Tag: colorado

Despite New Gun Controls, Homicides Are Spiking in Colorado’s Democratic Stronghold

When the FBI’s official crime stats come out later this year, we’re likely to learn that 2025 saw a record-setting decline in homicides nationwide, and that the overall homicide rate is the lowest it’s been since the FBI started keeping track in 1960. 

That welcome trend seems to be continuing in 2026, with criminologist Jeff Asher’s Real Time Crime Index showing another 22% decline in homicides through the first two months of the year. 

Still, there are some outliers, and one of them is Denver, Colorado. Last year Denver saw a 48% decrease in homicides, with Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas pointing to “a mix of faster police response, medical intervention, and long-term prevention strategies.” This year, though, homicides are trending in the wrong direction.

Data provided by police show that total crime, violent crime and reported gun-related offenses are down compared with both last year and recent averages. At the same time, homicides have risen compared with this point last year, with 17 reported so far in 2026, up from 10 during the same period in 2025.

Last year, Democrats in the Colorado legislature added several new restrictions to the spate of gun control laws that have been put in place since 2011, but they don’t appear to be having any kind of impact on homicides in the state’s biggest city. That’s hardly a surprise, though, given that violent crime overall climbed steadily over most of the past 15 years. 

In May, 2024 the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice released its report documenting crime rates between 2013 and 2022. Over that ten year period, violent crime rose by 61%, homicides increased by 94%, and aggravated assaults grew 88%. 

During that same ten-year period, Colorado instituted a number of gun control laws, starting with “universal” background checks and a ban on “large capacity” magazines in 2013. That was followed by a “red flag” law in 2019, and in 2021, new storage mandates for gun owners, a “lost or stolen” reporting requirement, and an end to the state’s firearm preemption law. 

Despite having almost a dozen anti-2A measures implemented over that time period, the homicide rate nearly doubled, and violent crime rates soared ever upward. 

Supposedly, overall violent crimes are down in Denver this year, even though homicides have increased by 70%, according to the CBS affiliate. Oddly, the Denver PD’s homicide dashboard reports 16, not 17 homicides, but even that is a 60% increase in murders. Non-fatal shootings have declined by 12% this  year, according to police, though in raw numbers we’re talking about five fewer incidents over the first 3 1/2 months of the year, which is hardly anything to write home about. 

The number of gun-involved homicides is also higher this year than at the same point in 2025, which is yet another sign that Colorado’s restrictive gun laws aren’t preventing violent offenders from getting their hands on a firearm. In the first four months of 2025 there were 10 homicides involving a firearm. We still have almost two weeks left in April, but Denver has already seen 12 homicides where a gun was involved. 

Of course, none of these statistics will matter to the anti-gun Democrats who keep ramming gun control laws through the legislature. They may use crime and public safety as a rationale for these laws, but the real goal is to prevent and prohibit lawful gun ownership. If violent crime falls at the same time, all the better, but that’s clearly not necessary for them to continue their crackdown on the exercise of our Second Amendment rights. 

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Judge Orders Colorado to Stop Throwing Prisoners in Solitary for Refusing to Work

In 2019, while incarcerated at the Centennial Correctional Facility in Colorado and assigned to shifts in the kitchen, Nadia Reed refused to work for two days in one month. All incarcerated people in Colorado are required to labor, and are typically paid mere cents an hour. Her punishment for that decision was being confined to her cell alone for 23 hours a day for 30 days, unable to interact with any other incarcerated people, not even during the hour she was allowed out for exercise and to shower. She was also denied the ability to talk to her loved ones. In court testimony, she described the isolation as “very depressing,” leading her to self-harm. 

The following year, after Reed completed her assigned shift in the kitchen, she was ordered to stay longer to do additional work. She refused, for which she was handcuffed, shackled, strip searched, put in solitary confinement and once again confined to her cell for 23 hours a day, according to her testimony. As a result of the incident, Reed was reclassified from medium security to a higher level, and she says she was sexually assaulted when she was moved into that part of the prison.

Experiences like Reed’s are common in Colorado, with Bolts reporting in 2023 that incarcerated people there are routinely subjected to solitary confinement and other punishments for refusing to work. But that could soon be a thing of the past. In a groundbreaking ruling last month in a lawsuit filed against the state by Harold Mortis and Richard Lilgerose, men who were punished for refusing to work in crowded prison kitchens during the COVID-19 pandemic, a state district court judge found that Colorado is violating incarcerated people’s rights by the way it punishes them for refusing to work. 

