Manuel went after the dog in their Colorado Springs neighborhood. A stranger ran with him, trying to help, and when they reached the startled animal, the dog bit the stranger.

Law enforcement showed up. Manuel was given a court hearing for the dog bite.

The case was later dismissed. But when Manuel left the courthouse in September, he said two cars followed him. The 23-year-old stopped for gas and was quickly surrounded by federal agents from .

The undocumented immigrant, who had come with his parents from Mexico when he was 3 years old and had never been in trouble with the law before the dog bite, was detained in the state’s only immigration facility in Aurora for the next two months.

“It was not very pleasant,” he said. He spoke on condition that he only be identified by his middle name to speak candidly about his experiences with the federal government. “I’ve never been in trouble before. It really takes a toll on you mentally.”

As federal authorities pursue President Donald Trump’s goal of arresting and deporting millions of immigrants without legal status, they moved last summer to block longtime U.S. residents from requesting bail in immigration cases, and they have kept others, who would have been released under previous administrations, detained indefinitely.

Caught in that cycle, Manuel was only released after his attorneys filed — and a judge granted — a habeas petition in federal court.

Once a technically complicated legal rarity used to challenge improper incarcerations, habeas corpus petitions have become the predominant avenue for immigrants seeking release from detentions that increasingly end only with a deportation order.

With bail sharply curtailed and other avenues of release all but closed off, Colorado has seen an explosion of habeas cases: In the first 100 days of 2026, more than 370 detained immigrants have asked federal judges to either grant them bail hearings denied by ICE, or to release them altogether. The surge is an unprecedented increase from 2025’s total of 104 and 2024’s total of a bare dozen.

In his first 19 years as a lawyer, Denver immigration attorney Hans Meyer said he’d filed six habeas cases. In the past six months, his firm filed 60. When ICE first moved to withhold bail from a broad swath of detainees last summer, few people in detention were aware that filing habeas petitions was an option.

“The first three months, very few people understood the issue,” Meyer said. “For the next three months, people might know it was an option, but didn’t know much more. But now people in detention always go to habeas first.”

So significant is the crush that attorneys from the , which oversees ICE, have stepped in to help federal prosecutors deal with the cases. The highest-ranking federal prosecutor in the state, U.S. Attorney Peter McNeilly, has also personally handled some of the petitions. It’s the only time this century that a U.S. attorney has made personal appearances on such cases, The Denver Post found.

The declined to comment for this story. Jeffrey Colwell, the clerk for the , confirmed The Post’s case data.

“It does put a significant burden on our judges and chambers,” he said. “It’s 300-plus cases that we haven’t historically seen.”

In an unsigned statement, the Department of Homeland Security said it abides by court orders and was unsurprised by the habeas surge, claiming “no lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States.”

Peering inside the ‘deportation machine’

Habeas petitions have been a part of American law since the nation’s founding, and they’ve been used in immigration proceedings in past years, too.

They’re used generally to challenge someone’s detention or incarceration, though not necessarily the underlying case that led to that confinement. Immigrants who are released or given bail hearings through habeas cases are still subject to deportation proceedings — like Manuel, whose immigration case remains underway.

But these petitions offer an avenue out of detention, and their prominence is surging, particularly as — which fall under the authority of the federal government — bend to the Trump administration’s goals.

The assumption that immigration courts can resolve detention questions “no longer holds,” the . Instead, immigration lawyers are taking their arguments out of immigration hearings and into federal court, where appointed judges can’t be removed on a whim. Indeed, they’ve shown a “striking willingness to intervene” in detention cases, the association wrote.

Because habeas cases are complicated — but the need for them is now enormous — immigration attorneys have also worked to train more lawyers on how to file them. Laura Lunn, of the , said she’s hosting a “massive training” at the end of April with the to bring non-immigration lawyers up to speed on writing and filing habeas petitions.

For this story, The Post reviewed scores of habeas petitions and hundreds of pages of court filings, along with publicly available arrest and court data detailing ICE practices. If the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is a “deportation machine,” as Meyer describes it, then the habeas petitions provide a glimpse into that machine’s inner workings. The filings describe both how immigrants end up in detention as well as the efforts that Trump officials have undertaken to keep them detained.

One man was arrested at an Ace Hardware. A Colombian father was arrested in Lakewood the same day he and his wife were set to close on a house. Several said they were arrested after they showed up for routine immigration check-ins at ICE offices in Colorado. A man from Guinea arrived at his case worker’s office to have his ankle monitor removed and found ICE agents waiting for him instead.

One man showed up for work at the , where he was directed to wait for a new ID badge in a side room, his lawyers later alleged. ICE agents came instead.

Upending nearly three decades of federal law, Manuel and many of those who’ve filed habeas petitions were denied bail during their detention proceedings. That about-face is the primary cause of the habeas crush: Since the mid-1990s, federal immigration authorities and the court system that oversees them would release immigrants who had no criminal record and were arrested within America’s interior.

Under the Trump administration, however, ICE and the courts have moved to keep those immigrants in custody, denying them bail under a separate federal law previously reserved for people arrested at the border.

The that ICE is now employing to block many immigrants from bail also requires mandatory detention — which attorneys argue is the point. Detention centers are like prisons, and 65% of immigrants arrested in Colorado over the past year have never been convicted of a crime. They’re likely not used to facilities like the one in Aurora, where the lights stay on at all times and the food, Manuel said, is often soggy or inedible.

Without access to bail, many detainees choose to leave: Aurora has seen a jump in deportation orders in the past year, including an unprecedented surge in immigrants asking for immediate removal.

Surging cases tied to size of Aurora facility

The increase in Colorado habeas filings is also partially driven by the size of the Aurora detention center, which can hold more than 1,500 people at any one time. It’s one of the largest facilities in the United States and attracts arrestees from across the country — meaning more people seeking release.

Attorneys for a Maryland man said he was arrested after ICE checked license plates in his neighborhood and discovered he had a “derogatory immigration history.” A teenager in New York, brought to the U.S. as a minor, was arrested after he got into a fender-bender in a snowstorm. Several men were arrested during traffic stops in Florida. All eventually were brought to the detention center in Aurora.

The filings detail myriad other ways the Trump administration has sought to keep immigrants detained.

When bail is granted, ICE appeals, prolonging detention for 90 more days. Some people with years-old removal orders have been re-arrested. For years, deportations could be indefinitely delayed if an immigrant successfully argued that they’d be tortured or persecuted if they were returned home. They would often be released and told to check in regularly with federal authorities.

