Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men, but the good news is early detection can save lives. Many men have no symptoms in the early stages, making regular screenings critical.
At Colorado Urology, we’re committed to helping men take control of their health. Our experienced team of specialists offers:
• Comprehensive screenings, including PSA blood tests and digital rectal exams
• Advanced diagnostic tools for accurate results
• Personalized treatment plans designed to meet your individual needs
• Minimally invasive and leading-edge treatments to reduce downtime and improve outcomes
The sooner prostate cancer is found, the more treatment options you have, and the better your chances of living a long, healthy life.
Schedule your prostate health evaluation today, to schedule an appointment scan the QR code or call 303-879-6526. AURORA 1411 S. Potomac St | Suite 210 | Aurora, CO 80012
WEIRD SCIENCE: Stop RFK JR from spreading deadly viral disinformation
No, you’re not dreaming. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has turned the nation’s medical system into a nightmare.
I was literally mouth-open, slack-jawed last week when I watched and listened to Kennedy babble incoherently before a Senate committee, trying futilely to justify, or even explain, what he’s done as U.S. health secretary in the few months he was dropped there like a shovel full of squirrel entrails.
Even on matters not involving science, math, reality or health care, he burbled and prattled like a bumpkin lawyer trying to justify why his client had driven a tractor over the neighbor’s laundry.
Just seconds after he warbled his way into an unceremonious and awkward tap dance around his demonstrable lack of knowledge about anything linked to science or medicine, I was hearkened back to the spring of 2021. About a year after the pandemic really became a pandemic, my family and I drove all the way to Fountain, Colorado for three of the first Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine shots available in the state. We were herded like muzzled cattle through stations and then into a large waiting space for 15 minutes after the injection, in case we needed to faint or puke. Nobody did.
Every day for months after the disease was first identified became a whirlwind of technical details and new research helping all of us understand the pandemic, the virus that caused it and the medical miracles developed to prevent and treat it.
The massive and worldwide concerted effort to manage and prevent the pandemic was one of the rare triumphs of government and global mobilization in our lifetimes. Yet at the very moment Americans should be building on that legacy, Kennedy is dismantling it.
From the witness table at a Senate hearing last week, Kennedy peddled the same falsehoods and distortions he has trafficked in for years, this time not just as another wack anti-vaxxer quack, but posing as a federal authority.
The result is a public health catastrophe in the making.
Kennedy told lawmakers that “nobody knows” how many lives COVID-19 vaccines saved. That is not a misunderstanding. It is a lie.
The record is clear and has been. Drawing on one of many, many studies, The Lancet estimated
that nearly 20 million lives were saved by vaccines worldwide in 2021 alone. The World Health Organization made the research-backed case for a 57% reduction in deaths in Europe, totaling 1.4 million spared. In the United States, almost 2 million people are alive today because of vaccines.
That’s not guesswork. It’s math and science that have not only been supported by evidence, but the system used to calculate that number has been repeated by others who came up with the same results.
That’s how science works. To be credible, a theory, or hypothesis, must be supported by documented and demonstrable evidence. And, others must be able to obtain the same results by following the same path and techniques, or even different ones.
Kennedy lied last week about real science data, and so much more. He also falsely claimed “anybody can get the (COVID) booster.”
His own department, however, has limited access to seniors and high-risk groups, removing one of the few options for children. Pharmacies across the country will be turning parents away, not because of science, but because Kennedy’s policies preclude those who want to protect their kids but are being denied by the very agency sworn to protect public health.
And when pressed on the grim toll of the pandemic, Kennedy shrugged and said, “I don’t think anybody knows.”
Not just anybody, but everybody knows that 1.2 million Americans are dead from COVID, so far. Those deaths have been counted by both the CDC and the World Health Organization, based on numerous vetted studies.
To dismiss that figure is not just cruel to grieving families, it is dangerous. It tells Americans that facts are negotiable, that numbers and reality can be waved away, that the pandemic’s devastation was just “data chaos.”
That is Kennedy’s playbook. He has falsely claimed children endure 92 vaccine doses before adulthood. He has insinuated, without evidence, that antidepressants fuel school shootings. He has leaned on junk science documents that conflate the harms of COVID infection with vaccines that prevent those very harms.
His most reckless act yet is canceling mRNA vaccine research, the very technology that gave us our most powerful weapon against COVID-19.
This is sabotage. The mRNA vaccines are not only safe and effective, they are also adaptable, fast to create, and they are the best hope for combating future pandemics. That’s the opinion of not
just every credible body of science and medicine in the United States, but in the world. They are being tested against HIV, cancer, and genetic diseases. By cutting off funding, Kennedy is cruelly betting against the future of medicine itself.
Every restriction to access he creates is another infection, another hospital bed filled, another funeral.
Vaccination is not just about individual liberty. It is about collective defense. For those Americans who choose to live in a community, we must all live as members of the community. It means we can’t drive drunk. We can’t fire guns into the air for fun. We can’t have poisonous snakes in the yard as pets. And we must protect each other from disease by using safe and practical means, such as proven vaccines.
When community coverage rates drop, herd immunity collapses. The virus races through communities. The people who suffer most are the ones least able to fight back. If you don’t like being compelled to vaccinate, stay out of public places. It’s that easy. Democrats and Republicans alike, including Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders and Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy were unified against Kennedy’s nonsense. “Vaccines work,” said Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican doctor from Wyoming. Cassidy, also a physician, credited Trump’s previous “Warp Speed” vaccine effort with saving millions of lives.
Kennedy’s response was the same as always. He sneers at his critics, accusing them of fabrication, evading accountability.
This is not some gullible fringe speaking circuit or TikTok reels. He’s lying to confront the world body of real science.
Kennedy’s crusade echoes years of anti-vaccine activism that has already harmed American communities. Measles outbreaks in under-vaccinated towns threaten even in places like Colorado. Parents are confused into skipping shots or simply don’t have the stamina to navigate and fight back against Kennedy’s interference. The irrefutable truth is this: Vaccines save lives. Millions of them. And without them, millions will die.