The judge ruled that Colorado has failed to abide by a change voters made to their state constitution in 2018 that erased language allowing “slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime.”

While the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery at the end of the Civil War, it included a carveout that sanctions it as punishment for people convicted of crimes. Many state constitutions include the same loophole, which has allowed prisons to force incarcerated people to work under threat of discipline, often for little pay; seven states don’t pay anything for most prison jobs. 

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Another Red State, Fully Californicated

“20 years ago Colorado was a Red state and thriving,” the State Leadership Initiative posted late last week. “10 years ago liberals were writing pieces about how Colorado was the next Silicon Valley.” And now CBS News reports that “Colorado is losing businesses and jobs at an alarming rate.”

This was the hope, according to Denver-based 5280 magazine in 2020: “With another tech company setting up an office in Denver, the state could become a magnet for Silicon Valley firms and other prestigious businesses during the worst economic climate in nearly a century.”

Instead of Silicon Mountain, Colorado is quickly becoming “an economic backwater,” as SLI put it, “an omen for what happens when Red states go blue.”

It seems like only last week [It was just last week, Steve —Editor] I shared the schadenfreudelicious tale of how one TDS-suffering Delaware judge launched an exodus of big-name firms led by Elon Musk. Today, I must share similar news about my once-beloved home state of Colorado.

“The Colorado Chamber of Commerce has been sounding an alarm for years about excessive regulation,” CBS reported, and “the Chamber also said that companies are also relocating out-of-state.” According to the story, “since 2019, 98 companies have either left the state, expanded elsewhere, or scrapped plans to move here.” In the last four years, we’ve lost a total of 34 corporate headquarters, too. 

The most recent big name to leave is Palantir, the AI firm recently touted by President Donald Trump for its invaluable contributions to Operation Epic Fury. With basically zero fanfare, the company announced last week that it’s moved its HQ to Miami. 

“We are going to be hurting Colordans not just now, but the next generation, the next generation after that. And we just want to course correct,” tech entrepreneur and investor Dan Caruso wrote to Democrat Gov. Jared Polis in a letter signed by more than 200 business and civic leaders.

Polis and the Democrat-dominated statehouse made some polite noises about maybe looking into something resembling deregulation someday soonish, but Colorado requires so much more.

Let’s go back to something I wrote almost exactly one year ago, when we looked at what Colorado was like before and after 2018, the year Democrats took full control of the state government.

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Musk’s xAI Sues Colorado Over AI Law, Saying It Forces Developers to Back State’s Views

An artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk filed a lawsuit on April 9 over a Colorado law it claims makes AI developers endorse “Colorado’s views on diversity, equity, and inclusion or face significant compliance costs and civil fines.”

xAI, whose flagship product is the chatbot Grok, named Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser as the defendant. The lawsuit states that the law’s provisions “prohibit developers of AI systems from producing speech that the State of Colorado dislikes, while compelling them to conform their speech to a State-enforced orthodoxy on controversial topics of great public concern.” The lawsuit says the Colorado law violates the First Amendment.

Weiser didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

The lawsuit questions the use of the term “algorithmic discrimination” in the law, calling it vague.

The text of the law defines it this way: “Algorithmic discrimination means any condition in which the use of an artificial intelligence system results in unlawful differential treatment or impact that disfavors an individual or group of individuals on the basis of their actual or perceived age, color, disability, ethnicity, genetic information, limited proficiency in the English language, national origin, race, religion, reproductive health, sex, veteran status, or other classification protected under the laws of this state or federal law.”

The bill, SB24-205, was introduced in April 2024, passed the next month, and will take effect on June 30, 2026.

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Fascist Colorado Democrat Says He is ‘Creating Lists’ of People in the Trump Administration to ‘Hold Accountable’ in the Future

Democrat Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado recently appeared on MSNOW and said that he is creating ‘lists’ of people in the Trump administration to go after in the future.

These people don’t seem to realize that they are the fascists. They are the ones who want to use the power of the state to go after their perceived political enemies. They are the ones who are chomping at the bit to wield power over others.

It should be noted that Crow was one of the Democrats who urged the military to ignore supposedly illegal orders. Also, last summer he claimed it was ‘dangerous’ for Tulsi Gabbard to hold Obama accountable for the Russigate hoax.