Now, however, ICE will hold those individuals — who are often religious or political minorities, or members of the LGBTQ+ community — while they try to find another country to send them.

The Post reviewed more than a dozen habeas petitions filed in recent months by those immigrants detained in Colorado. Several detainees were transgender and feared they would be harmed or killed if they were returned home. One gay man from a country in North Africa was nearly deported to Cameroon, , before his habeas petition was granted.

If another country won’t take the detainees, then they languish in detention.

For those cases, as well as for detainees seeking bail, “habeas is the only way that most folks are getting out of detention, and more folks are being both arrested and held in detention than ever before,” said Shira Hereld, an attorney with the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network.

Indeed, immigration arrests in Colorado surged nearly 300% during Trump’s first year in office. The Aurora detention center has also flexed to its maximum capacity, and by the end of 2025, the facility regularly housed more than 1,400 people at a time.

Federal judges push back

As the flood of habeas petitions washed into federal courtrooms in Denver, judges have repeatedly rejected ICE’s effort to rewrite federal law and have ordered bail hearings or the immediate release of immigrants. They’ve also ordered the release of some people held indefinitely while ICE searches for a country to take them.

Of the more than 100 habeas petitions that have already been closed this year, a federal judge rejected only one, The Post found, while a few dozen more were duplicates or were dismissed voluntarily.

One attorney wrote to a Colorado judge that ICE’s position has been rejected more than 1,500 times nationwide. In their petitions, some attorneys have taken to listing the individual habeas cases that the Trump administration has lost, a tally that stretches over multiple pages.

In its unsigned statement, the Homeland Security Department said it was “applying the law as written. If an immigration judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period.”

In January, U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote that “the court has concluded, many times over,” that ICE’s interpretation was incorrect. In March, U.S. District Judge Regina Rodriguez granted another petition and wrote that she was “once more (joining) the chorus of courts in this district and around the nation that have overwhelmingly rejected (ICE’s) position.”

“Sometimes it is difficult to arrive at conclusions or resolve issues, due, perhaps, to an issue’s complexity, or the lack of guidance available to help resolve it,” U.S. District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney wrote in another case from January. “Neither circumstance is present here.”

Still, the lower-court rulings have not shifted ICE’s posture, and immigrants arrested in Colorado are still routinely denied bail.

A class-action lawsuit challenging the practice, filed by Meyer, the Denver immigration lawyer, and the , earned an initial favorable ruling but is now awaiting a higher court’s intervention. A judge in California struck down ICE’s new bail policy in December, but that ruling has also been held up as a higher court considers it. Another federal appeals court has backed the policy.

The regional rulings point to a prolonged legal battle.

“This is an alley knife fight,” Meyer said. “It’s going to play out circuit court by circuit court, and then end up at the Supreme Court.”

Until the Supreme Court weighs in, “we’re all running around like chickens with our heads cut off every day,” Lunn said, “because the law changes every day depending on which court rules. And we’re having to bring individual challenges for each and every client when the fundamental issue is these massive policies that impact everybody across the country.”

‘A dream that ended up becoming a nightmare’

In the meantime, the number of habeas cases filed in Colorado will only grow. For people like Javier Campos, it offers the only way out.

In July, ICE agents pulled Campos over in Aurora and arrested him. He spent nearly 100 days in the Aurora detention center before he was released last fall. He lost weight because the food was inedible, he said in an interview. He struggled with Bell’s palsy, a neurological condition that causes paralysis in facial muscles.

Through a translator, Campos described his experience in the immigration system as “disgraceful.” A citizen of Mexico, he’d been in the U.S. for 30 years. He worked in the construction industry. He had a wife, and four children who were U.S. citizens. In another time, detention would have been unlikely, and bail a given.

He was initially granted bail in August — $10,000, a sum far higher than what was typical in previous years, immigration lawyers said. Attorneys for the Department of Homeland Security immediately appealed, blocking Campos’ release for three more months. That prompted the habeas filing.

He was finally released shortly before Thanksgiving, but his immigration case continues.

“A lot of the people would just give up their rights and leave because it gets really difficult to not have money to pay for an attorney,” Campos said. “A lot of people would just give up and leave and be deported. It was very sad seeing the things that went on there because a lot of guys came here for a dream that ended up becoming a nightmare — such a bad nightmare that it would cause stress and nightmares we couldn’t wake up from.”

Crispin inherits the program from , who mutually parted ways with the Falcons last month after he was suspended pending an investigation into his treatment of cadets in January.

The 46-year-old Crispin was the assistant to the head coach at Penn State since 2023. Before that, he was the head coach at Rowan University, where he went 114-54.

Crispin takes over a Falcons team that finished 3-29 this season. They haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2005-06.

“I am confident that as we cultivate men of integrity, service, and excellence in everything, our team will compete at the highest level and play in a way that makes our entire Academy community proud,” Crispin said in a statement. “My family and I can’t wait to get started and are honored to represent the Air Force Academy.”

Crispin was a standout player for the Nittany Lions, leading the team to the Sweet 16 in 2001. He ranks fourth in school history in scoring (1,986 points) and 3-pointers (308). Crispin spent time with the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns in 2001-02 before a long career in Europe.

“Coach Crispin is an impressive leader, and he separated himself from a deep candidate pool as absolutely the right person to lead Air Force men’s basketball into the future,” athletic director Nathan Pine said. “He is passionate about player development, joy for the game and using the sport of basketball to develop young men. He has been a successful leader as a collegiate and professional player, assistant and head coach, and I’m confident he will set the example.”

___

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Then another.

Fitting for a newly minted two-time state champion.

The Kent Denver senior powered his way to a game-high 32 points, punctuated by thunderous back-to-back dunks in the midst of a fourth-quarter putaway sprint, as the “Run Devils” pulled away one final time from University in a 95-81 state championship victory in Class 4A.

Kent head coach Todd Schayes waited 29 years for a state title that finally arrived a year ago. Now his team is back-to-back champs.

“This year, we were playing with house money,” Schayes said. “We knew we were going to play fast. We know we’re very talented. If it didn’t happen this year, if we had been 13-10, we would have just as much fun. I did not feel the same pressure that we talked about last year.”

A team that Schayes calls “fiercely competitive,” however, was not going to settle for such results. It took some time early in the season, but by the time the title game rolled around, Fay had plenty of help around him.

Sam Glynn poured in 24, Liam Ash 13 and Henry Czaja 12. Kent����ap starting quintet accounted for 88 of the team’s 95 points.

