemblance to those on both candidates’ sites. They were drafts of his issue statements, he said, and he passed them along to his siblings for their feedback in May and July.
Well, then, case closed, said Chris McIntire, a spokesman for the Hill campaign. The same passages have been on Hill’s website since January.
