Denver paid nearly $3.1 million in 2004 to settle lawsuits leveled against it, roughly three times the city’s settlement tally from the previous year, according to city records released Wednesday.
A single settlement was responsible for pushing Denver’s total above $3 million last year: the $1.325 million the city paid to the family of Paul Childs, the developmentally disabled teen shot in his home by police as he held a knife in July 2003.
Other big settlements from 2004 include $210,000 for the family of a man who hanged himself in Denver’s jail in 1998; $650,000 for insurer Cigna in a contract-claim dispute; and $80,000 to a man riding in a car hit by a suspect fleeing from police in a high-speed chase in 1996.
Both the 2004 and 2003 tallies pale in comparison with 2002, when Denver settled claims for a cumulative $4.5 million.
DENVER
Budget-reform push raises $105,100 more
The campaign organization asking voters to approve two budget-reform measures this November raised more than $100,000 in the past month.
Between April 26 and May 26, Coloradans for Responsible Reform raised a total of $105,100. After spending $49,212.67, the campaign had $268,288.19 remaining.
DENVER
Auman’s lawyers: She won’t jump bail
Lisl Auman will return to court for her August retrial in the death of Denver police officer Bruce VanderJagt if she is released from prison, her lawyers have assured the presiding judge.
In a motion filed Tuesday, defense attorneys said that Auman’s father, Don Auman, has equity in his home of at least $75,000 to use to obtain a bond for his daughter.
Auman has strong ties to the Denver community, as do her parents and stepparents, the motion said. The families are also extremely supportive of Auman.
COLORADO SPRINGS
Rape counselor still won’t give up records
A rape counselor faced with jail remained adamant Wednesday that she wouldn’t turn over records of her sessions with a former Air Force Academy cadet while her attorney prepared an attack on the arrest warrant issued by a military judge.
The case involving Jennifer Bier, a private therapist in Colorado Springs, could be precedent-setting because of questions about the scope of the military court’s authority and the counselor’s stand to protect her client’s privacy, said Bier’s lawyer, Wendy Murphy.
The warrant was issued last week following Bier’s refusal to turn over records in the pending court-martial of 1st Lt. Joseph Harding, accused of sexually assaulting two female cadets at the academy near Colorado Springs in 1999 and 2000. He graduated from the academy in 2002.
FORT COLLINS
Wyo. teen guilty in “surfing” death
A Wyoming teenager has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in an accident last fall in which another girl was killed as she “surfed” atop a car.
Karen Buckley, 17, will spend two years in a juvenile detention center after pleading guilty Tuesday as a juvenile to vehicular homicide/reckless driving for the Sept. 6 incident that killed Shailynne Manning, 15. Both girls are from Cheyenne.
Buckley, who was driving the car in Fort Collins and was originally charged as an adult, could have faced up to 12 years in prison if convicted. She also pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, a misdemeanor.
GLENWOOD SPRINGS
Wildlife officials plan to bear down
Colorado wildlife officials will launch a pilot program in Glenwood this summer in hopes of preventing problems with bears, which have had a number of recent run-ins with residents across the central mountains.
The program calls for relocating problem bears, killing others deemed more dangerous, and pelting the animals with pepper spray and beanbags to keep them out of town.
Pat Tucker, a local wildlife official, said the plan could be adopted in other Colorado towns if it is successful in Glenwood.
Last year, Glenwood Springs police responded to more than 140 bear calls, mostly animals going through yards or trash cans.
DENVER
Second-grader wins U.S. poetry contest
Denver Public Schools second-grader John Davies-Schley won a national environmental poetry contest for a poem he wrote about the black night sky from a boat.
The River of Words Environmental Poetry and Art Contest is the largest youth poetry competition in the world. Davies- Schley will travel to San Francisco this week with his parents to collect the prize.
His poem “From My Boat” won for the kindergarten- through-second-grade category.
The boy is in DPS’s Polaris Program at Ebert Elementary.
COLORADO SPRINGS
Retrial urged for man who killed Mass. teen
A Colorado Springs man convicted of killing a teen in a street fight in Cambridge, Mass., should be retried so jurors can get a fair look at the victim’s violent past, a defense attorney said Wednesday.
A jury convicted Alexander Pring-Wilson, a former Harvard graduate student, of manslaughter in October in the stabbing death of 18-year-old Michael Colono. Five months later, the state’s highest court ruled in a separate case that juries may now consider a victim’s violent history if the evidence sheds light on whether the defendant was acting in self-defense.
During the trial, Superior Court Judge Regina Quinlan had blocked a defense bid to introduce such evidence, saying Pring-Wilson didn’t know Colono and couldn’t know about his past.
DENVER
Anti-abortion group sues over restrictions
An anti-abortion group urged a federal judge Wednesday to toss out voter-approved restrictions on Colorado advocacy groups, saying they are an unconstitutional curb on free speech.
James Bopp Jr., who filed a lawsuit contesting the restrictions on behalf of the Colorado Right to Life Committee, said financial-disclosure requirements and other provisions of Amendment 27 are “draconian restrictions” that could result in penalties for mailing out wedding invitations that list the name of someone who happens to be a political candidate.
Amendment 27 banned direct corporate contributions and limited contributions from political action committees to candidates and parties.