In the midst of a frenetic start and a powerful closing push, though, Fay took over.

He knocked down three 3-pointers in a 12-point first quarter as Kent raced out to a 28-24 lead.

Every time the Devils tried to pull away, though, University reeled them back in. The Bulldogs closed the first half on a 10-3 run to get within 44-48. They were back within four midway through the third quarter.

They were trying to keep within striking distance, trailing by 10 early in the fourth quarter, when Kent ripped off an 11-2 run — an Ash layup, a Glynn 3-pointer and six of Fay’s 18 second-half points.

His last four high school points came in emphatic fashion.

Fay jab-stepped from the left wing, drove right, rose up and threw down a two-handed dunk. Then he came away with the ball after a scramble for it, rose up and hammered home another.

Suddenly, Kent led 86-67 with 5 minutes to go, and a group that wasn’t sure what its ceiling was a few months back knew it had delivered another championship to the school.

“Once that happened, the energy was rolling, our confidence was at an all-time high and from there it was pretty much over,” Glynn said.

Fay scored 20 in last year’s state title game but was surrounded by four seniors in the starting lineup. This year, he and Kent faced a different kind of challenge.

“This group of guys, we questioned how far we could get this year, but everybody found their place,” Fay said. … “We were thinking (state title) at the beginning of the season, but definitely at the beginning of February is when it really came together. Our offense was flowing and defensively, we didn’t even really have to talk because we knew.”

Added Ash, “(Fay) definitely had a lot of questions about this group, but he really just brought us all together, and we just followed suit.”

Schayes said the Air Force Academy-bound Fay is worthy of being the Gatorade player of the year after he surpassed 2,200 career points and led a second straight state title team.

His teammates marvel not just at the ability, but at the rest, too.

“His competitiveness and his desire to win — just how much he cares about how he was, and then on top of that it����ap his leadership, just his overall leadership as a person, and his overall communication skills as a human being,” Glynn said. “Those things coupled together is something I’ve never seen before.”

University blasted out to a 13-6 lead early Saturday on a pair of River Sawyer 3-pointers. He and John Elbe scored 26 apiece for the runners up.

The teams barely missed early on, playing at such a pace that Kent had mini pickle juice canisters on the bench to help prevent cramping.

This is how they like to play. Breakneck pace, up and down, with no concern about whether or not shots are falling.

“The confidence comes from practice,” Glynn said. “Every practice we’re getting up 100s of shots and the reps count every time. I’m going to keep shooting when I’m open and sometimes even when I’m not because I believe in myself and I believe in my team.”

Last year, Schayes felt the weight of a 29-year drought. After all, his teams had lost four times in state title games.

Overall, this year he said his team was playing with “house money,” though he did acknowledge he had a moment Saturday morning, pregame, when the thought of a fifth title-game defeat crossed his mind.

Except Schayes had Fay and a supporting cast too talented to let that anxiety become reality.

When Fay was a freshman, he started stopping by Schayes’ house on Sunday mornings to get a key to the Kent gym so he could get shots up with nobody else around.

His explanation for starting such a routine was simple.

“My jump shot was really broke,” he said with a smile on Saturday.

No longer.

“He’s leaving a lasting impression in our community, in our basketball program and in our school,” Schayes said.

But just when you think society has no depth, there is Griffin Jax.

There is nothing manufactured about his patriotism. He lives “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave” every day.

Jax is the first Air Force Academy graduate to play in the major leagues. He remains a captain in the reserves.

Last week, after watching the gold medal hockey teams in Italy, after listening to Aaron Judge’s inspirational speech, after looking down at the jersey on his chest, Jax had to pinch himself.

A man who works for his country in recruiting future cadets was representing his country in the World Baseball Classic.

“It takes me back to my heritage and what I used to do at Air Force,” Jax told The Post. “It����ap pretty humbling to come full circle in this moment.”

Monday, Jax, 31, took the mound in the eighth inning against Mexico in Houston.

With the United States clinging to a 5-3 lead, Jax stared down Alejandro Kirk, who represented the tying run. Jax fell behind 3-0 in the count, then went to work. He induced a double-play groundball to shortstop Bobby Witt.

Jax did not bother restraining emotion. Being draped in red, white and blue brought out a jubilant scream as he headed to the dugout.

“When Judge spoke to the team (on the first day of practice), it got us fired up. It kind of put it in perspective. You are not just doing it for yourself, your family and your team back home — it����ap for the whole country,” Jax said. “You got to see it with the hockey teams and how everyone was tuned in. The WBC is not on the same scale as the Olympics, but it is as close as we can get right now.”

The performance resonated beyond the outs recorded. Monday’s starting pitcher, Paul Skenes, who attended Air Force for two years and wants to serve in the military after he retires, and Jax hosted the Air Force baseball team at Daikin Park.

“It was frickin’ electric!” Air Force coach Mike Kazlausky said Tuesday as his club returned home from a weekend series against Baylor. “For both to pitch in the game with us in attendance and speak to our men after, (it was) powerful. I am so grateful that Griff and Paul remember their roots and where they came from. … They both said to our players that it was the biggest moment of their careers, going out to the mound wearing a Team USA jersey. It gives me goosebumps thinking about it. I am so proud of them.”

Paths to the big leagues are never identical, and rarely linear. Jax’s story is a testament to resilience and patience. His family, father Garth and mother Elizabeth, and twin brothers Carson and Parker, moved to Denver when Jax was in eighth grade.

It accelerated his baseball journey. He developed into a star at Cherry Creek High School, leading the Bruins to a 2012 state championship. He swung a powerful bat and anchored the pitching staff.

The Phillies drafted him in the 12th round in 2013. With only a few weeks to decide on a professional career or college, Jax headed to Colorado Springs.

“He played third base and had a great slider. And he had all the leadership qualities,” said retired former Bruins coach Marc Johnson. “When I think of Griff, what stands out is who he is. As a person, he is as good as gold. He didn’t go to the Air Force to be a professional athlete. He didn’t know if that would happen. He went there to make a difference.”

Truth is, Jax began preparing for life after baseball following his first two seasons with the Falcons. He posted a 6-18 record with a 5.49 ERA.

“I didn’t really know what pro ball looked like or might look like when I went to the Air Force. The rule was you could go play, but I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. I got humbled very quickly in Division I baseball,” Jax said. “I remember calling my parents all the time, saying this might be it for me, that it was time to plan for a full-time career in the military.”