Kennedy’s war on vaccines is reckless, baseless, and lethal. Americans cannot afford his crusade, and we shouldn’t have to persuade Trump to take up the nation’s defense against his own dubious cabinet picks. We deserve better.
Follow@EditorDavePerryonBlueSky, Threads,Mastodon,TwitterandFacebookorreach himat303-750-7555ordperry@SentinelColorado. com
DAVE PERRY Editor
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025.
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
AURORA POLICE CHIEF FACES BACKLASH OVER ‘FACTS’ IN SHOOTING INVESTIGATION OF BLACK MAN
BY CASSANDRA BALLARD, Sentinel Staff Writer
As the public awaits the body camera footage and investigation details of the officer-involved shooting of a Black man, there has been a public outcry from the community about how the police department handled the initial attempts at transparency.
“I think the community is more outraged, not because we have to undertake an investigation,” Councilmember Alison Coombs said during a City Council meeting Sept. 8. “We do that every time this happens, because there are, unfortunately, way too many, but because there have been not one, but two press conferences in which details were revealed and a narrative was crafted” before an investigation was undertaken.
The traffic-stop-turned-carcrash and subsequent shooting of Rajon Belt-Stubblefield happened on Aug. 30 near East Sixth Avenue at about Billings Street as numerous cars rolled past and witnesses inside and outside of cars watched events unfold, Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain told reporters at a press conference Sept. 2.
People from across the community have, on social media and public events, offered criticism and even outrage in some of the details Chamberlain shared with the public before the body camera footage could be released, and before he was entirely sure of the “facts” he was sharing.
“(Chamberlain) said, I’m gonna give you the facts,” Jeff Fard, “Brother Jeff,” said during his Sept. 3 Facebook streaming talk-show. “In other
words, everything else is not a fact. You did not see an unarmed Black man gunned down by one of my officers. That’s what you did not see. I’m like, isn’t that what they said about Rodney King?”
In the first press conference, Chamberlain stated that Belt-Stubblefield was pulled over for a possible DUI. However, at the second press conference, Chamberlain said that he was unsure whether Belt-Stubblefield was pulled over for speeding or a DUI, as he was determining the attempted arrest solely through body camera footage. At the time, neither Chamberlain nor other officers had interviewed the police officer who shot Belt-Stubblefield.
When asked if Chamberlain’s lack of knowledge about why Belt-Stubblefield was pulled over means that the officer did not report the reason for the stop, a police department spokesperson declined to respond.
MiDian Shofner, a well-known activist and central figure in Aurora’s current police reform controversy, especially involving the topic of Black men being shot by Aurora police, was the first car that was struck by Belt-Stubblefield, she said.
Shofner told the Sentinel she witnessed the entire turn of events, including the shooting.
After Belt-Stubblefield crashed into the two vehicles, the officer told him to stay in his vehicle, Chamberlain said. Belt-Stubblefield did not listen and got out of his car and tossed a handgun into the grass patch next to the road. Later, Belt-Stubblefield told the people around him to “get my shit,” which Chamberlain assert-
ed meant he wanted someone to grab the gun to potentially shoot the officer.
“If Mr. Belt-Stubblefield indeed discarded a weapon into a grass-covered area, that is an act of disarming himself, not threatening the officer or the community,” Shofner said in a statement. “To claim otherwise is to twist fact into fiction in order to justify state violence.”
As Belt-Stubblefield turned to throw his gun in the grass, the officer attempted to grab Belt-Stubblefield, and they both fell to the ground from what the small clip of the body camera footage showed. Chamberlain then froze the camera to show that Belt-Stubblefield managed to get up before the officer and stand over him.
The officer managed to stand up, and the two were shown facing each other, and Chamberlain said Belt-Stubblefield started to say, “Get my shit,” to the people behind him, one of whom was his son, who Chamberlain said was following his father in a second vehicle before the incident
“Chamberlain further claims Mr. Belt-Stubblefield told his son to ‘Get the shit,’ implying this referred to retrieving a discarded gun,” Shofner said in her statement. “That is reckless speculation masquerading as fact. In the same press update, Chamberlain admitted he was ‘not in (Mr. Belt-Stubblefield’s) mind,’ yet he presumed to speak with certainty about Mr. Belt-Stubblefield’s intentions.”
As Belt-Stubblefirel turns to speak to the people behind him, the officer punches him in the face. Chamberlain said this was a de-escalation tactic.
Screen grab from officer body cam video from Aug. 29 during an officer-involved shooting at East Sixth Avenue and Billings Street in Aurora.
Punching someone in the face is a tactic for defensive training and is not considered a de-escalation tactic, according to the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). They said that de-escalation is what is used to avoid using force, and a punch to the face is used to distract and as a tactic to “bring someone under control.”
Police One Academy refers to the tactics as a (potentially outdated) defense tactic and not a de-escalation tactic.
Belt-Stubblefield is shown to get angry after being punched in the face, according to snippets of the body camera footage provided by police and additional footage shared from witnesses. Belt-Stubblefield walks toward the officer, causing him to back up into the road, and the officer then fired his gun and killed Belt-Stubblefield.
The shooting is now under investigation by the 18th Judicial District’s Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT), which is composed of investigators from partnering law enforcement agencies within Arapahoe County, including the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, local police departments and criminal investigators from the District Attorney’s Office, according to the district attorney’s office.
“The Critical Incident Response Team follows a written protocol, which was adopted to guide investigations into officer-involved incidents involving deadly force or potential deadly force, and to ensure that these complex and sensitive investigations are conducted impartially, thoroughly, and transpar-
ently,” said Eric Ross, spokesperson for the 18th District in a statement.
Aurora police are currently under a consent decree imposed by the state Attorney General Phil Weiser, after a 2022 investigation determined the department has for years exhibited “patterns and practices” of using excessive force against the public, especially people of color.
“Aurora is under a consent decree, in part, because Aurora did not create and oversee appropriate expectations for responsible behavior, which led to the use of excessive force and the violation of the civil rights of its residents,” Weiser said in a statement Monday. “The consent decree’s mandates include creating specific guidance on officers’ exercise of discretion during interactions with community members to address perceived or actual bias in policing and improving use-of-force policies and training to avoid unnecessarily escalating encounters with community members.”
