Jeffco Transcript 100721

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October 7, 2021

JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO

A publication of

JeffcoTranscript.com

VOLUME 38 | ISSUE 11

Trial begins for Texas trucker charged in fiery I-70 crash Prosecutors say bad decisions to blame for deadly pile-up BY BOB WOOLEY BWOOLEY@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Dearman’s nonprofit established the 7/20 Memorial, located on East Alameda Parkway adjacent to the Aurora Municipal Center. When we spoke with her in July, she highlighted the memorial’s newest addition: a paper crane little lending library. “I come in here feeling really accomplished that we’re paying the love forward that we were meant to pay forward,” she told us. Dearman worked with Kellogg to build the little library. It houses not only free books for people to take,

Opening statements in the trial for Rogel Aguilera-Maderos, the truck driver charged in a deadly crash that killed four people on eastbound I-70 in 2019, got underway Sept. 28. Aguilera-Maderos, facing a total of 41 counts, including vehicular homicide, had previously plead notguilty to all charges. He was hauling a load of lumber from Wyoming to Texas when the crash occurred. In opening arguments, prosecutors laid the blame for the April 25, 2019, accident on bad decisions made by Aguilera-Maderos. Both sides agree that brake failure caused the accident, but prosecutors pointed to video footage captured by other drivers of Aguilera-Maderos’ driving before the accident happened, as evidence that the deadly crash could have been averted. Describing the video, Prosecutor Kayla Wildeman said it shows the driver weaving through traffic at a high rate of speed, driving right by a runaway truck ramp. “Four lives in our community were lost because of what this case boils down to — bad decisions,” Wildeman said.

SEE MEMORIAL, P12

SEE TRIAL, P6

Brandon Kellogg, a former Columbine High School student, built the little lending library that is now at the 7/20 Memorial in PHOTO BY BRIAN WILLIE/ROCKY MOUNTAIN PBS Aurora.

Lending library honors victims of Aurora theater shooting Former Columbine High student worked on tribute at 7/20 Memorial BY BRIAN WILLIE AND KYLE COOKE ROCKY MOUNTAIN PBS

For more than two decades, Brandon Kellogg has tried to process the trauma caused by gun violence he experienced as a teenager. In 1999, Kellogg was a freshman at Columbine High School when 12 of his schoolmates and a teacher

were shot and killed. Though he survived the shooting, the healing process is ongoing. Part of that healing has been Kellogg’s work with the 7/20 Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit established after another mass shooting that rocked Colorado and the country as a whole: the Aurora theater shooting on July 20, 2012. Nine years after the Aurora tragedy, Rocky Mountain PBS spoke with Heather Dearman, the 7/20 Memorial Foundation’s CEO. Dearman’s cousin, Ashley Moser, was wounded in the shooting, and Moser’s daughter was killed.

INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 14 | LIFE: PAGE 16 | CALENDAR: PAGE 19 | SPORTS: PAGE 25

A LONG WALK AHEAD

Denver’s 5280 Trail may take a decade to complete P16


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Jeffco Transcript 100721 by Colorado Community Media - Issuu