Following his sophomore year, Jax played for the Eau Claire Express, a collegiate summer team based in Wisconsin. The Northwoods League featured top players from around the country. In a new environment, Jax learned from teammates and began to view baseball through a different lens. In his junior year, he was named Mountain West co-Conference Pitcher of the Year, going 9-2 with a 2.05 ERA and 90 strikeouts after harnessing command of his off-speed pitches and demonstrating “competitive fire that I have never seen from anyone I have ever met at The Academy,” Kazlausky said.

The Twins took Jax in the third round, fully aware of the commitment Jax owed the Air Force after graduation. He started sparingly in the minors in 2017 and 2018 and after a breakout season, COVID-19 hit in 2020, and he did not pitch.

Giving it one last season before leaving the sport, Jax prospered and made his big league debut on June 8, 2021. He eventually transitioned from a starter to a trusted reliever for the Minnesota Twins before they traded him to Tampa Bay last summer.

“My road has been pretty rocky,” said Jax, whose father played 10 years in the NFL with the Cowboys and Cardinals as a linebacker.

“But I never stopped loving it. Baseball was always the sport I was drawn to the most. It’s what I remember playing with my buddies growing up. You learn something new everyday and it keeps you young.”

Jax remains tethered to The Academy. His wife, Savannah, is a captain in the Air Force and his brothers are pilots. They were part of a flyover before the Twins game on Sept. 11, 2024, with Parker in a F-35 Lightning II jet and Carson throwing out the ceremonial first pitch to Griff.

Jax transitioned to the reserves in 2019 and works remotely from Phoenix, recognizing he is better suited to help with his feet on the ground.

“I answer questions from kids about what life as an officer looks like, what school looks like,” Jax said. “I did get a ride in an F-16 during my sophomore year. It felt like I ran a marathon. I was wrecked for like three days. I threw up. Lost weight. It was the coolest thing ever. But I don’t know if I could handle that. It is not as glamorous as ‘Top Gun.'”

Jax laughed as he told the story. Then, he looked up. He was standing on a back field at Papago Park watching Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and Judge take batting practice.

The sun was beaming. And there was not a cloud in the sky.

“When (Team USA manager Mark) DeRosa called in October to ask me to do this, it was the quickest yes of my life,” Jax said. “It is crazy to think about. The 10-year-old boy in me would be so eyes wide and mouth open, not believing it.”

A suspicion of Big Data.

In the House, one of the Capitol’s most progressive members, Rep. Jennifer Bacon, is partnering with one of the building’s most conservative voices, Rep. Ken DeGraaf, on a bill that would block law enforcement from buying Coloradans’ private data.

In the Senate, a Democratic criminal justice reformer, Sen. Judy Amabile, and a Republican newcomer, Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson, are joining to back legislation that would limit law enforcement����ap access to databases of information fed by license plate-reading cameras.

The fundamental tension between security and privacy that has animated American policymakers since the country’s founding is ratcheting up this year, as mass data collection and surveillance technology become ubiquitous.

Zamora Wilson began a committee hearing last week by quoting Benjamin Franklin’s line about how giving up essential liberty for temporary safety makes one deserving of neither. Centuries later, lawmakers say they’re responding to the same sense of unease that’s spread from and the activities of local technology giants. In Colorado, legislators have already moved to limit , and other bills this year deal with data for tenants, homeowners, social media users and immigrants.

Colorado is not alone. Montana passed its own law last year limiting law enforcement’s access to private data purchasing. Other states have increasingly weighed how to shield their residents from the consequences of invisible but ever-growing mountains of information amassed by smartphone apps, traffic cameras and nosy household appliances.

In Denver, Mayor Mike Johnston last week announced an imminent end to the city’s controversial relationship with Flock Safety, which has run its license plate cameras.

“Right now, law enforcement has body cameras, cameras on their cars, pole cameras, speeding cameras, red light, license-plate readers, facial recognition, drones — and then we have (artificial intelligence) coming on board, which is a big unknown,” said Zamora Wilson, who lives at the Air Force Academy. “And a lot of my constituents are concerned that their privacy is being invaded, and we’re becoming a surveillance state, like China.”

Or, as Bacon quipped during a committee hearing Wednesday for her bill with DeGraaf: “When this crazy liberal from Denver and this libertarian from El Paso County sit in front of you, that means there is a legitimate community concern.”

Besides the license plate cameras, Zamora Wilson is sponsoring bills that would regulate traffic cameras, facial recognition software and drones.

Not all of the privacy-centered bills are focused on law enforcement, and not all are bipartisan. Democrats are also running legislation aimed at preventing companies from using mass data collection to customize prices for online shoppers and individualize wages for gig workers like Uber drivers. (Though that bill may have some crossover appeal, too: DeGraaf said he was “concerned” about the practice.)

But even bipartisan agreement does not necessarily translate to clear paths through the legislature.

Law enforcement is flatly opposed to the bills that would limit agencies’ access to data. During committee testimony last week, in between panelists who warned about mass data collection, police chiefs and detectives described the shootings, murders and assaults they’d solved with license plate readers and location data.

Requiring them to obtain warrants before they could access that data, they warned, would hinder their ability to solve those crimes in the future.

“The legislation, I think, is trying to be responsive to what (lawmakers are) hearing from some people,” said Todd Reeves, a deputy police chief speaking on behalf of the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police. “Unfortunately, I don’t think they know exactly how we use this data and how we use this information and how cases are put together.”

Law enforcement opposition can be a serious hurdle in the Capitol. Uniforms filling committee rooms and legislative lobbies — and officers describing violent crimes and the technology needed to solve them — can override higher-level discussions about the implications of that technology.

Only one of the three measures up for an initial vote last week cleared its first hurdle. Lawmakers delayed votes on the other two so that they could work to shore up support and assuage concerns from police and prosecutors.

Police surveillance: ‘People are concerned’

A week ago, Chrisanna Elser described to lawmakers the “dystopian task” of proving her innocence against license plate readers.

The technology had captured her truck in an area where a package had been reported stolen, and a : “You can’t get a breath of fresh air in our valley or town without us knowing.”

Elser eventually gathered her own evidence to prove she wasn’t the package thief, according to 9News, which previously covered the incident.

“I am here to testify that this technology is being sold as a shield to protect communities,” Elser told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 23, as they debated Zamora Wilson and Amabile’s bill. “But in practice, it is a digital dragnet that turns our constitutional rights upside down.”

would generally prohibit law enforcement or government agencies from accessing databases gathered by license plate readers without a warrant. It would waive the requirement in certain situations, such as emergencies or within a short time window after specific data was gathered. The bill would also limit how long that data could be stored, though Zamora Wilson and Amabile eased that provision last week.

