Three CU police officers treated after laboratory fire
Boulder – Three University of Colorado police officers were sent to a local hospital to be treated for possible smoke inhalation after a laboratory fire broke out in the university’s engineering center.
The fire started at 2:17 a.m. Thursday and was put out by the building’s sprinkler system, university spokeswoman Jeannine Malmsbury said. The three CU police officers were sent to Boulder Community Hospital, she said.
The engineering center was closed to faculty, students and visitors and then reopened by 8 a.m. The first level of the chemical- engineering wing of the building was still closed, Malmsbury said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. It is believed to have started in a fume hood in an unidentified lab in the building, on the east edge of the Boulder campus.
There were no hazardous materials released into the air in the building, school officials said.
GLENWOOD SPRINGS
DA sifts clues in fatal beating of oil worker
Several suspects have been ruled out in the death of an oil-field worker who was severely beaten in February 2005 and died in April this year as a result.
Ninth Judicial District Attorney Martin Beeson said he can’t talk about other details for fear of jeopardizing the Paul Graves murder investigation. He said his office may be getting outside help from another law enforcement agency soon in a case he said has high priority.
“We had to start from scratch,” Beeson said. “It is going to be a long and painstaking investigation.”
Beeson took on the case this year after former District Attorney Colleen Truden was recalled and left office in January. Graves’ family members said Truden’s office failed to investigate.
Graves, 40, was beaten at a trailer he shared with other oil-field workers in Parachute. He suffered brain damage and was hospitalized for 15 months before he died of an infection following brain surgery.
LAKE MOLAS
Searchers comb area for missing climber
Searchers continued to look for a man Thursday who has been missing since the weekend in the rugged mountains.
Brent Higgins left the camp near the Lake Molas trailhead late Saturday morning for an overnight trip and solo summit of one or more peaks around Vestal Lake.
Search-and-rescue teams from San Juan, La Plata, Ouray and Montezuma counties, and friends of the couple from their home in Salt Lake City, have scoured the peaks between thunderstorms.
No one has seen the 29-year- old communications engineer and avid mountaineer since Sunday evening, possibly, when other hikers saw someone matching his description.
“This should have been a easy climb for him,” said Shannon Higgins. “This is something he’s done a thousand times.”
DENVER
I-25 ramp to Evans due to reopen today
T-REX workers plan to open the off-ramp from southbound Interstate 25 to East Evans Avenue this morning.
Contractors closed it in April 2002 for reconstruction of I-25 in the area as well as a new Evans ramp. T-REX is the $1.67 billion highway widening and light-rail project on I-25 and Interstate 225.
The highway portion of the Transportation Expansion Project is due for completion Sept. 1. Light-rail service opens Nov. 17.
AURORA
Juvenile charges filed in Skate City melee
Two girls on Thursday were formally charged, as juveniles, with assault on a police officer in a fight at Aurora’s Skate City on Saturday, according to a 18th Judicial District attorney’s office news release.
At the hearing in an Aurora court, a judge lowered bail for the girls to $5,000.
Police said the girls, ages 14 and 13, hit an off-duty officer who was working security as he tried to escort one of them from the rink for allegedly violating the house rules.
The girls have a pretrial conference at 1:30 p.m. July 31.
The 13-year-old was charged with second-degree assault on a peace officer and could face up to two years in youth corrections if convicted. The 14-year-old was charged with first-degree assault on a peace officer and also faces up to two years in youth corrections.
DENVER
Former city worker charged with aid theft
A former city worker was accused Thursday of stealing $270,000 from Denver’s Department of Human Services. Ivan Guerrero, 41, is charged with seven counts of theft, according to Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for the Denver district attorney’s office.
The charges allege that between 2000 and 2006, Guerrero was able to steal the money by activating benefit accounts for people who were dead or who no longer received benefits.
Guerrero’s roommate, Jose Luis Torres-Montalvo, is also charged with two counts of theft in connection with the scheme, the office said. Montalvo is in custody, but Guerrero remains at large, the news release said.
DOUGLAS COUNTY
$22 million tab to fix flooded Colorado 67
It will cost about $22 million and take until the end of October to reconstruct the flooded and destroyed portion of Colorado 67 in southwestern Douglas County as a two-lane road, state transportation officials said Thursday.
The Colorado Department of Transportation plans a temporary repair of the road to provide one-lane access by Aug. 27, in time for school buses to serve families who live in the area, CDOT official Bob Torres told state transportation commissioners.
The agency expects to get full reimbursement from the federal government for the road repair under emergency relief provisions, added CDOT chief engineer Craig Siracusa. But it could take up to two years to get the federal payment, and the state must pay for the cost of the repair upfront.
Heavy rains this month washed out up to 5 miles of the road.
DENVER
Chief’s thief charged in earlier burglary
The burglar who broke into Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman’s home in November was charged Thursday with a burglary that happened five months earlier.
Peter Nicholas Lewis, 21, was sentenced in April by Denver District Judge Christina Habas to six years in prison for the Whitman break-in. She recommended his initial prison time be spent in boot camp and said if he did well, she would reconsider his sentence in December.
On Thursday, Denver prosecutors filed charges of second- degree burglary and theft against Lewis in connection with a June 2005 burglary of a home on East Mississippi Avenue.