FOX News reports:

Democratic lawmaker warns he’s ‘taking names,’ creating list of people who need to be held accountable

Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., said he was “taking names” and creating his own list on Tuesday when pressed on how Democrats were going to respond to what MS NOW reported as an “enemies” list from the Trump Department of Justice (DOJ), specifically with regard to his participation in a video telling U.S. military personnel to refuse hypothetical illegal orders from the Trump administration.

MS NOW’s Ari Melber, after displaying a graphic of the alleged “enemies” list, said, “Pam Bondi’s out, partly because she has zero wins on this. Probably a good thing for the rule of law, but was a bad thing for her. What do you say to her, to Todd Blanche, who appears to be pursuing a similar program? What will the Congress do? And if they break laws within the DOJ of selective prosecution, will they ever be held accountable?”

Crow argued that strong leadership required them to be thrown “into the fire” and to “pick fights,” as Melber asked him again what they were going to do about it.

“Well, accountability will come, sooner or later,” he said. “You can’t hide from that. We are taking names. I’m creating my own lists of people that need to have oversight and accountability. It is so important right now that people understand that if you’re in this administration, and you’re asked to violate the law, or violate your oath, or turn your back on the Constitution, that you will be judged — one way or another, at some point or another.”

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For The Third Time, SCOTUS Tells Colorado To Stop State-Enforced Homosexuality

The Supreme Court, for the third time, has slapped down another attempt by Colorado to control what people say, think, and do regarding sexuality and the sexes.

First, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission told Jack Phillips that he may sell baked goods only if he’s willing to include messages that violate his religious beliefs. The Supreme Court said that violated Phillips’ First Amendment rights. Up next, Colorado’s “anti-discrimination” law allowed creative entrepreneurs, like web designer Lorie Smith, to do business only if they, too, would include messages in their work that violated their religious beliefs. Again, the Supreme Court said this violated the First Amendment.

But Colorado had another law, this one dictating what licensed counselors like Kaley Chiles may say to their young clients about sexuality and the sexes. They may, the law says, provide acceptance, support, and assistance for “an individual’s … identity exploration and development.” That much might sound OK, but it only works in one direction. Counselors may help an individual who wishes to separate so-called gender identity from his or her sex, but not those who wish to align them.

In other words, a counselor in Colorado may help a boy — even without his parents’ permission — accept that he’s actually a girl, but must tell a girl — even with her parents’ permission — who doesn’t want to be a boy that she has to go elsewhere.

The law uses the extremely broad brush of “conversion therapy” to include everything from discredited and abandoned physical techniques to the “talk therapy” that Chiles uses. That’s no doubt intentional, a rather crude attempt at guilt-by-association, but seriously misleading. And the First Amendment flag has to go up whenever the government attempts to dictate what you must or can’t say.

Colorado is being especially authoritarian here. Under this law, any person who thinks a counselor is saying the wrong thing may file a complaint with a regulatory board, which triggers a disciplinary review process that can result in a counselor losing his or her license. This invites activists to target mental health professionals with such complaints, knowing that even the rumor of a disciplinary proceeding, no matter how bogus, can ruin a professional’s reputation.

Equally undeterred, the Supreme Court on March 31 held that this violated Chiles’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The First Amendment’s “jealous protections for the individual’s right to think and speak freely,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch for an 8-1 majority, means that government attempts to control the content of speech are “presumptively unconstitutional.” This Colorado law did not ban counselors from talking about sexuality and the sexes, but dictated what they may say when they do. Attempting to control the opinions or perspectives an individual may express, Gorsuch wrote, presents “even greater dangers” and constitutes an even more blatant violation of the First Amendment.

This time, the Supreme Court repudiated Colorado’s authoritarian tendencies by a resounding margin, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson the lone dissenter. As she did during the argument in this case, Jackson suggested that there’s no difference between physical interventions like electric shocks and simply talking. She insisted that a ban on certain speech affects speech “only incidentally.” Yes, she really did.

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These common drug tests lead to tens of thousands of wrongful arrests a year, experts say. One state is fighting back

Bird poop scraped off a man’s car appeared on a drug test as cocaine. A toddler’s ashes registered as methamphetamine or ecstasy.

And a great-grandmother’s medicine tested positive for cocaine – spawning a 15-month legal nightmare, forcing her to refinance her home, and spurring a new state law that could set a precedent across the country.

Colorado just enacted the nation’s first law banning arrests based solely on the results of colorimetric drug tests – a field test widely used by law enforcement across the country.

The tests are popular because they’re cheap, portable and can screen for drugs in mere minutes. It’s just not feasible to send all suspected drug samples to state laboratories, which would be far more expensive and could take days or weeks to return results.

