Officers responded to reports of a “domestic fight with weapons” in the 900 block of Alexander Circle in northeast Pueblo shortly before 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to a .

The suspect, who has not been publicly identified, left before officers arrived, but he was found later that evening in the 800 block of East Fifth Street, police said in the release. That block is roughly two miles south of the initial domestic violence incident, also on the east side of Pueblo.

When officers attempted to contact the man, he shot at them, police said.

SWAT officers arrived at the new address at approximately 7:41 p.m., at which point the man again shot at law enforcement, police said. An unknown number of officers returned fire, shooting and injuring the man.

Paramedics took the man to the hospital with unspecified injuries, police said.

All officers and dispatchers involved in the incident were placed on administrative leave Tuesday evening pending the investigation, which police officials said is the department’s normal procedure. The officers have not been publicly identified.

The 10th Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team will investigate the police shooting.

No additional information about the shooting or the events leading up to it was available Wednesday morning.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Peters, 70, left the La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo before the press arrived early Monday morning, her attorney said, just over two weeks after Polis cut short her sentence and ordered her swift release.

In an interview on after leaving prison, Peters said she “still (has) a fight to clear my name and bring out the truth for why they came after me the way they did.” She reiterated her baseless claims of election fraud and said her prison term was “retribution.”

Peters thanked Trump, to whom she’d written two letters while inside the Pueblo facility. She said she intended to focus on her health and was interested in advocating for criminal justice reform after her experience in prison.

“I’d been promised so many times, you’ll be out in two weeks, two weeks, two weeks,” Peters said. “…I really didn’t believe it, but I’ve always had hope. God’s always given me the hope and the strength to endure.”

Under the terms of her release, Peters must undergo cognitive behavioral therapy, receive a mental health assessment and take prescribed medications, according to a copy of her parole agreement obtained through a public records request.

Unless waived by her parole office, she must get a job or enroll in full-time educational courses, and she has to participate in a community corrections program and cannot possess firearms, alcohol or drugs.

The agreement also references, but doesn’t detail, a restraining order and directs Peters to comply with it. She is also prohibited from leaving the state without the permission of her Grand Junction parole officer. Public records indicate Peters did not receive a parole hearing before her release. Her parole agreement was signed May 28.

State officials completed a pre-parole investigation of her home last week and identified no issues, according to her internal prison file.

Last month, Peters’ legal team filed an appeal with the state Supreme Court in a bid to have her convictions overturned.

Dan Rubinstein, the Mesa County district attorney who prosecuted Peters, said Monday that he was unaware of Peters’ parole conditions. He otherwise declined to comment.

“Tina wants everyone to know that it is easy to lose one’s freedom, but it is difficult to endure. She is grateful to all of her friends, reporters, attorneys and loved ones for being so true through the period,” Peters attorney Peter Ticktin said in a statement.

Peters was sentenced to a total of nine years in jail and prison in October 2024. She was convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors after she disguised a former professional surfer associated with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell so he could access Mesa County’s election systems.

An ally of Donald Trump, Peters’ conviction and incarceration became a rallying cry for the president and his election-conspiracist allies in the years after her conviction and in the 16 months since Trump returned to office.

Peters “is grateful to President Trump for never giving up on her, never quitting, and for fighting for her.  Without his efforts, she would still be behind bars,” Ticktin wrote in his statement.

Peters’ release had long been expected: Polis had publicly mused that her sentence was too long, and his office had discussed her commutation with other officials, including the judge who sentenced her. Other state officials became resigned to the seeming imminence of a Polis commutation.

Late last year, the Trump administration sought to transfer her into federal custody. When that failed, Trump publicly blasted Polis. He then vetoed legislation that would’ve funded a water pipeline in southeast Colorado, and his administration moved to gut Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Several Democratic officials accused Trump of retaliating against the state because of Peters, and when Polis’ commutation was announced, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert told 9News that “

In the weeks since Peters’ commutation, some federal funding has flowed to projects involving the state. Tens of millions of delayed dollars for the Colorado River were released last month. On Monday, Polis’ office announced that $1.8 million for small business development — which had also been held up — had been released.

