Rescued snowboarder faces two charges
John Ryan, 31, the Erie snowboarder who was lost out of bounds from the Keystone Resort for three days last month before being rescued after a large-scale search, has been issued a summons charging him with violating the state Skier Safety Act and carrying a concealed weapon, the Summit County Sheriff’s Office announced Thursday.
Ryan is scheduled to appear in court on the charges Feb. 15.
“Mr. Ryan was found on Nov. 19, 2005, in an area known as Jones Gulch, an out-of-bounds area adjacent to Keystone Resort. The area was clearly marked ‘Closed,”‘ according to a prepared statement.
The statement offered no explanation for the weapons charge.
New chief wrote book on police supervision
The police chief in Fort Lupton who wrote a book used to train other officers in at least one Colorado city has been picked to become Greeley’s police chief.
Jerry Garner, who has 37 years of public safety experience in five different police departments, was chosen from six finalists and will start Jan. 30 with a salary of $111,000, according to a statement from Greeley.
His book “Common Sense Police Supervision” is used as a training resource in the Lakewood Police Department, where he has also served.
State sells railroad in southern counties
The Colorado Department of Transportation on Wednesday agreed to sell a 122-mile state-owned railroad in southern Colorado for $10.35 million.
The agreement reached with V&S Railway of Salt Lake City gives the state the first right to repurchase the NA Towner Railroad Line, should the company abandon it, according to a CDOT statement.
Colorado purchased the railroad, which runs from Towner in eastern Colorado through Kiowa, Crowley and eastern Pueblo counties, in 1998. The Colorado Kansas and Pacific Railroad operated the line through a lease-purchase agreement from 1999 to this year.
V&S Railway and its affiliates operate railroads in Kansas, California and Manitoba.
Man pleads guilty in alleged hate crime
A man has pleaded guilty to a federal charge in connection with an attack on a black man that was supposed to be an initiation into a white supremacist group.
Robby Wayne Baalman, 20, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to one count of interference with a federally protected activity – traversing a public street – in the March attack on George Stephenson. Prosecutors characterized the case as a hate crime.
Baalman, Keith Wayne Cotter, 25, and David Lance Gardner, 43, all of whom are white, were accused of knocking Stephenson off his bike as he rode to work.
Baalman admitted to the attack during a change of plea hearing Thursday. He contended that Gardner told him to attack Stephenson because he was black and that it would be his initiation to a white supremacist organization, the American Front, court documents said.