Two days later, Bacon and DeGraaf settled in for the first committee hearing on . Their bill would generally prevent local law enforcement from buying Coloradans’ personal data from private companies — such as location information that can be accurate to within a few inches, said Sebastian Zimmeck, a computer science professor at Wesleyan University who researches data privacy.

Bacon, DeGraaf and their supporters argue their proposal is in keeping with the Fourth Amendment, which generally requires law enforcement get a warrant before obtaining a person’s private information. Montana passed a last year.

While law enforcement officials argued that the bills would hamper their ability to do their jobs, supporters of the proposals said that was the point: ensuring there are checks on the government’s access to Coloradans’ information.

The nation’s founders wrote that citizens had a right to be secure in their papers. DeGraaf said the modern equivalent was security in data. Like Zamora Wilson, he said the specter of China’s omnipresent surveillance state loomed large.

“What this bill is about is, what are the expectations that we have — as people, as neighbors, as constituents — about what we do and do not want people to have access to,” Bacon said. “And in this case, just for this bill, how can that information be used against me in a court of law? Or rather, if we wanted the government to know it, shouldn’t we have given it to them?”

Each of the bills received hours of seesawing testimony from police and civil liberties groups, district attorneys and libertarians.

Unique coalitions formed: One panel of supporters for HB-1037 included a prominent gun-rights group, a leading immigration advocacy organization, a religious alliance and a Boulder resident who regularly testifies against Democratic proposals.

All shared similar concerns about the government buying their information.

Zamora Wilson was adamant about her support for law enforcement. She called state efforts to regulate the usage of data a “delicate dance” of protecting privacy and civil liberties, while giving law enforcement the tools to solve crimes quickly and efficiently.

“It’s here. It’s not just coming down the pipe — it’s here,” Zamora Wilson said. “And people are concerned. And so we need to have the discussion. What does this look like? What do the guardrails look like? Where’s the give and take?”

‘Not about bypassing warrants,’ sergeant says

Prosecutors and police officials argued that the give-and-take would mean compromising their ability to quickly respond to and solve crimes.

License plate readers, location data — that information, they say, helps police turn fragments of information into search warrants.

“This is not about bypassing warrants. It����ap about preserving the investigative path that allows us to identify suspects before seeking judicial authorization,” Sgt. Dominic Marziano of the Aurora Police Department told lawmakers during the debate over Bacon and DeGraaf’s bill. “Privacy and technology should advance together, but we must avoid recreating barriers that past tragedies taught us to remove.”

For every American Civil Liberties Union official arguing that obtaining private information about Americans shouldn’t be quick or easy, an officer detailed a shooting solved by quick access to location data.

Elser, who fought the package theft accusation, was caught in an impersonal — and inaccurate — technology dragnet. Shortly after she described it, Aurora resident Ramon Farfan told lawmakers that his brother’s murder was solved with the help of license plate reader technology.

Prosecutors debated lawmakers on the limits of the Fourth Amendment. While advocates and lawmakers point to the rapidly changing and expanding technology as a reason to act now, Reeves, from the police chiefs association, said the concept wasn’t new.

Automated license plate readers, for example, have been in use for more than 20 years in Colorado, he said in an interview. Body-worn cameras used by police officers often capture people’s most intimate and vulnerable moments, including on private property.

And other more invasive technologies, like infrared cameras, have been discarded voluntarily by chiefs concerned about the invasion of privacy, he said — proof that law enforcement already weighs community wants and expectations.

Advocates are pushing a “false narrative of state surveillance,” Reeves said. The technology being targeted by Colorado lawmakers focuses on public areas not covered by the Fourth Amendment. Plus, he said, the system’s actual footprint is too scant to constitute mass surveillance, he said.

These systems aren’t used for general surveillance and couldn’t be, Reeves said. Instead, they are entry points for deeper investigations, including how law enforcement can target warrants.

He also worries the proposed bills would be too rigid and too narrowly focused, and they would have the effect of hamstringing law enforcement as new technologies emerge. Even if the bills become law, he noted, the data about people will still be out there.

Instead, Reeves said he’d like the conversation to focus on internal policies used by law enforcement agencies and how to strike the balance between public safety and privacy that way, versus passing rigid legislation.

“The concepts are flawed from the beginning,” Reeves said. “Do I think we could work together and come up with palatable, acceptable legislation that’s not so restrictive and doesn’t overprovide protections of the Fourth Amendment that are clearly established? Yes. But I think that’s going to take an incredible amount of dialogue and an incredible amount of patience, because we both need to understand each others’ responsibilities.”

If the bills build upon decades of debates over privacy and security, their hearings last week showed how unsettled that balance remains.

Only SB-70, the license plate reader bill, passed its committee vote. After hours of testimony, Bacon and DeGraaf delayed HB-1037’s first vote amid skepticism over the data-purchasing bill from some Democrats and the House Judiciary Committee’s four Republicans (one of whom was a late substitute).

Zamora Wilson similarly paused the vote on her broader bill that’s aimed at facial recognition and traffic cameras, as she sought to shore up support.

“I think there’s this view that we are somehow trying to harm law enforcement and restrict their ability to do their jobs and protect people,” Anaya Robinson of the ACLU of Colorado said in an interview. “In reality, none of the bills are about that. The bills are about protecting people and protecting privacy, which we should all hold very dear.”

Mars, who enjoyed the top-streamed song last year with Lady Gaga (the Grammy-winning “Die With a Smile”), is promoting his new album “The Romantic,” due in February, with close to 40 shows this year. That includes a Saturday, Sept. 26 stop at the nearly 40,000-seat Falcon Stadium at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

Tickets for the concert, with openers Anderson .Paak as DJ Pee .Wee, and Kaye, are on sale starting Wednesday, Jan. 14, as part of Mars’ artist presale. They’re available to the public beginning at noon on Thursday, Jan. 15. Prices were not immediately available. Visit brunomars.com for both on-sales and more information.

The venue has in the past hosted concerts from Tim McGraw, Train, Blake Shelton, and Kelly Clarkson, according to the Academy’s website, but hardly hosts shows on a regular (or even annual) basis.