In a statement Monday evening, Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama said the state had been “working with our federal delegation for months to get this funding restored.” He said he could not comment on why the funding was withheld or why it was released now.

Throughout the first months of the year, Polis had continued to float the idea that Peters’ sentence was harsh. Amid pressure from incensed lawmakers and other elected officials, his office privately told legislators that the governor would wait to make a decision on her sentence until an appeals court weighed in.

In April, the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld Peters’ convictions but ordered that she must be resentenced, finding that her trial judge had based part of his original sentence on Peters’ speech. Polis’ commutation came several weeks later and leaned on the court’s reasoning.

The governor argued that Peters had been unfairly sentenced based on her constitutionally protected speech and that he didn’t want to wait for her appeals and resentencing to be concluded because they would take too long.

“Tina Peters should be punished for what she did,” Polis wrote in a blog post Sunday. “She should not receive additional punishment for what she believed or said.”

Polis’ decision has sparked sharp recrimination from other Democrats. He was censured in an overwhelming vote by the state Democratic Party’s central committee, .

The criticism continued Monday.

In a statement, Secretary of State Jena Griswold called Polis’ decision to commute Peters’ sentence “an affront to our democracy, the people of Colorado and election officials across the country.

“It sends a dangerous message about accountability for those who would attack elections,” Griswold wrote. “Peters’ release also will embolden the election denial movement; since the grant of clemency, she has continued to spread election falsehoods and conspiracies.”

In her interview with Bannon on Monday, Peters defended Polis and criticized the “horrible media” for its coverage of the commutation.

By the time he’d been asked to take the mound, there wasn’t much he could do to save his team. The Hornets needed two wins that day, having climbed out of the depths of the double-elimination bracket. Down big in the first game, they had essentially run out of pitchers. They just needed an innings eater. Blake Swift obliged.

“His first pitching appearance of his career,” Pueblo County coach Matt Eades recalled two years later, as if he still couldn’t quite believe the circumstances of it.

Welcome to the big leagues, kid. Now give us a few innings in the state championship game.

Swift gave Eades four. . A first baseball state title in school history eluded Pueblo County. Eades approached Swift and another sophomore, JJ Barger, in the dugout after the game.

“He told us we’ll be back,” Swift said. “And he wasn’t lying. We knew we’d be back.”

Swift’s career ended with a dogpile on the same diamond two years later. Pitching into the seventh inning, the senior led Pueblo County to a 9-4 win over Falcon High School for the Colorado Class 4A championship on Saturday at Air Force Academy’s Erdle Field. This time, the Hornets were in pole position, needing only one win. Eades’ promise was fulfilled; Swift took advantage of the second chance. The program’s breakthrough was all the more satisfying for it.

“It comes full circle today,” Eades said.

Swift’s only regret was that he couldn’t go the distance. He cruised into the seventh, safely under the 110-pitch limit, comfortable with a 9-1 lead. He wanted the complete game “pretty bad,” he said. But after letting a few batters get away from him, his pitch count had spiked. Eades had no choice but to go to his bullpen.

“When I went out to get him,” the coach said, “I just told him, ‘What a great career. Don’t worry. We’re gonna finish this for you.'”

A blowout started to inch toward anxious territory first. After the Falcons scored their third run of the inning on a two-out walk, they were one baserunner away from bringing the tying run to the plate. But the game ended on a strikeout looking. Swift’s final gem was preserved, even if the box score didn’t appear as pristine as his 1.34 season ERA through 14 games. He pitched 6 1/3 innings in the title-clinching win, striking out five while allowing three earned runs on six hits.

“Ever since he pitched that day (in 2024), we just knew he was gonna be our guy,” fellow senior Nick Hernandez said. “So it was nice to see him go out this way.”

Falcon tried to hammer Swift before he could settle in, swinging early in counts and making hard contact. The exit velocities and launch angles he allowed in the first inning would’ve portended disaster if those sorts of things were tracked in high school baseball. The first five batters of the game had Pueblo County’s outfielders chasing down tricky fly balls in the morning wind. A double off the wall. Two deep sacrifice flies. An error in left field on a drop near the track.

