How do you pull the bodies of two little girls from a oil storage tank and dig their pregnant mother’s body from a shallow grave and still be OK? That was the question reporter Elise Schmelzer had for the law enforcement officers who investigated the murders of Shanann, Bella and Celeste Watts.
Schmelzer spoke with the lead detective from the Frederick Police Department and others who shared gripping stories about their struggles to overcome grief. It’s a powerful story about PTSD in law enforcement, a community that has long struggled to openly discuss the impact of the horrible things its members confront through their jobs.
Thanks for reading.
— Noelle Phillips, Denver Post breaking news editor
“This changed all of us”: A year after Watts murders shook Colorado, investigators on the case continue grappling with trauma
鷡շ:Christopher Watts murder investigation timeline
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Five of The Denver Post’s best stories this week
Denver, private prison companies come to verbal agreement to keep halfway houses open for now
Denver officials and two private prison companies have come to a verbal agreement to keep six community corrections facilities open in the short term after a surprising City Council vote on Monday to end the companies’ contracts, Elise Schmelzer reports. For a few days, several hundred people living in halfway houses operated by those companies did not know what would happen to them.
RELATED: Denver council pushes “pollution tax” on business to pay for climate change initiative
Father demands justice after video appears to show Colorado Springs police fatally shot son in back
The father of 19-year-old De’Von Bailey, who was shot and killed by Colorado Springs police last week, says a surveillance video clearly shows his son was shot in the back while running, and he wants justice. The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the shooting, Saja Hindi reports.
“So many kids getting hurt”: Sexual abuse and neglect ignored in rural Colorado county, report finds
A nine-month investigation released Friday by the state’s independent child protection monitor found that Montezuma County violated state law and regulations 67 times from October 2014 to April 2018, impacting at least a dozen children. The reviewed cases included allegations in which children were sexually abused, hit and neglected, .
Colorado toughened up its oil and gas rules, but how tough are they?
As state regulators write new oil and gas rules and update others to implement what one person called an “earthquake” of a law, Colorado’s regulations, and just how strong they are or should be, will get a hard look, Judith Kohler reports.
Lauren Watson, founder of the Black Panthers’ Denver chapter, dies at 79
Lauren Watson, in the mid-1960s, was a founder of the revolutionary political organization in Denver in which he and fellow members picketed and protested at government meetings, political and school events, businesses and other Denver functions, mostly focusing on racial inequality and racial injustice, reports Kieran Nicholson. Watson died Wednesday in the Cherry Creek Nursing Center. He was 79.
Quick Hits
+ Denver airport and Great Hall contractor escalate public battle as mediation stalls
+ Interstate 70 project in Denver gets noise variance renewal amid concerns about vibrations
+FOLLOWING UP:Boy Scouts protected hundreds of previously unreported sexual predators, new lawsuit alleges
+Plans to redevelop Denver’s historic Evans School no longer just academic, potential buyers say
+Colorado transportation leaders are banking on buses and trains as population surges
+ FOLLOWING UP: Denver will lower some speed limits to combat bicyclist and other traffic deaths
+Denver native T.J. Miller addresses sexual assault allegations during hometown show — The Know
+ Development devours U.S. natural landscape at rate of two football fields per minute, study finds
+ More of the legal marijuana sold in Colorado is increasingly for recreational use