When: 1 p.m. Friday

Where: Canvas Stadium

TV: FS1

Radio: 104.3 HD2, 1600 AM

CSU +1.5, 45.5 over/under

43 degrees, cloudy

Air Force leads 39-22-1; CSU won 21-13 last year in Colorado Springs

Three storylines

CSU’s revolving QB door: The Rams entered the season seemingly set at quarterback, with Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi entering his third year as the starter. But the key position has been exceedingly volatile for CSU. Fowler-Nicolosi started the first three games before losing his job to Jackson Brousseau; “BFN” then quit the team. Brousseau then started the next seven games before giving way to Darius Curry last week. Now, with Curry suspended for spitting at an opposing player, CSU likely turns to Tahj Bullock this week.

New regime coming to FoCo: News broke on Tuesday that UConn coach Jim Mora will be CSU’s next head coach. The son of a longtime coach of the same name, Mora’s been the head coach of the Huskies for the last four seasons. He also was head coach of the Falcons (2004-06), the Seahawks (2009), and UCLA (2012-17). His imminent arrival in Fort Collins means the tenures of interim coach Tyson Summers and other staffers are likely coming to an end — and that the Rams will see lots of transfers from its roster.

Owen Long’s tackling title: While the Rams need a win to avoid posting the program’s worst non-COVID season since going 1-10 in 1988, CSU sophomore linebacker Owen Long has plenty to play for. The team captain currently leads the nation with 134 tackles, three more than UTEP’s Micah Davey. Long’s tally ranks 10th all-time in program history, as Kevin McLain holds the record with 198 in 1974. Long’s had double-digit tackles in nine of his 11 games, including 12 tackles each of the last two weeks as one of CSU’s silver linings.

Predictions

Kyle Newman, sportswriter: Air Force 20, CSU 19

The Falcons are also without their starting QB after Liam Szarka, a Grandview alum who was having a stellar season, broke his arm in the loss to UConn a couple weeks ago. That means Air Force has two options at QB in juniors Kempher Hodges and Josh Johnson. Even with that, and Air Force’s struggles this season, the triple-option remains tough to stop — even more so for a porous CSU defense that ranks last in the Mountain West with 194.82 yards allowed per game on the ground this season. Air Force wears the Rams down up front, then Hodges’ rushing TD delivers the knockout blow on the game’s final possession.

Sean Keeler, sports columnist: Air Force 22, CSU 17

The Ram-Falcon Trophy, the Jan Brady of college football rivalry prizes, could be getting a long, long rest soon, as the Pac-12/Mountain West split ends a series that had run annually — save for 2020’s COVID strife — since 1978. Both teams’ QB rooms are a mess. Both defenses are soft as mashed potatoes. Although Air Force probably plays keepaway — and converts on third down — better than the Rams at this point. At least CSU faithful can toast some New Belgiums to Jim Mora, all while passing the hat to help pay for the players he’ll want to revamp this roster.

Re: “Election 2026: Heavyweight bout,” Nov. 16 news story

Just days after the hottest November day on record for Denver, Sunday’s Denver Post described Colorado’s two competing Democratic gubernatorial candidates as heavy hitters. While Attorney General Phil Weiser was reported to have sued the Trump administration more than 40 times, the article also briefly mentioned that Sen. Michael Bennet may experience voter “blowback” for controversial Trump nominee cabinet votes.

Significantly, an Associated Press in The Denver Post described condemnation of the U.N. Climate Summit by Colorado’s former CEO of Liberty Energy (a fracking services company), U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a Trump nominee for whom Bennet broke ranks to support in January.

The AP article reported that Wright, a scientist, defied “global scientific consensus and concern by governments worldwide on climate change,” calling it a “hoax” just as the U.N. climate summit was convening to promote urgent global action to prevent irreversible harm.

����ԲԱ��’s , despite knowledge that Wright had no government experience, and November reports that he had downplayed the importance of renewables, was bullish on nuclear and “was skeptical about the need to address climate change” () did not show understanding of Colorado’s destructive impacts from extreme weather events largely the result of carbon emissions — wildfires, drought, floods, interstate and international climate refugees, and increasing homeowner insurance rates.

The Trump administration has steadily attacked Colorado from government job cuts to undermining our economy by slashing federal investment and creating fear and division. Governor candidates’ actions speak louder than words.

Julie Zahniser, Boulder

I am still scratching my head. Why did Sen. Michael Bennet jump into the race? Two more years to go in the Senate, and Bennet has decided that he wants another job. Huh? We elected you for 6 years. It would have been a non-issue if we had not had an amazing candidate for governor. But Attorney General Phil Weiser is (without question) the most qualified person to be governor. And then Bennet decides to do this after Phil announced.

And then Reps. Jason Crow, Joe Neguse, and Brittany Pettersen jump to — perhaps hoping for a Senate nod. Why? He has received half a million dollars from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. And frankly, Bennet does not have the executive experience (maybe being Hickenlooper’s chief of staff while mayor). I am tired of Washington picking our candidates – Bennet needs to stay in the Senate. We need a fighter. We need Phil Weiser.

Scott Simmons, Windsor

Yes, Trump did condemn the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists

Re: “Blurring fact and fiction,” Nov. 16 commentary

This commentary with odd reasoning effectively calls President Donald Trump a racist and white supremacist, with references to his administration as Nazis and the president to Hitler and Mussolini. This amounts to adding to the continuation of leftist progressives’ name-calling because they can’t otherwise counter common-sense positions of the current administration, and is irresponsible because it could lead to impressionable and otherwise uninformed and mentally off persons to try to become a hero by assassinating the evil authoritarian.

The author’s entire barrage of commentary is plainly untruthful, as shown in reference to the August 2017 incident in which protestors were in favor of or against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, that turned violent. Author Angie Chuang claimed it wasn’t clear what Trump meant when he said, “I think there is blame on both sides. You had some very bad people in that group. You also had some very fine people on both sides.”

What he conveyed in his comments was that there were bad people (violent) on both sides and there were fine people (peaceful) on both sides who were either for or against removing the historical statue and renaming the park it was in. He said clearly regarding “fine” people, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.” Because the author didn’t point this out, the editorial should be totally discounted.

Steve Lloyd, Cheyenne

Declaring war at the Air Force Academy

Re: “The U.S. Air Force Academy is on the brink of failure,” Nov. 16 commentary

Former visiting professor Thomas Bewley presented a well-documented analysis of the collapse of academics at the Air Force Academy and a thoughtful plan to reverse this trend. His efforts will be for nought.