“We understand the community’s frustration when incidents indicate these mandates are unmet,” Weiser said. “It is the role of the consent decree monitor to oversee the police department’s compliance with the decree and its progress implementing it. We will continue to evaluate the progress mandated by the decree and how Aurora PD can improve its policing and gain community trust.”
Weiser said his office has insisted on Aurora PD creating a structure in the department that provides independent oversight of the police, and that the goal is to begin work on that soon.
Unaffiliated Aurora City Council candidate resists Democrat pressure to step down
‘
In a last-ditch effort to narrow the candidate pool in the Aurora at-large city council race, a handful of local Democrats attempted but failed to persuade an independent running candidate to withdraw from the November contest.
“I’m independent,” Watson Gomes, at-large city council candidate, said. “We might align with a lot of things. I chose to be independent for a reason. Because I don’t like party ideology. I like to engage with people. I like to see different things, but also stay true to my core values and principles, and then defend what’s right and what’s wrong.”
Aurora is holding elections for three city council wards and two at-large seats in November. Two among the five candidates for the at-large seat win the election. There are two Republican incumbents running for the two atlarge seats, two registered Democrats and Gomes, who is unaffiliated. Gomes is an instructor at the Community College of Aurora.
Although the city council races are not partisan, party politics still play a significant role in the actions of the Aurora City Council.
Currently, Republicans dominate the Aurora City Council. Democrats want to resume control of the board, and they see the two at-large seats as key. A common concern among non-partisan races is similar candidates “splitting” the vote, handing a victory to the opposition.
In a partisan election, primary elections prevent candidates from splitting the vote. However, since non-partisan city council elections don’t have primaries, it’s not uncommon for candidates and their supporters to pressure each other to drop out when they share similar ideals, local political leaders say.
They usually stick to registered party affiliation, though.
The pressure seemed to come after multiple liberal-leaning candidates appeared on Jeff Fard’s local Facebook streaming show, also known as “Brother Jeff,” and received criticism from the live comment section for having too many Democrat-leaning candidates running for the same seats.
Audience members voiced concerns about the Ward I and the at-large races having too many liberal-leaning candidates. The at-large race includes Republicans Danielle Jurinsky and Amsalu Kassaw, as well as Democrats Alli Jackson and Rob Andrews, along with Independent candidate Gomes.
Ward I had many more candidates attempting to run, but the number has since narrowed. There were four candidates running for the one seat, and two were Democrats, Gianina Horton and Leandra Steed.
The deadline for a candidate to have their name taken off the November ballot was Sept. 5, and Fard’s show was on Sept. 3. By Friday, Steed had stepped down from the race and had her name taken off the ballot.
Steed supporters, too, said Steed felt pressured to leave the race to ensure a Democrat gets elected. The seat is currently held by Democrat Crystal Murillo, who is not running for re-election.
In Ward I, there are also two independents, the Rev. Reid Hettich and Stephen Elkins, and one registered Democrat, Gianina Horton.
There was also an attempt by the local Democrats to convince Gomes,
an independent candidate, to step down on the day of the deadline. However, Gomes said that he would not do so, as he is not a Democrat and believes he will attract many more voters in the independent race.
“If I drop right now, I am a big loser in this,” Gomes said. “I have a lot of people standing behind me. I cannot come right now, just make decisions and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m going to drop out of the race,’ and jeopardize all the work people put into me.”
Gomes said he felt confident in his campaign and that he believes he will win. He said he agreed with Democrats on many issues, but he also has a lot of views that can appeal to both parties, and that he has already persuaded many Ethiopians to vote for him instead of Kassaw, an Ethiopian immigrant. He said that, as a college professor, his running also means a great deal to his students.
“I still have a strong belief I can win, even if I don’t win, this is a big win for me, because I’m not just doing this for me,” Gomes said.
Local party leaders say persuading multiple party candidates to drop out for the sake of a victory is a long-standing practice for both parties. But it’s typically done through discussing campaign strategies, where candidates and those affiliated with a party compare their campaigns and attempt to convince the other candidate to step down, or else they will all lose. It’s generally not a public process.
The conversation with Gomes took place during a Zoom meeting attended by many people, including invited media, on the day of the ballot deadline. In haste, the conversation shifted from multiple people trying to persuade Gomes that he would do better running in Ward IV next year against incumbent Republican Councilmember Stephanie Hancock, and eventually the conversation escalated to one member directly telling Gomes that it would be better for everyone if he just dropped out.
Former Aurora Human Relations Commission member Aaron Futrell told Gomes that he had also been persuaded earlier this year by local Democrats to step down from running as an at-large candidate during a Zoom call, and he attempted to appeal to Gomes through his personal experience.
“One of the hardest realities that I had to face is that it was not my time, and I should let someone else who had more resources and time basically take the reins, especially if they have the same values as me,” Futrell said to Gomes. “The way the council is going to change is by taking your supporters and adding them to either Alli or Rob’s campaign, and that way, we can counter the negativity that’s on city council.”
Although these were actions taken by registered Democrats, they were not undertaken by the Colorado Democratic Party or the Arapahoe County Democrats, which typically work with Aurora city council election candidates later in the election cycle.
The official Democratic Party, including the Arapahoe Democrats, is not permitted to directly ask candidates to step down, according to Melissa Garland, the chair of the Arapahoe Democrats.
Kirk Manzanares, the person who initiated the direct request for Gomes to step down, said later that this election is critical and that he took it too far after hearing the criticisms from the audience during Fard’s show.
“I feel like I rushed in like a stubborn bull, trying way too hard to get my way to what I thought was a good thing for the candidates that I like and plan to vote for,” Manzanares said. “I thought
I was helping. I am now feeling that I don’t think it’s critical to narrow the candidate pool. However, I do think it’s important to work together and have a strategy for how we come together in November.”