The Falcons only got one run out of it. They made Swift throw only 12 pitches.

“All you need to know about him is the way the game started,” Eades said. “Three rockets, and you couldn’t tell. He was the same guy that he is all the time.”

The deficit didn’t last long. With two outs in the top of the second, nine-hitter Elijah Tafoya fought off a full-count pitch out of play, then tripled off the right field wall to give Pueblo County the lead for good. Hernandez followed with a rope up the middle to score Tafoya.

The Hornets thrived all season by creating havoc on the base paths. On Saturday, they had Falcon kicking the ball all over the field. Two runners went first to third on errant pick-off attempts. Pueblo County capitalized on the second of those errors with an insurance run in the fourth. Again, it was the senior second baseman Hernandez delivering a two-out RBI single. He finished his 2-for-3 day with an RBI hit-by-pitch in the sixth, igniting a five-run frame to put the game out of reach.

“We definitely played our game,” Hernandez said. “We played clean. Relied on Blake to get us outs. Played good defense behind him and had his back.”

The Pueblo community had his back, too. About a week before their return to the state championship game, the Hornets’ catcher’s communication equipment broke, leaving them little time to order a replacement. Pueblo South coach Kevin Ortiz came out to Pueblo County’s graduation, according to Eades, and hooked the Hornets up with his team’s equipment.

“We’ve been rolling with it ever since,” Eades said. “… The city of Pueblo are champions today.”

Swift wasn’t at his absolute sharpest, but he was at his gutsiest. In the bottom of the fourth, he plunked back-to-back hitters to load the bases, warranting a mound visit. With the go-ahead run at the plate, he quickly got ahead 0-2 on the next batter, eventually inducing an inning-ending grounder to shortstop. Falcon left another two runners stranded in the fifth, when Pueblo County was still protecting a 4-1 lead.

It helped, he said afterward, to have experience on the same exact mound. Experience burning through innings when his team needed it on the biggest stage.

“El Caballo!” Eades shouted at Swift as the Hornets hoisted the trophy. The Horse. 

A nickname that could’ve applied to the senior hero or the sophomore upstart just the same.

Her exit from the La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo comes roughly 30 months earlier than originally scheduled, after Gov. Jared Polis commuted her sentence in mid-May and ordered her release at the start of June.

The one-time top election official in Mesa County, Peters will be released almost exactly five years after she helped an election conspiracist surreptitiously copy information from her county’s secure election systems. Some of that information was later published on right-wing media.

Peters, 70, did not have a parole hearing ahead of her release so it was unclear the conditions under which she will be released. In an interview earlier this month, one of her attorneys, Peter Ticktin, said the parole board would set her conditions at some point after her release. On Friday, the Department of Corrections said she is being released under a parole agreement, but the document was not immediately available.

According to a copy of Peters’ inmate file, two state law enforcement officers completed a “pre-parole investigation” of Peters’ home on Wednesday “and found nothing of concern.” The file also notes that Peters had a video call on May 15 at noon, nearly three hours before Polis’ office publicly announced her commutation. Ticktin said she had been called into the warden’s office, where she learned the news.

It’s unclear when or where exactly she will be released Monday. Corrections Department spokeswoman Alondra Gonzalez-Garcia said in a statement that the DOC doesn’t disclose release times or logistics for any individual cases for safety and security reasons.

Adrienne Mazzone, a spokeswoman for Peters’ legal team, said Thursday that “no details regarding (Peters’) release timing, location, visibility to the public, or any potential exclusive access are confirmed.”

As of Friday, Peters’ location was still listed as the La Vista prison in Pueblo, according to a Corrections Department database.

She was initially sentenced to a total of nine years in jail and prison after her August 2024 conviction on three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, a count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, and charges of first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.

Several months after the 2020 election, she directed Mesa County elections staff to turn off security cameras overseeing a secure room. She then gave another person’s access badge to a former professional surfer, who was affiliated with MyPillow CEO and election conspiracist Mike Lindell, so he could pretend to be a county employee and gain access to the equipment.

