FREE
July 2, 2020
JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
LakewoodSentinel.com
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 8 | LIFE: PAGE 12 | SPORTS: PAGE 14
VOLUME 96 | ISSUE 45
Red Rocks nursing students navigating pandemic Courses adjusted, but students still aiming to finish semester BY CASEY VAN DIVIER CVANDIVIER@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
inequalities and police brutality. His death was filmed and seen by millions of Americans. In response, the Lakewood Police Department came to the conclusion to ban the use of carotid restraints holds on June 10 — nine days before Senate Bill 217 banned the maneuver after the bill was signed into law by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on June 19. Carotid restraints involve an officer bending his or her arm around a
Diane Nagel, who practiced as a nurse in the 1990s, had been out of the field for 20 years when she decided to enroll in the RN Refresher Program at Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood. The semester-long course, which was originally scheduled to run through mid-May, prepares previous nurses to re-enter the field through 10 weeks of lectures and five weeks of on-site clinical work with a local medical center. With the lecturing component of the course completed, Nagel was ready to put her skills to the test at Lutheran Medical Center when she learned that, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, her 20-year wait may last a little bit longer. “We went all the way up until the day before clinicals were supposed to start and then we got an email that it was canceled. It all happened so fast,” Nagel said. “The most important thing has been being patient.” The pandemic has introduced some unexpected obstacles for nursing students at Red Rocks Community College, said Katie Hall, a teacher in the refresher program for spring 2020. With clinicals initially canceled, “we looked at alternate options like simulation, but in the end, we felt like that wasn’t going to give them what they needed,” Hall said. As the COVID situation continued to shift, the school worked with Lutheran to organize for half of the refresher course students to complete their clinicals in-person on the medical center’s non-COVID floors, starting at the end of April. The students were not working with patients who had
SEE POLICE, P10
SEE NURSING, P11
The hand sanitizer stations were funded by the Alameda Corridor Business Improvement District. Tom Quinn, executive director of Alameda Connects, said the hand sanitizer stations are a way to boost confidence in people to be out in public. COURTESY OF TOM QUINN
‘Talk about a project of the times’ Artists decorate hand sanitizer stations throughout Belmar BY JOSEPH RIOS JRIOS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
After being stuck in her home for so long, Lakewood based artist Kaitlin Ziesmer said the opportunity to work on an outdoor public art project was a nice reason to get outside. Rather than working on fine art
painting or outdoor murals like she is accustomed to, Ziesmer got to paint something she didn’t imagine she would be working on at the beginning of the year — hand sanitizer stations. Ziesmer was one of 18 artists to paint 30 hand sanitizer stations throughout Lakewood’s Belmar area during the week of June 15. The stations can be found near Lakewood Commons and Belmar and feature a variety of designs including insects, flowers, trees and more. Ziesmer, who is part of Heck Studios, painted colored water droplets on two barrels as a way to remind
people to keep their hands clean. “Talk about a project of the times,” Ziesmer said, regarding the hand sanitizer stations. “It was just a different approach to look at public art projects, and it ended up being such a blast.” Jane Falkenberg of Denver was another artist who participated in the project. She painted a goldfish with a sky background on one barrel and another one that contained handprints. Falkenberg said she was looking SEE SANITIZER, P11
Lakewood Police ban carotid restraints ‘It was not something we needed to utilize’ BY JOSEPH RIOS JRIOS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
The Lakewood Police Department was born at a time of civil unrest in 1970. Civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which guaranteed
equal employment for all, limited the use of voter literacy tests and ensured public facilities were integrated, was only six years old. And as the department celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, civil unrest still exists, stirred up by the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died May 25, while white Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck. Floyd’s death led to protests throughout the country, including in Lakewood, that highlighted racial