Many Democratic-leaning members who joined in during Fard’s show, both in Aurora and throughout the metropolitan area, called this city council election critical because of what they say are extremist viewpoints of many of the Republican and Republican-leaning city council members. The city council members who are registered Republicans currently hold the majority of six seats on a 10-seat city council. Aurora’s residents are made up of 51% registered unaffiliated, 28% are registered Democrats and 19% are ›› See METRO, 6
• GreatBurgers
• GreatBurgers
• GreatCheesesteaks
• GreatCheesesteaks
• 20 TV’s
• 20 TV’s
• Open St age EveryThursday
• Open St age EveryThursday
• Saturdays:11:30AM-3PM
• Saturdays:11:30AM-3PM
FreeDomesticBeeror
FreeDomesticBeeror
Soda With SandwichOrder
Soda With SandwichOrder
Give us a call for entertainment questions
2300
ARAPAHOE COUNTY
Free Class
Fall in the Pollinator Garden: What to Do and When at the Arapahoe County CSU Extension office
Monday, Sept. 15, 5–6 p.m.
Learn how to protect pollinators over the winter by attending an informal, hands-on class and walking tour at the Lima Plaza Extension Office. Register now at bit.ly/CSU_PH
Volunteer with Arapahoe County
We’re always looking for volunteers to assist with programs and events.
Visit arapahoeco.gov/volunteer to find current volunteer opportunities within the County.
Cottage Food Safety
Learn food safety guidelines and the specifics of operating a cottage food business from home. The next online class is Sept. 19, 9 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Register now at bit.ly/CSUCottageFoods
RMPM Ambassador64 Notes from Salida
Rocky Mountain Public Media, the home of Rocky Mountain PBS, KUVO Jazz, and TheDrop303 has developed a partnership with Colorado Ethnic Media Exchange to launch this monthly essay series, as part of our vision to co-create a Colorado where everyone feels seen and heard. Sentinel Colorado is a member of the CEME group. These stories are sourced from community members across the state — told in their own words and selected from our 64-county community ambassador program. They are not editorial products of the RMBS nor Sentinel journalism team, but are first-person reflections on life in Coloradobuilding bridges through empathy. To learn more about all of our RMPBS brands and content, check us out at www.rmpbs.org/about.
This submission is written by Phil Helfrich of Salida, CO where he muses about hiking in a canyon with his dog in early fall; “having fun, riffing to myself on what I see on the wonderment of this hidden place.”
Astone’s
throw from the Arkansas River, the Howard Colorado Cemetery awaits its next tenant. The cemetery rests under the snowy shoulders of the Sangre de Christo Mountains. These serrated fourteeners knife into the sky across the valley. Rumor has it a chest of 1880’s Spanish gold remains stashed in a secret cave in those hills.
A dirt parking area is empty when I arrive. Sticky burrs are the dominant plant species.
Latino and Spanish names headline many of the gravestones. 1867 was the earliest date I saw on a marker. That was a big stone with HOWARD-the Town’s founder-- etched into it. There’s a pea-gravel walkway to a large monument near the back fence. A bench and an elm invite a visitor to sit and ponder the Fates.
Homemade remembrances decorate some graves.
A black and white period photo. A wooden wagon wheel. A weathered handmade doll.
Some graves say their piece on flat bronze nameplates fastened to the ground. A number of monuments honor World War 1 and 2 veterans, rank and branch of service noted. There’s a trail behind the cemetery that leads to a dry stream bed. Follow it and you’ll be flanked by monolithic volcanic rocks sanded flat and smooth by the elements--unmarked headstones for critters who have perished here.
Horse droppings decorate the stream bed. I like to think the horses are descendants of the steeds the Spanish rode when this area was a Spanish land grant.
Footprints not mine indent the sandy trail. One stands out. Big foot lives. Headed back and up the canyon, rock art decorates the trail. There’s stacked rocks. Rocks in tree limbs. Rocks balanced on end. Small concentric rock circles within larger rock circles.
Enthusiasts train here. There’s a televised competition in the fall. Ascending as you go into the canyon, rock climbing and scampering skills are rewarded. So too are biking
gloves, hiking boots and a Moses staff to deflect face-gouging spring-loaded tree branches.
Both sides of the canyon are sheet-rocked by flat slabs of monolithic volcanic boulders, deposited here 300 million years ago when Mount Aetna--60 miles northwest--blew and shot a monster fireball fifty miles into the sky.
I learned this from an online geology course taught by a local geologist. She said when the volcano exploded, all life east of the volcano to what is now the Kansas border, was obliterated. When the fireball came crashing back to earth near present day Buena Vista, it rolled down valley, scattering fiery chunks of itself everywhere as it re-arranged the valley furniture.
Equilibrium punctuated by sudden catastrophe. Nature’s way.
“There...how’s that look?”
In the most romantic story I ever heard, my friend Matt proposed to his gal in this canyon.
There’s a cove twenty minutes in. Matt hid the engagement ring beforehand, had dinner cooking, then popped the question.
“Honey, do you mind cleaning up the dishes?”
Leaving the hideaway, me and Ms. Molly trudge up canyon. The creek bed narrows. Discoveries expand. Twisted barber pole dead cedars advertise a shave and a haircut ahead.
Climbing up one last ledge, golly Bill, it’s a flat smooth sandy walkway. Matt tells me just a tad further--two week walk tops--a side passage opens on the left where a boy and his beagle can return to the cemetery via a parallel canyon. We abandoned the search for that passage when the sun started to set.
The hike back down is easy except for ankle sprains and cartilage tears. Those don’t seem that big of a deal when the last landmark you see is the cemetery.
There are 167 marked graves in the cemetery, including that of Jonah Peregrine, who’s believed to be the first settler in these parts. He arrived from Tennessee in 1871. Built a house here on 16 acres.
The cemetery was once a stagecoach stop on a wagon road that led to Leadville. That was back when this area was called Nice Valley. Still is.
We Want to Hear from You
We’re inviting community members across the state to share their own stories of living in Colorado — of identity, discovery, and what it means to belong.
Tell us about a moment or a place in Colorado that changed how you see yourself or your community. Share your reflections at ambassador64@rmpbs.org
This is part of Ambassador64, our statewide listening initiative to ensure public media reflects the voices of all 64 counties in Colorado — starting with yours.
registered Republicans, according to Arapahoe County election officials.
Critics of the far-right Republicans on the city council say they do not represent the majority of Aurora voters.