Three days after her sentence was commuted this month, Peters was “always in a good mood,” one prison staff member wrote in her file, which The Denver Post obtained through a public records request. “She said she was excited, that she will be leaving very soon.”

As Peters prepared for that departure, Ticktin and the rest of her legal team launched another salvo to challenge the trial that saw her convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors.

Though the Colorado Court of Appeals in April ordered her trial judge to resentence Peters, the appellate judges unanimously upheld her underlying convictions. On May 21, after Polis issued the commutation, her legal team renewed the challenge with the state Supreme Court. Ticktin told The Post that Peters had not expressed any contrition for her crimes because she believed she had been targeted by a “globalist judge.”

Peters had not been resentenced before Polis announced his decision to release her. Three legal experts have told The Post that they were not aware of any other case in which a governor had granted clemency to an inmate who was in the middle of similar judicial proceedings.

In the recent petition to the state Supreme Court, Peters’ lawyers argued that her convictions should be tossed for three reasons: her trial judge should’ve held a hearing to see if a juror may have been influenced by the fact that their telephone lines had been severed during the early days of the trial; Peters was immune from prosecution under the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause; and her trial judge should’ve allowed Peters to discuss what she believed to be her duties as an election official.

The appellate court , affirming the trial court’s findings and dismissing as “meritless” Peters’ contention that she should’ve been allowed to tell the jury that she was investigating election fraud.

It will likely be months before the state high court decides whether to take up Peters’ appeal. If the justices do so, many more months will follow before the appeal is heard and adjudicated. Should she fail at the state level, Peters could then petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a new trial.

If one of those high courts throws out her convictions, prosecutors in Mesa County will have to determine if she should be retried.

, Peters’ attorneys wrote that she’d pledged “that she will not, in the future, engage in illegal conduct or commit offenses of the type for which she was convicted.” In a statement attached to the application, Peters said that her “work to ensure honest elections will continue” but that she will “make sure that my actions always follow the law.”

The application also noted she’s unlikely to commit the same offenses again, as she’s no longer a county clerk tasked with overseeing elections.

A prominent ally of President Donald Trump, Peters may also soon qualify for a payout from the nearly . Vice President JD Vance floated Peters as someone who should get compensation under the “anti-weaponization fund,” which was established as part of a settlement with Trump to give money to people who claim they were unjustly targeted by previous administrations.

RTD directors approved spending the $3 million, down from the $5 million FRPRD manager Sal Pace initially requested, to build understanding of the proposed “Colorado Connector” train service, which would link Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins using existing Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway freight tracks with three trains a day starting by January 2029. The trains would reach speeds up to 79 mph and stop in eight cities.

RTD directors have already committed to supporting a financial framework agreement for the $332 million “starter service” first phase of Colorado’s intercity rail service project.

A train linking Denver with Boulder would help fulfill RTD’s broken promises over the past two decades to expand FasTracks rail transit. However, RTD directors are wrestling with a $215 million annual budget deficit, considering possible RTD service cuts.

officials at the RTD board meeting Wednesday night committed to paying back the $3 million, whether or not their ballot measure, seeking voter approval in November for a tax hike to fund expanded Front Range Passenger Rail service from Fort Collins to Pueblo, succeeds.

“The future of transit in the region is very much tied together,” RTD director Chris Nicholson said, “and the only way that we will be successful is if we all hang together.”

Toasty spring temperatures on the Front Range and Eastern Plains will likely transition to severe thunderstorms with a chance of snow showers over the weekend and into early next week, National Weather Service forecasters said Friday.

The swing is “classic Colorado,” NWS Boulder meteorologist Dave Barjenbruch said.

“We’re going to see a pretty sharp change here tomorrow with scattered storms and the greatest risk for severe weather just east of Denver and over northeast Colorado,” Barjenbruch said.

There’s also a slight chance of a strong thunderstorm or two in metro Denver, he added, as well as a chance that could cause a slightly soggy Colfax Marathon on Sunday.