But these inexpensive tests also lead to false positives at alarming rates, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found.

While the actual error rate nationwide is unknown, previous studies by manufacturers have put it around 4%. But the UPenn researchers believe the actual rate is much higher, from 15% to 38%. And a study by the New York City Department of Investigation showed test error rates from 79% to 91% in some correctional settings.

From lost jobs to months in jail, innocent people “are at risk of having their lives derailed by these inaccurate tests,” said Des Walsh, founder of the Roadside Drug Test Innocence Alliance.

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MORE FRAUD: Colorado Made at Least $77.8 MILLION in Improper Autism Therapy Payments

A new federal audit has identified significant improper payments within Colorado’s Medicaid-funded autism therapy system, adding to a growing pattern of oversight failures in public healthcare spending. 

The findings, released by the Office of Inspector General, focus on Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), one of the most widely used therapies for individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

ABA therapy is designed to improve communication, social interaction, and behavioral functioning, and it has become a central component of autism treatment nationwide. 

As demand has increased, so has government spending. In Colorado, fee-for-service Medicaid payments for ABA rose sharply from $60.1 million in 2019 to $163.5 million in 2023. That rapid expansion, however, has not been matched by adequate oversight.

The audit examined Medicaid payments made in 2022 and 2023 and found systemic noncompliance with federal and state requirements. 

Every single one of the 100 sampled enrollee-months reviewed included at least one claim that was either improper or likely improper. That finding alone signals a structural issue rather than isolated billing errors.

Improper payments in this context do not necessarily mean intentional fraud in every instance, but they do indicate that providers billed for services that were not properly documented, not eligible under program rules, or not supported by sufficient clinical justification. 

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Supreme Court Rules 8-1 Against Colorado Law Banning So-Called ‘Conversion Therapy’

The Supreme Court overwhelmingly ruled against a Colorado “conversion therapy” law on Tuesday that bans therapists from helping minors align their “gender identity” with their biological reality. 

The High Court ruled against the law 8-1, saying it likely violates the First Amendment by allowing some viewpoints but not others. Liberal-leaning Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has repeatedly been unable to describe what a woman is, penned the lone dissent. 

Colorado’s law was passed in 2019; more than 20 other states have laws banning “conversion therapy.” While Colorado’s law bans archaic and unethical aversion methods historically associated with conversion therapy, like electroshock therapy, it also more broadly outlaws “providing professional services for the purpose of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including attempting to change behaviors or expressions of self or to reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.”

Kaley Chiles, a practicing Christian and a licensed counselor who, per court documents, “believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” sued the state over the law. She argued the law banned her from using talk therapy with clients who voluntarily come to her to help them align their sexuality or view of their identity with their biological reality, particularly with regard to minors.

Chiles contended Colorado banned consensual conversations based on the viewpoints expressed, in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, and only allows counselors to push minors toward “gender-affirming care,” which includes social transition, sex change drugs, and surgeries — methods which are experimental, steeped in ideology, and pushed by large medical associations. Colorado argued that licensed health professionals in the state are subject to professional discipline for providing treatment to patients that falls “below the accepted standard of care.”

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Denver Imposes Water Restrictions, Orders Restaurants To Serve Only On Request

Restaurants in Colorado’s capital are only allowed to serve water to guests if they ask, according to new restrictions by the Denver Board of Water Commissioners.

“Restaurants and catering businesses shall serve water only upon request,” the mandatory irrigation restrictions read.

The rules were issued in the Mile High City after the commissioners declared a Stage 1 Drought and made plans to seek a 20 percent reduction in water use. City officials expect drought conditions to last until April 30, 2027.

The update will affect many businesses, including the hospitality industry.

“Lodging establishments shall not change sheets more often than every four days for guests staying more than one night, except for health or safety reasons or upon express request of guests,” the Denver Board of Water Commissioners stated.

Drivers who attempt to wash their car are told to use a bucket or a hand-held hose equipped with an automatic shut-off nozzle if they don’t use a commercial car wash.

Residents can water their grass only two days per week, according to the schedule provided by city officials, but it is prohibited between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., when the sun is up.

“Current conditions indicate that this is going to be an exceptionally challenging year for our water supply,” Nathan Elder, manager of water supply for Denver, said at a Denver Board of Water Commissioners meeting.

“Snow pack levels are at historic lows and are melting earlier and more rapidly than normal.”

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