Fard asked candidates on his show why they felt this election was more critical than previous ones, and Democratic candidates Gianina Horton, Amy Wile and Alli Jackson said it boiled down to Republicans possibly winning nine out of 10 city council seats, pushing the dais ever further to the right. “If there is a worst-case scenario, nine of them, I don’t trust that Aurora city government is going to work for the people,” Horton said. “We know Jurinsky has set a tone. She has set a tone. Has used bullying, is very vindictive in her approach as an elected official, so we need to make sure we have quality leadership.”
Democratic candidates said Elkins, running in Ward I, would join the Republican bloc, despite being a registered independent, because he has been campaigning alongside the registered Republicans.
The city council race will be decided Nov. 4, and mail-in ballots are expected to be released toward the end of October.
— Cassandra Ballard, Sentinel Staff Writer
Proposed ordinance targets
parents of minors caught riding dirt bikes on
Aurora streets
Aurora parents could face fines of $250 or more if they let their kids drive dirt bikes on city streets and property, under a proposed ordinance headed to the Aurora City Council.
The measure, postponed at a Sept. 8 study session because of meeting technical problems, would add a section to city laws making it illegal for parents or guardians to “knowingly permit anyone under 18 to operate or ride an off-highway vehicle in violation of existing city restrictions.”
So-called “dirt bikes” are small motorcycles intended for off-road recreation. Most do not meet minimum street-regulations, but minors are prohibited from driving any motorized vehicles on city streets and public roads without a valid driver’s license.
Parents who plead or are found guilty of the proposed measure would face a minimum fine of $250, according to the bill language. The new measure would levy penalties separate from those imposed for infractions by the minor dirt-bike driver.
City officials said in legislation details that the proposed change was prompted by a rise in accidents and injuries tied to dirt-bike riding by minors in Aurora and the surrounding region. Despite current prohibitions on off-highway vehicle use in city streets, sidewalks, open spaces and business areas, officials said minors continue to ride with little resistance.
— Sentinel Staff
STUDY: Aurora’s older adults face housing, transportation and healthcare challenges
After nearly two years of planning, data collection and community engagement, Aurora officials say they have completed an assessment of what the city’s older adults need from the community.
Scenes from the Salida area in Colorado. SENTINEL FILE PHOTOS
The conclusion? Older Aurora residents need a lot to help them stay healthy, working, connected and living at home.
“The impacts to older adults really hit every area and aspect of the city, not just” parks and recreation, said Nicole Ankeney, manager of Planning, Design and Construction for Parks, Recreation and Open Space.
In an effort to guide future planning, programs, and resources for residents older than 60, the Older Adult Needs Assessment was developed by the Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Department in partnership with the Aurora Commission for Older Adults and JSI Research and Training Institute, a research partner.
Preparation began in 2022, with parks department staff working alongside the Eppley Institute and the Commission for Older Adults to draft the project’s scope of services. JSI was selected to lead the work in January 2023.
“The purpose and focus of the study was to carry out a community-driven comprehensive assessment, supported by data collection and analysis of the needs of older adults,” Ankeney said.
There were two phases involving older adults in Aurora.
The first was an “environmental scan,” which was a review of demographics, housing, health and services. Ankeney said they found that 63% of older adult renters and 30% of homeowners are cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing.
They also found that about 35%
of older adults are in the labor force, while transportation gaps persist despite many residents living within walking distance of RTD bus and light-rail stops.
The second phase consisted of community engagement, Ankeney said, including 18 key informant interviews, nine focus groups, four information sharing sessions, targeted outreach and a survey that collected 550 responses.
“The Aurora commission for older adults, really assisted us with some of the recommendations on key groups and also assisted significantly with promoting our survey,” Ankeney said.
Residents who relayed information said they had challenges with difficulty in downsizing homes, they also had issues with limited caregiver resources, long waitlists for paratransit services, widespread feelings of isolation and depression, and concerns about safety and fraud.
Many of those who participated said they lack digital literacy and do not know where to find services, 41% do not feel valued, 50% lack access to skill-building, work and volunteering opportunities, 39% do not feel safe in their community and 66% feel at risk of fraud, according to the findings.
Many of the requests they received from older adults were for a combination of translation, recreation programs, or the expansion of existing recreation programs, additional protected walkways, and more police presence, Ankeney said.
The assessment and the final recommendations were organized around three “domains of livability,” according to Ankeney.
• Aging in Place- housing, trans-
portation and access to community resources.
• Healthy Living- physical and mental health, medical care and caregiver support.
• Community Connections- social participation, communication and safety.
There were also aspects of Aurora that residents praised, including the city’s diversity, the Center for Active Adults, Silver Sneakers classes, and parks and recreation centers.
There were 108 recommendations in total, which were tiered from lowcost steps to long-term projects that require new funding and partnerships. The older adult’s suggestions included expanding home repair supports, increasing caregiver services, enhancing transportation options and improving communication about available resources.
Ankeny said they also included adopting age-friendly practices as a tier one, participating in Colorado’s statewide multi-sector plan on aging as a tier two, and exploring the creation of an Office on Aging as a tier three.
“The Aurora Commission for Older Adults provided significant feedback throughout the entire project,” Ankeny said. “That collaboration is going to be critical to the success of implementing these recommendations.”
Councilmember Ruben Medina also said he could help connect many resources, especially in the area where the active adult center is located.
“This is really about community needs,” Ankeny said. “Some of these recommendations may be fantastic recommendations, but may or may not be suited to be led by the city. They may be suited for another organization.
What’s important is that we now have the data and the framework to move forward.”
If city council members support the conclusions, the assessment will be incorporated into the city’s strategic plan and individual departmental plans. Parks department officials have already identified eight recommendations it can begin implementing within its existing budget, including supporting a microtransit pilot project now under review, Ankeny said.
Acknowledging the assessment will also strengthen Aurora’s ability to secure outside funding for aging-related services and infrastructure, city staff said in the city council meeting detail.
—
Cassandra Ballard, Sentinel Staff Writer
SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION
Liberal Colorado coalition say progressive tax could provide more schools funding
A coalition of liberal groups hope to put a tax reform measure on the November 2026 ballot that could result in significant additional funding for K-12 schools and higher education.