A moist air mass moving up from the Gulf of Mexico is expected to bring precipitation throughout the region starting Saturday, though when, where and how much is still up in the air, according to

Colorado’s mountains will likely see a few inches of snow starting Sunday night and the foothills could get up to an inch. It¶¶Ňőap about a 50-50 chance swirling in the sky on Monday, Barjenbruch said, but even then temperatures will be warm enough that there will be little to no accumulation.

Temperatures could fall low enough to put a layer of frost over early gardens, though a hard freeze is not likely, Barjenbruch said.

“We could dip to or just slightly below freezing Monday night, but most of the Denver metro should stay at or above freezing. We’re certainly keeping an eye on that over the next couple of days,” he said.

Most of the will see strong, gusty winds and low humidity on Saturday, which could cause elevated fire danger before transitioning to thunderstorms and rain showers on Monday, according to NWS offices in Grand Junction and Pueblo.

Medical help was given at the scene, police said. The person died at the hospital.

Police said officers responded shortly after midnight to reports of a fight with weapons at Drew Dix Park in Pueblo. The people left the park before officers arrived but police got a description of the suspects’ vehicle, a van.

Officers found the van with three people in it. During the encounter, a passenger displayed a gun, police said.

An officer fired at the passenger, the police department said. The officers involved and one police dispatcher have been placed on administrative leave.

The 10th Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team is investigating the shooting.

The Pueblo County Coroner will identify the person killed after notifications are made.

A Colorado woman who saw her 2009 murder conviction overturned last year is now seeking more than $830,000 from the state under a rarely used law that allows payments to people exonerated of crimes.

Acacia Lyn-Darr, 47, spent 11 years and 10 months in prison after she was wrongly convicted of felony murder in the 2009 killing of Robert Piserchio in Pueblo.

A judge erased her conviction in 2025, and prosecutors went on to dismiss the charges against her, acknowledging they could not prove their case.

Lyn-Darr filed a petition last week seeking nearly $832,000 under a 2013 law that pays exonerated people up to $70,000 for every year they spent behind bars for felony crimes they did not commit. The law also allows for a tuition waiver at state universities and payments for legal fees.

“Ms. Lyn-Darr had more than a decade of her life taken from her,” said Eric Klein, one of her attorneys. She hopes the money will help her rebuild, and she is considering attending college, he said.

If her petition is successful, Lyn-Darr would become just the fourth person to receive exoneration compensation from the state since the Colorado Exoneration Act was passed 13 years ago.

The state has paid out $3.2 million to three wrongly convicted people and an additional $345,000 to their attorneys under the law, according to records provided by the Colorado Judicial Department, which processes the payments.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has not yet decided whether to concede or oppose Lyn-Darr’s petition for compensation, spokesman Lawrence Pacheco said Tuesday.

Since 2019, no petition opposed by Weiser’s office has been successful, and payments have only been made when the attorney general concedes the case, according to records kept by the office.

A co-defendant falsely confessed

Lyn-Darr was wrongfully convicted of participating in the killing of 50-year-old Piserchio at his Pueblo home on Dec. 10, 2009, during what prosecutors at the time said was a robbery gone wrong. Piserchio was bound with duct tape, tortured and beaten. His body was set on fire.

A jury convicted Lyn-Darr after her then-boyfriend, Matthew Barnes, falsely confessed that he was involved in the killing and claimed that Lyn-Darr also took part in the attack. Neither person was there, and the killing was actually carried out by another man who acted alone, Lyn-Darr’s attorneys wrote in the petition for compensation. That man, Aaron Wilkerson, was also convicted of felony murder.

Barnes confessed to the killing after four hours of interrogation by investigators with the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office, and only after a 30-minute window in which the camera recording the interrogation “suddenly and inexplicably stopped working,” Lyn-Darr’s attorneys, Klein and Gail Johnson, wrote in the petition.

The camera came back on as Barnes made his confession. The moment he switched from declaring his innocence to confessing to murder was not captured on the sheriff’s office’s recording.