Secretary for War Pete Hegseth, acting at the direction of Donald Trump, has little, if any, interest in the creation of a thoughtful and ethical officer corps. Their notion of a proper U.S. military is one that will immediately carry out the orders of the Commander-in-Chief – whether those orders are legal or not.

Despite the fact that U.S. actions contravene international law, the administration delights in presenting videos that show the killing of civilians in boats off the coast of South America. To my knowledge, no member of the U.S. military has refused to carry out these orders.

The ethos of the Trump administration is to develop a U.S. military that will unthinkingly “kill on command.” Academic excellence plays no part in this. Mindless obedience to orders does.

Guy Wroble, Denver

I read with sadness the article concerning the Air Force Academy’s problem with departing educators. The author missed one point: This was caused by the current administration and the Department of Defense Secretary. These non-patriotic persons care not a bit about education for recruits in the academy, only teaching their version of truths that they find relevant to their cult.

Independent educators and freedom of opinion is the only way to mold our future leaders and defenders of our precious country. This was created by President Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth and needs to be redone as the programs were meant to be.

Stephen Luxenberg, Coral Springs, Fla.

How can we turn backs on our Afghan allies?

Re: “Protect our allied Afghans from Trump,” Nov. 16 commentary

Krista Kafer has joined David Brooks as my two favorite Republicans! Great, compassionate, and spot-on column about protecting humanitarian immigrant visas. How a country like ours can turn its back on people who have put their lives at risk for us is indeed unconscionable. Thank you, Ms. Kafer!

Dan Eberhart, Denver

After reading Krista Kafer’s column regarding deportations, I am gaining more respect for her.

Yes, we should protect our allied Afghans from Trump, but she goes further, saying how she wonders how a large and wealthy country can turn its back on people fleeing death and imprisonment, and calling it unconscionable.

We are a nation of immigrants and former President Ronald Reagan gave an impassioned speech that accepting immigrants separated us from the majority of the other countries in the world. They helped make our economy the envy of the world.

Krista, congratulations on an insightful column.

Dave Shaw, Highlands Ranch

I want to congratulate Krista Kafer’s opinion regarding the treatment of the Afghan refugees as a whole and Mohammad Ali Dadfar in particular.
Thank you for highlighting the efforts of Reps. Jason Crow and Joe Neguse to help him. I then searched for information on the other Colorado House members and their comments or actions. Rep. Diana DeGette has been vocal on her support of Afghan refugees as has Rep. Brittany Pettersen.

On the GOP side, I could only find one reference to Afghan refugees attributed to Reps. Jeff Hurd, Gabe Evans, or Lauren Boebert. That was Rep. Lauren Boebert being one of the 16 Republicans who voted no on the Jason Crow bipartisan bill to make it easier for Afghans who supported U.S. Military actions to get Visas. The . The bill passed 407-16. The silence of both Reps. Hurd and Evans is not surprising, nor is the enmity of Rep. Bobert to the plight of legal immigrants. They are merely following the Trump narrative of hate and cruelty.

Jim McKeeman, Aurora

I appreciate your story regarding the detention of one legal immigrant, Mohammad Ali Dadfar, who, with his family, was brought to the U.S. (by the U.S. government) to avoid persecution by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Now he is being persecuted by the Trump administration for the simple crime of being an outsider in this country that has traditionally prided itself on welcoming immigrants from all lands. The Trump regime is applying “guilty until proven innocent” thinking to legal immigrants who are, unfortunately, swept up by raids in locales where many immigrants reside. The Statue of Liberty should be blindfolded and placed in a museum of antiquities. Thank you for speaking out!

Kathy McCartney, Lakewood

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What I failed to emphasize sufficiently in that column is the transient nature of excellence in cutting-edge educational programs, like those at the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), in the absence of leaders who provide thoughtful academic stewardship to maintain and continuously renew them.

For decades, USAFA attracted and retained the “best and brightest” military and civilian/veteran thought leaders and cadets to participate in a vibrant educational exchange open to critical analysis and debate on the key militarily-relevant issues of the day.

To mention a few such issues: (1) autonomous and remotely-piloted aircraft and missile systems, (2) the legal and ethical operation of such systems, (3) , (4) modern tough and light structural materials with reduced radar cross section, (5) supply chain vulnerabilities of strategic materials and integrated circuits, (6) advanced radar and optical imaging and tracking systems, (7) real-time battlespace management, (8) cyberspace operations, and (9) secure global communications.

As reported elsewhere, the exodus of professors (first of civilians/veterans, and now of active duty military) has greatly accelerated. Backfilling these substantial losses with primarily military personnel with adequate technical backgrounds has largely proved fruitless, as few such military personnel are actually available to be removed from their other essential jobs for a tour at USAFA, and this ongoing exodus of talent at USAFA is by now broadly known.

Civilian university presidents are generally well compensated, and for good reason. They set the academic tone, expectations, and policies of an entire educational institution, and their actions in this role are meticulously scrutinized by the public.  They appoint the best departmental leadership they possibly can, demand that these leaders do the same when recruiting and retaining individual faculty, and take responsibility when problems arise.

Notably, day-to-day, a good university president boldly steps aside, and relies on departmental leadership and senior faculty, to develop a vibrant academic senate responsible for debating and instituting their joint academic vision. They do not attempt to micromanage such complex educational operations from above based on their own, admittedly limited, domain-specific expertise, while obscuring their various decisions under NDAs. USAFA has, this year, spectacularly failed to shepherd its own educational reforms in such a transparent, distributed manner, which must place trust in its own senior faculty.

By virtue of my former position as a distinguished visiting professor in the department (DFME) that delivers the mechanical engineering and systems engineering degree programs at the Air Force Academy, I am acutely aware of its specific challenges. In 2024, DFME had 24 talented instructors (counting both active duty military and civilian/veterans). Today, there are 15.

By this time in 2026, by my careful count, at most 9 will remain, with possibly two new captains joining. Of course, there will also be no new visiting professors due to the major cutbacks in the DVP program implemented by USAFA.

In the fall, DFME teaches 12 different courses to 600+ distinct cadets (many of whom are themselves enrolled in 3 or 4 courses). The systems engineering major is eviscerated, with only one dedicated instructor remaining by next year.

Losses in other key academic departments are similar, and adequate replacements are scant. By June, Astronautics is facing the loss of seven PhD faculty (one colonel, five lieutenant colonels, and one 30-year civilian), each with decades of relevant space systems development and teaching experience.

Coupled with the present hiring freeze, numbers like this are intractable, and options are limited (most imminently, it appears likely that DFME must be subsumed into aeronautics by summer 2026).