The Protect Colorado’s Future coalition wants to amend a portion of the state’s constitution that mandates a flat income tax rate, currently set at 4.4%.
The draft measure, which the group unveiled Wednesday, would ask voters to approve a new graduated income tax. Taxes would remain at the same rate for earners making under $500,000 a year and progressively
increase for earners who make above that threshold, up to 9.2% for earners who make $10 million or more. The group projects that lower earners would save several hundred dollars a year.
Protect Colorado’s Future estimates these changes would generate between $2 billion and $3 billion in new annual revenue for the state. The money would pay for K-12 education, higher education, child care, and health care. State lawmakers would decide how much to invest in each area.
Members of the coalition — which is led by The Bell Policy Center — say the measure is necessary because the state is facing another projected revenue shortfall, exacerbated by cuts in the federal budget. State lawmakers already held an August special session to address a shortfall this year caused by federal tax policy changes. Colorado’s revenue challenges are expected to continue into the 2026-27 budget year.
“It is going to take steps toward our North Star of every student having the resources they need,” said Lisa Weil, executive director of Great Education Colorado, a member of the coalition. “It’s not going to complete the journey, but it is an absolutely critical first step.” The coalition includes 13 advocacy groups, including the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition, Colorado Children’s Campaign, and New Era Colorado.
Chris deGruy Kennedy, who is president of The Bell Policy Center, an organization that advocates for progressive policies and tax reforms, said a flat tax benefits wealthier residents.
The coalition has crafted multiple
›› See METRO, 8
versions of the ballot measure to help gauge what voters want from the initiative. For instance, one version includes more funding for public safety, while another says the money should go toward workforce development.
DeGruy Kennedy said these versions might not end up as the final version that Coloradans vote on. However, the coalition’s ask to change income tax rates will remain the same in the final measure.
The next step is for the coalition to receive a ballot title and then begin to collect signatures to place one of the versions on the 2026 ballot. If it gets on the ballot and is approved by voters, the new tax structure would go into effect in 2027. The money raised would not be subject to a state cap on revenue collections within the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR.
DeGruy Kennedy said he wants the measure to act as the beginning of a public conversation about public benefits that he sees as underfunded in the state. Asking voters to invest in education is within each of the proposals.
Weil pointed out that Colorado lawmakers have struggled to greatly increase funding for K-12 and higher education.
During economic downturns, lawmakers have cut state spending on college and university budgets, which has shifted tuition costs onto families.
Lawmakers also spent less than constitutionally required on K-12 schools for 14 years through a mechanism known as the budget stabilization factor, which pulled school funding for other budget priorities. Schools lost out on over $10 billion from 2009 to 2023.
Although lawmakers ended that practice, their promises to increase K-12 funding have hit snags.
Last year, state lawmakers created a new K-12 funding formula that calls for Colorado to invest $500 million more a year in its schools. But the timeline to phase in the money has already been extended by legislators due to budget challenges.
Even that investment isn’t enough, according to studies commissioned by state lawmakers. The studies found that Colorado should invest another $3.5 billion to $4 billion a year on top of the formula changes to adequately meet students’ learning needs.
The ballot measure is sure to receive conservative opposition. Conservative groups are proposing ballot measures that would cut income tax rates, similar to those approved in 2020 and 2022.
Weil said she hopes the coalition can make the case for its measure. Without the money, she said there’s a huge risk to the state’s education system.
“Colorado is at a moment where we have to decide who we are, who we want to be, and how to meet a very challenging moment,” she said. “And I believe that Colorado values public education.”
— Jason Gonzales of Chalkbeat Colorado
Aurora’s Horizon Uptown community welcomes its first school in 2026
The fast growing Horizon Uptown community in northeast Aurora is
getting its neighborhood’s first-ever school, and the students from Clyde Miller will be among them.
“The new P-8 will feature a unique floor plan with three floors and an abundance of windows to allow for natural light throughout the structure,” a statement from the Aurora Public Schools said.
Aurora Public Schools is constructing the new $85 million state-of-the-art school building in the growing neighborhood with a capacity for 1,000 students from preschool through eighth grade, according to the statement.
Construction began in March and is expected to be completed by summer 2026.
The new school is scheduled to open in fall 2026, and students will be able to take advantage of exploratory labs on each floor, along with two art rooms and two music rooms (one for vocal and one for instrumental music), according to the statement.
“The school will also feature a fullsize gym and a robust athletics program for middle school students,” the statement said.
The school will not only serve the Horizon Uptown community, nestled in the intersection of I-70 and E-470, it will also serve students who currently attend Clyde Miller P-8
The Clyde Miller building will close at the end of the current school year, and Principal Megan Ortiz will switch from Clyde Miller to being the principal at Horizon Uptown, the statement said.
“Ortiz said she’s excited to engage with the Clyde Miller and Horizon Uptown communities in the coming months to choose a name for the new school, along with a mascot and school
colors,” the statement said. Ortiz will be attending the groundbreaking ceremony, and she said she is looking forward to meeting students and families who will be attending the new school.
— Sentinel Staff
Goodwill Colorado’s Excel Center in Aurora readies for second wave of grads
Last year, Goodwill Colorado opened what they say is the state’s only tuition-free high school for mature adults in Aurora called The Excel Center and boasted 68 graduates from their inaugural 2024-2025 school year.
This year, they enrolled 160 new students, school officials said.
“Goodwill of Colorado is furthering the state’s efforts with its second cohort heading to the classroom a few weeks ago, showing real-life momentum in transforming lives and preparing a new group of individuals who will soon be prepared to join Colorado’s workforce,” Excel Center officials said in a statement.
The school, at 15445 E Iliff Ave., was created to help bridge the skills gap Colorado is estimating in the coming years, with the state currently struggling with employers facing tens of thousands of unfilled positions, according to the statement.
“These students and the state’s new workforce measures (Colorado Succeeds) will prepare Colorado for major labor shortages in key sectors by 2030,” a statement from the Excel Center said.