The investigators on the case fed Barnes information about the killing, even showing him crime scene photos, and he adjusted his story to match their demands, according to the petition.

“When Mr. Barnes said he did not think anything had been used to bind the victim’s hands or feet, the PCSO investigators told him: “Think real hard. Duct tape,'” the petition reads. The man was high on methamphetamine and sleep-deprived during the eight-hour interrogation, according to the petition.

Barnes recanted his confession three months later in a letter to his attorney, then wrote another letter reversing his position again 10 days after that. He had, in that 10-day window, decided to take a deal in which he would plead guilty to second-degree murder and be sentenced to 30 years in prison — avoiding the mandatory life sentence that would come with a first-degree murder conviction. As part of the deal, he was required to testify against Lyn-Darr during her jury trial.

Lyn-Darr maintained her innocence from the beginning and said she was in Denver at the time of the killing. She was convicted at trial after Barnes testified against her. Prosecutors zeroed in on Lyn-Darr as a suspect after she attempted to cash a check stolen from the victim four days after his death; she said Wilkerson gave her the checks, and that she did not know where he had gotten them.

Pueblo County District Court vacated Lyn-Darr’s convictions in 2025, finding that there was “no reliable evidence” tying her to the homicide. Barnes testified during the post-conviction proceedings that he’d falsely implicated Lyn-Darr, and the judge noted significant evidence that his confession was false.

“Everything about the crime that he described in his confession was either provided to him by the police, is uncorroborated by any other evidence, or is actually contradicted by other evidence,” the judge wrote in an 18-page order erasing Lyn-Darr’s convictions.

Barnes remains incarcerated and his conviction stands, court and prison records show, but he filed a petition for post-conviction relief in March and his case has been reopened. His attorney did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

A fourth person who pleaded guilty in connection with Piserchio’s killing, Brandon Armijo, has also claimed innocence. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to aggravated robbery in exchange for the dismissal of all other charges and was sentenced to 24 years in prison — a term that ran concurrently with a 21-year prison sentence he was already serving for unrelated crimes when he pleaded guilty in the Piserchio attack, .

He has since been released on parole and his criminal case appeared to be closed.

Few payouts under 2013 law

Lynn-Darr is one of only a small number of people who have sought compensation under the 2013 law, records show. Only three have received payments.

Robert Dewey, who was wrongfully convicted in 1996 of murder and rape in the death of 19-year-old Jacie Taylor in Palisade, was cleared by DNA evidence in 2012 and set free after nearly 18 years in prison, was the first to receive compensation under the Colorado Exoneration Act. He was paid nearly $1.2 million between 2013 and 2017, according to the judicial records. His case inspired the law.

Clarence Moses-El, who was wrongly convicted of a 1987 rape in Denver and sentenced to 48 years in prison, received $1.9 million in 2019 after spending 28 years incarcerated. His conviction was tossed in 2015 and he was acquitted during a second trial in 2016.

Klein and Johnson also represented Moses-El. Klein on Tuesday remembered when he realized Moses-El would receive the compensation.

“It was a moment that felt good for everyone involved,” Klein said. “For the innocent person to get compensation for what he went through, and for the government to acknowledge the wrong that had been done and try to do something to right it.”

The third person compensated under the law, Anthony Fitts, received $46,000 in 2020. Fitts spent eight months in prison after he to a 2017 sexual assault in La Plata County. His conviction was vacated after the of assault and testified that the encounter was consensual, court records show.

Since 2019, eight people have filed petitions for compensation, including Lyn-Darr and Fitts, according to records kept by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which did not have records of petitions between 2013 and 2018, before Weiser took office. Over those seven years, three petitions were denied, Fitts’ was granted, one petition was withdrawn and three cases are still pending.

That number could soon increase. Stephen Martinez, 58, who was released from prison last week after his murder conviction was overturned in a 1998 shaken baby case, will seek compensation under the act, his attorney, Jeanne Segil, said Tuesday. Martinez, who spent 27 years in prison, may be eligible for about $1.9 million. He has not yet filed a petition.