Accordingly, class sizes are markedly increasing, and the job satisfaction of instructors is substantially decreasing.

Also telling: multiple parents whom I know personally, themselves USAFA grads and/or current or recent USAFA instructors, are now recommending to their own children and extended family to go to the USNA, or to AFROTC programs at top civilian universities instead of USAFA.

The zeitgeist within Fairchild Hall is grim. Cadets and potential future cadets are aware, and largely share the same general mood. The “best of the best” of each incoming class are accepted into the Martinson Honors Program; of the 30 incoming cadets accepted into this distinguished program this year, 20 of them ultimately decided to go elsewhere.

In short, the question being asked at USAFA is no longer one of academic excellence, but has shifted quickly to an investigation questioning academic adequacy, as certified by the (HLC) accreditation board. Regardless of the outcome of this ongoing HLC investigation, however, as a nation we must demand a return to academic excellence at USAFA, to operate “far, far above” its (accredited) academic and military competitors. Failure is not an option. We must “aim higher”.

There is a viable path forward.

A radical change in the direction of USAFA is needed, to pivot and refocus, and talented new civilian/veteran instructors must be aggressively recruited.

The Department of Defense must recognize USAFA education as a national strategic priority, and allocate adequate financial resources.

Such a recovery must start at the top, as the USAFA community at large has unfortunately lost all confidence in its current leadership. A viable path forward seems to be as follows:

• Identify and appoint a new (military 3 star) superintendent,

• Eliminate the largely ceremonial (military 2 star) vice superintendent position,
• Create a new long-term (civilian, senior executive service officer) provost position, who works with the USAFA Superintendent and reports to the Secretary of the Air Force, and

• Retain and fill the (military 1 star) dean position, which has been vacant since May.

To this new provost position, an accessible long-term civilian faculty member must be appointed who is intimately familiar with the existing USAFA educational programs and the unique challenges involved in delivering them. Excellent candidates for such a civilian provost position are readily available. This restructuring of leadership will bring an independent, education-oriented, mission-relevant perspective to the Superintendent����ap office, with a focus on continuity, and on transparency and accessibility by cadets and faculty alike.

Finally, a new “blue ribbon” panel of sorts, with a bold new vision and the authority to implement it, must be formulated from the ground up, as the current Board of Visitors proved itself at a meeting (recorded by KOAA) on Aug. 7 to be a politically-focused rubber stamp on the status quo.

Such a panel should be composed of apolitical luminaries on modern military thinking who no longer have a horse in the race regarding their own military promotions or reelection campaigns. Recently retired experts in their respective areas, such as and l, seem appropriate and hopefully available.

Can USAFA dig itself out of the hole it now finds itself in? Possibly. However, it will take adequate funding, substantial will (structural changes are hard), major refocusing of the academic programs that USAFA offers, and a reformulation of the leadership and advisory panel organization that deliberates and affects these changes.

Working together with the , the Higher Learning Commission is now in a unique position to demand these things on behalf of the American people. It may well be one of the most challenging and impactful actions that the HLC has ever undertaken.

Thomas Bewley is a full professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California San Diego, where he specializes in the research and teaching of autonomy, robotics, numerics, and the forecasting of extreme weather. He spent the ’24-’25 academic year as a distinguished visiting professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

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Re: “,” Nov. 7 news story

Although I can understand and appreciate the frustration the sandwich thrower felt, there is no justification for throwing any object at the police.

As a police officer, I have been spat upon, had feces thrown at me, and worse, bottles and rocks. I cannot excuse the sandwich hurler. The jury certainly reacted to the fact that no injury or harm was sustained.

Recall how outraged we were when the Jan. 6 protesters threw objects at the U.S. Capitol Police. It was wrong in both instances.

Philip Arreola, Denver

SNAP: Donating to food banks instead of Christmas gifts

Recently, the conversation in our house turned to Christmas, and the buying of gifts came up. This year, we have decided to forgo the exchange of gifts and to donate the money to local food banks or charities. After discussing our intent with our gift recipients, they all heartily agreed to do the same.

With the suspension of SNAP benefits, some 600,000 Coloradans who depend on this benefit to put food on the table will be at risk. These are our family, friends and neighbors. We are asking that you and your family consider doing the same. Can you possibly donate all or a portion of the money you spend on Christmas gifts to a local food bank or charity? A half or a quarter of what you spend? Even 10%? With the purchasing powers of food banks, your money will go a long way to helping others. Make someone else’s Christmas merry this year.

Janice Hall and Gary Romansky, Morrison

Let’s work to fix capitalism

Given the results of the NYC mayoral election, it is worth mentioning that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system. However, we find ourselves with at least 40% of working families seriously struggling to make ends meet and afford food, housing, health care, etc. That many people can not be making poor life choices, so blaming them does not work for me.

The more than half the wealth of our country.

Capitalism is broken.  I would much prefer that we fix capitalism to rebuild the middle class, especially among the young.  If we do not act promptly, those struggling economically will steer us toward a different system with consequences that many of us will not like.

John W. Thomas, Fort Collins

U.S. attorneys speak truth to power

Re: “Justice Dept. strips Jan. 6 references from court paper,” Oct. 31 news story

Kudos to the two U.S. attorneys in the Washington, D.C. office who wrote the truth in a sentencing memorandum. The attorneys referred to a “mob of rioters” on Jan. 6, 2021, in the document.  For writing the truth, the two prosecutors were put on leave and locked out of their government devices. The document was stripped of all references to January 6 and  President Trump’s involvement.

We are often advised, “if you see something, say something.” I’m assuming the two attorneys knew the risk they were taking when writing the document, yet stood strong for historical accuracy, upholding our laws, and not being cowed by a bully administration. Good models for us all.

Stand up. Fight back.

Mariann Storck, Wheat Ridge

Air Force Academy status is distressing

Re: “Under review: Air Force Academy’s accreditation,” Nov. 10 news story

As a spouse, mother, aunt and sister-in-law of six USAFA alumni, I am distressed and disgusted to read that this great institution is under threat of losing its academic accreditation due to the machinations of the Secretary of “War” and his foolish campaign against intellectualism and scholarship.

Despite their claims of opposing subjective “DEI” values, it is very clear that the intent of this administration is not to improve the Academy’s educational standards, but rather to destroy any semblance of meritocracy and drag everyone down to their level of abject mediocrity instead.

Stephanie Logan, Centennial

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