Colorado allocated $90 million in federal and state funding for workforce
training initiatives after legislation in 2022 passed to establish the Opportunity Now Colorado grant program in order to bridge the skills gap, according to the statement.
“This disconnect between job seekers’ skills and industry needs is particularly evident in healthcare, construction and advanced manufacturing industries, and it will only worsen without action,” Colorado Succeeds said on its website.
Nearly 300,000 adults in Colorado lack a high school diploma or equivalent, which limits their access to family-sustaining jobs, and adults who complete high school can earn $7,000 more annually, which reduces their reliance on social services and also strengthens the economy, according to Excel’s statement.
As many as 91.4% of Colorado’s top-tier jobs require postsecondary education, according to the statement.
Some of Colorado’s most in-demand sectors that The Excel Center is preparing students to transition into include healthcare, IT, skilled trades and clean energy.
The Excel Center works to accommodate students with full-time jobs and a family to support and other challenges that get in the way. such as medical issues, according to Excel’s website.
The school provides students with a drop-in day care, transportation assistance, micro-credentials and certifications to jump-start a new career, career counseling and life coaching and job placement assistance.
— Cassandra Ballard, Sentinel Staff Writer
Another battle? Vets statewide worry about the future of VA care
CONCERNS GROW IN COLORADO OVER THE VA’S PUSH TO SEND VETERANS TO PRIVATE CARE
BY KYLE MCKINNON, KUNC
Bernie Rogoff is a Korean War-era Army veteran who’s spent his life advocating for fellow service members.
The 95-year-old led the push for Denver’s modern Veterans Affairs medical center, which opened in 2018 to serve Colorado’s nearly 400,000 veterans. Rogoff still calls it one of his proudest achievements. He remembers it finally felt like “someone is listening.”
For years, Rogoff was a prominent and vocal member of the Aurora Veterans Affairs Commission, leading the effort to build the VA center at Anschutz in Aurora.
That hospital was meant to be a cornerstone for veterans in Colorado — a place where they could get the specialized care Rogoff says they earned.
But since the second Trump administration began in January, that promise feels different.
Under Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, the agency has laid off thousands of employees and is sending more veterans outside the VA to private doctors and clinics, saying the goal is to get them seen faster and closer to home through a program called Community Care.
For Rogoff, though, the care veterans have a right to, and the sense of belonging that comes with it, is slipping away.
“We have veterans who go to the VA and sit in the atrium just to be among their buddies,” Rogoff said. “Can you imagine what they must feel? It hurts. It hurts me.”
He says the agency’s shift is a cost-cutting measure that puts veterans at risk.
VA officials push back on those concerns.
Amanda Villa, interim associate director for access at VA Eastern Colorado, says Community Care is an extension of VA services, not a replacement, especially in a state where many veterans live far from a VA facility.
“We have a lot of veterans that are living in rural communities down from Alamosa all the way up to Burlington, Lamar area,” Villa said. “Having that extra support from our community partners and having those providers really enhances our ability to extend that care.”
Villa acknowledges there are challenges with Community Care, in par-
ticular when veterans bounce between VA clinics and private providers.
Still, she says it’s another way to reach veterans who might otherwise go without care.
“I don’t necessarily see a trend that we’re going to completely go out to the community,” Villa said. “I think we’re always going to have a need for VA care, and we’re always going to have a need for community care to be our extender.”
That’s not how national VA policy expert Suzanne Gordon sees it.
She’s the cofounder of the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute and points out how, in many parts of Colorado, there simply aren’t enough community providers for veterans to use.
“You have 64 counties in Colorado, 53 have shortages of primary care providers, with 38 having severe shortages,” Gordon said. “That means, if you live in certain counties in Colorado, there ain’t no care there.”
Gordon adds that Colorado has triple the national average of patients to primary care providers.
She says VA systems in all states are feeling the effects of moving toward private care, and the consequences won’t stop with veterans.
Gordon also describes the push to privatization as driven by what she calls “a toxic cocktail of ideological dogma and greed,” warning the shift could hollow out the VA entirely.
“If you start depriving the VA of patients and staff, then you don’t have enough to justify a health care system,” Gordon said. “You don’t have enough patients to maintain the skills of the staff. You don’t have enough patients
to have the teaching programs and conduct the research. Eventually, what ends up happening is you turn the VA into a Medicare program, where you’re the payer, not the provider of care.”
David Ortiz is deeply concerned about that potential future coming to fruition.
Ortiz is a former state representative and Army veteran who was paralyzed from the waist down in a helicopter crash during the war in Afghanistan. He relies on specialized equipment such as wheelchairs and bathroom chairs that private health plans often don’t cover. His district included parts of Aurora.
“If you ask any of my civilian counterparts, any wheelchair users that live with paraplegia, that have to deal with private sector health care, they can barely get one single chair,” Ortiz said. “Whereas, because I’m service-connected, I get a main chair, I get a backup chair, I get an extra set of brakes for when they go down.”
Ortiz says the VA helps him avoid constant battles for the equipment he needs, and that the agency should leave its Community Care program for times when there are gaps that VA in-house services can’t fill.
“The things that I am able to get through the VA versus how hard I would have to fight in the private sector are night and day,” Ortiz said.
He worries that substance abuse and suicide rates among veterans will spike if this shift continues – Colorado is in the top 10 states for veteran suicides.
Democratic state Rep. Chad Clifford is vice chair of the House State,
Civic, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee. He says the VA’s move toward private care is creating instability and damaging an already fragile relationship between the agency and the veterans it serves.
“We are now creating red tape where people don’t even know what kind of care is available,” Clifford said.
Clifford adds that even lawmakers don’t know what’s coming next with veterans’ care and have no authority over VA policy.
“They cannot explain what is going to happen, nor can we,” Clifford said. “As the General Assembly, we don’t have a clue what is coming down
the pike. We are sitting on the front lines watching the television just like you to find out what might happen tomorrow.”
Veterans in the VA systek have, so far, been shielded from navigating the everyday civilian’s health care system, but that could change if privatization continues.
For the Korean War-era veteran Rogoff, that’s a mission worth fighting for.
“There is no private facility available that could provide what the VA provides,” Rogoff said. “I am concerned for my brothers and my sisters. We are at a precipice. It’s a critical moment in our history.”