Weiser has yet to take a position on Lyn-Darr’s petition, but his office opposes compensation in the two other pending cases, brought by Traci Lundstrom and Clayton Hood.

Lundstrom, who killed her husband during a fight in 2009 but saw her conviction vacated in 2023 after prosecutors conceded she acted in self-defense, is seeking $140,000 for the eight months she spent in jail and her years on probation. She previously used the name Traci Housman.

Weiser’s office argued in court filings that Lundstrom is not eligible for compensation because she is not “factually innocent” of the crime, but legally innocent. State law allows compensation only for petitioners who can show they are factually innocent — that they did not do the actions that resulted in their conviction.

“While Ms. Lundstrom alleged, and the District Attorney agreed, that she is legally not guilty of the crime charged because she had a valid claim of self-defense, she does not allege that she is factually innocent, i.e., that she did not participate in the conduct underlying the charges,” a state petition to dismiss reads.

A judge agreed with Weiser’s office and dismissed Lundstrom’s petition in 2025; she is appealing.

Weiser’s office is also opposing a petition for compensation filed by Hood, who was convicted in 2021 of sexual assault on a child and unlawful sexual contact, saw that conviction overturned, and then was acquitted during a second trial. He filed a petition in December seeking $210,000 for the three years he spent incarcerated.

Hood’s first conviction was overturned in 2024 after the Colorado Court of Appeals found that the trial judge wrongly blocked defense attorneys from presenting evidence that another male’s DNA was found on the victim’s body. That DNA did not match Hood. He was acquitted in a second trial in 2025, during which the DNA evidence was presented.

In a response opposing his petition for compensation, attorneys in Weiser’s office argued that Hood’s acquittal does not show actual innocence. They noted that the DNA evidence did not exclude Hood as the perpetrator of the attack and that there is circumstantial evidence that he committed the crime for which he was found not guilty.

“The reversal of Hood’s conviction and subsequent acquittal do not constitute a finding of actual innocence,” the response reads.

The deal with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway would use existing freight tracks, allowing Front Range Passenger Rail “starter service” to start by January 2029. Trains would reach speeds up to 79 miles per hour on three 80-minute round-trips a day, stopping in eight cities.

State leaders’ timetable shows design work and engineering mostly completed by the end of this year, using the initial $5.58 million from RTD and $3.8 million from the , the business enterprise arm of the .  RTD directors committed to support the terms of a financial framework in which the agency would pay $156 million overall for the starter service, and the CTIO commissioners committed to paying $176 million — plus an additional $10 million to $12 million a year each to cover operating costs.

State transportation commissioners and the board also signed off, and the Colorado board approved paying an additional $10 million to $12 million a year for train operations.

BNSF owns the tracks. The framework agreement negotiated by Lisa Kaufmann, a senior advisor to Polis, required approvals by all five boards before it could be finalized on June 15. The deal lays out terms for track-sharing as passenger trains connect eight northern Front Range cities (Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Westminster, Broomfield, Longmont, Louisville, Loveland) without disrupting freight operations.

“It¶¶Ňőap been a long time coming,” CTIO board chairman Cecil Gutierrez said. “There are many of us who have been dreaming of this for decades.”

RTD directors voted 14 to 1 to approve the initial funding and support the project after hearing from rail transit advocates, several of them referring to RTD’s failure to complete the promised FasTracks rail after collecting sales tax revenues from residents since 2005. “Supporting this will begin a long process of restoring confidence in RTD,” Colorado Passenger Rail Association president Jack Wheeler said.

FasTracks plans include a train linking Denver and Boulder.

“An objective evaluation of our future revenues and existing costs quickly reveals that we simply will never have the funds to build out the system as originally planned,” said RTD Director Patrick O’Keefe, who chairs the 15-member board. “We need to be creative and find alternatives to honor the promises made to communities across our service area,” he said, and launching the starter service in partnership with state agencies “is a very encouraging example of this creativity.”

It¶¶Ňőap the first step toward the proposed, broader Front Range Passenger Rail system linking Fort Collins to Pueblo with 10 trains a day running a route along Interstate 25.

Front Range Passenger Rail District officials have held more than 20 meetings in cities, rallying support for a possible ballot measure in November asking voters along the I-25 corridor to approve a sales tax increase. FRPRD leaders are also backing state that would redefine district boundaries to remove Castle Rock, Greeley, Lone Tree, and Monument — cities that lack robust support for rail transit.

“We’re very hopeful about passing a ballot measure this November,” FRPRD director Sal Pace told RTD directors Tuesday night, asking them to invest an additional $5 million for the broader rail project.

“Partnership with RTD would facilitate moving us toward that ballot question,” Pace said. “We are going to succeed with you. And you are going to succeed with us.” Pace said a ballot measure for the broader Front Range Passenger Rail service likely would raise $262 million a year.

RTD is facing a budget crisis with a $215 million annual deficit – forcing agency directors to consider 20% to 36% cuts in bus and train service. However, an agency savings account holds sales tax revenues collected for FasTracks — with a current balance of $191 million. That’s the account RTD officials plan to tap to help fund starter service.

“All the rail lines will meet in Denver. Denver is going to be the biggest winner,” RTD Director Karen Benker said. “The other big winners will be Fort Collins, Pueblo and Colorado Springs,” once the starter service begins, Benker said. “This is the link that has to be built first.”

But the ‘s $331 million “starter service” trains would roll by January 2029 with three daily roundtrips, at speeds up to 79 mph, also stopping at Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins.

And the 150 residents who attended the meeting in the East Boulder Community Center mostly applauded. The Front Range Passenger Rail District presentation was the latest in in which state officials are rallying support for a tax increase to eventually fund an expanded Colorado Connector rail service with 10 daily roundtrips linking cities from Fort Collins to Pueblo.

“Boulder is ready for rail. We have been for 20 years,” said Kristofer Johnson, the city’s comprehensive planning manager, referring to the voter approval of a tax hike in 2004 to fund a FasTracks train linking Denver and Boulder, which the Regional Transportation District has failed to deliver.

That¶¶Ňőap been a sore spot in northwest metro Denver. RTD collected sales tax revenues that residents paid over the past two decades, setting aside about $190 million in an agency savings account. Johnson pointed out that Boulder developed a “transit village,” including apartments and shops near an existing RTD bus station, in anticipation of trains to Denver.

Boulder County Commissioner Claire Levy, who also serves on the rail district board, addressed questions from residents about what happened to the sales taxes they paid for two decades.

“The actual costs of FasTracks just far exceed the revenue that was raised. You cannot change that,” Levy said.

“We’re hoping to tap a substantial amount of that money that RTD has put away,” and RTD is expected to pay a share of the annual operating costs, around $25 million, she said. “For more than that, we just have to be realistic about the funding that is available.”

The starter service trains would run on existing RTD B-Line tracks to Westminster, then shift to Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway freight tracks. RTD directors and several state boards must first approve funding.

At Wednesday’s meeting, residents wanted to know the train timetables. Where could riders park their vehicles at stations? What’s the potential for an expanded system eventually to bring all-electric fast trains at higher frequencies?

“I was underwhelmed,” said Indira Pranabudi, who moved to Boulder from Boston, where she relied only on public transit. “I came in here quite hopeful. Then I heard ‘three daily round-trips.’ That¶¶Ňőap not enough.”

Afterwards, she sat with fellow Boulder resident Andrew Robinson, who embraced the plans. “It¶¶Ňőap definitely a start.”

The turnout on a weeknight, following crowds of up to 300 at meetings in Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Denver and Longmont, shows that “people really want this service,” Front Range Passenger Rail District director Sal Pace said.

He and attorney John Putnam, chairman of the rail district’s board and former general counsel for the U.S. Department of Transportation, also acknowledged residents’ desires for higher-frequency, faster trains in the future.

“I want that, too,” Putnam said. “Ultimately, we want to be there. If we want that, how do we get there?”

Updated 1:15 p.m. April 16, 2026: This story has been updated to correct Kristofer Johnson’s title. He is Boulder’s comprehensive planning manager.