Korean War-era Army veteran Bernie Rogoff displays an article about his work to help bring a state-of-the-art VA medical center to Colorado, at his home on July 23, 2025. He’s concerned the VA’s shift to privatization is eroding the specialized care veterans rely on. Kyle McKinnon, KUNC via the Colorado Capitol News Alliance
David Ortiz SENTINEL FILE PHOTO
The Magazine
e buzz on vampire energy
THIS HIDDEN ELECTRICITY DRAIN CAN HAVE A MASSIVE IMPACT
BY AYA DIAB, Associated Press
The lights are off, the house is quiet and nothing seems to be running. But electricity is silently flowing through the plugs in your home. This hidden drain is known as phantom energy.
Also called vampire energy, the wasted electricity comes from leaving devices plugged in when they’re not in use. That could range from household items such as phone chargers and microwaves to TVs and gaming consoles.
This wasted electricity accounts for about 5% to 10% of home energy use, depending on factors like the age of the equipment, according to Alexis Abramson, dean of the Columbia Climate School.
“Phantom energy depends on ... what kind of systems you have and how much they’ve improved over time,” said Abramson.
For example, televisions that are connected to the internet and have smart wake features that allow them to interact with phones and other devices can consume up to 40 watts of energy during the hours of the day that the TV would normally be off, according to Matt Malinowski, director of the buildings program at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. That’s almost 40 times as much as a regular television.
“The good news is there have been new, renewed efforts to tackle this,” said Malinowski.
He said advocates and manufacturers have
come up with a voluntary agreement seeking to reduce the amount of energy smart televisions use when they’re in standby mode.
Phantom energy contributes to climate change because power drawn by unused devices can increase demand for electricity from sources that release planet-warming emissions. Aidan Charron, associate director of Global Earth Day, said that while the amount may seem small when a person looks at their individual utility bill, the environmental toll of phantom energy is significant when multiplied over homes across the country.
“Just take a little step of unplugging the things that you’re not using,” said Charron. “It will save you money and it’ll save emissions in the long run.”
What you can do
Some of the main culprits when it comes to draining energy are appliances that are constantly connected to electricity, such as those with a clock.
“Do you really need your microwave to tell you the time, or can you unplug your microwave when you’re not using it?” said Charron. While unplugging devices may seem burdensome, it significantly contributes to reducing emissions.
Charron recommends starting with small steps like unplugging chargers for phones and other devices once the battery is fully charged.
The next step is moving to other appliances such as unplugging an unused lamp.
If unplugging sounds too hard, regularly checking your settings and disabling any extra feature you’re not using that could be draining energy help, too. For example, smart televisions often have optional features that can be turned off so the television isn’t listening for signals from other devices while in standby mode.
“If you’re not using it, then you’re getting no benefit, yet you’re paying the price and increased the energy use,” said Malinowski.
How individual actions can make a difference
Individuals also tend to take more sustainable actions, such as unplugging devices, once they learn what they can do to decrease their household emissions efficiently. Those actions could contribute to reducing U.S. emissions by about 20% per year, which equals about 450 tons (408 metric tons) of carbon dioxide, according to Jonathan Gilligan, a professor of earth and environmental science at Vanderbilt University.
The choices individuals take in their daily lives all add up, Gilligan said, mainly because of how much the U.S. population contributes to direct greenhouse gas emissions.
“The question becomes, what can we do to try to address this?” said Gilligan. “Phantom power is one part of this.”
The more individuals decrease their footprint, the more likely it is that others will follow, too, and eventually, those actions may turn to societal norms, according to Gilligan, because individuals don’t want to feel like they’re being irresponsible.
“This is a place where psychologists find that this effect is real. If people see that other people are doing actions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, they want to do that” said Giligan.
When it comes to daily choices, individuals may think what they’re doing isn’t really making a big difference. But what they tend to overlook is how they influence others around them by choosing to live a more sustainable life.
The impact may be much stronger than a lot of people realize, Gilligan said.
scene & herd
Avourneen to honor Leonard Cohen with performance at Swallow Hill
Celtic folk band Avourneen will pay tribute to the music and poetry of Leonard Cohen during a special performance
Sept. 19 at Swallow Hill Music in Denver. The concert will span Cohen’s career, from his 1967 debut Songs of Leonard Cohen to his final posthumous release, Thanks for the Dance.
The show will feature Avourneen members Adam Goldstein on guitar and vocals, CL Morden on violin and keyboards, and Alice Allister on bass, joined by guest musicians Christopher Rose on drums and Katie Burns on cello. The expanded lineup has sold out past Swallow Hill performances, including tributes to the Beatles in 2023 and Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks in 2024.
Formed in 2014, Avourneen has become one of Colorado’s most recognized Celtic acts, performing at events such as the Colorado Irish Festival and Cheyenne Celtic Festival.
The band released its debut album Sparrow in 2020 and plans to release Waystations in early 2026.
IF YOU GO
When: Sept. 19, 8 p.m.
Venue: Swallow Hill Music, 71 E. Yale Ave.
Tickets: Starting at $30
Details: swallowhillmusic.org or avourneen.com
The Princess and the Goblins
Based on the classic fantasy novel by George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblins tells the tale of the curious Princess Irene as she befriends Curdie, a young miner boy, and uncovers a grotesque subterranean world of goblins, a magical grandmother in her attic, and long-hidden secrets. Featuring a dynamic 5-person cast, original music, puppetry, and imaginative staging, this new, devised work will take you to unexpected places as you “follow the thread. ” We are a troupe of vagabond storytellers— actors, musicians, playwrights, designers, and more—crafting unconventional theatre in and around Denver, CO. We devise, workshop, and produce our own original plays and musicals, as well as perform other new and obscure works, using creative, ensemble-driven storytelling techniques. Our name is a nod to a line in PigPen Theatre Co.’s The Old Man and the Old Moon, the show that brought our group together. The “third side” (of the coin, as the line goes) represents the choice that is unexpected and, yes, a bit crazy.
Join us for Bodies of Culture’s monthly BIPOC Open Mic. Your favorite host, Melissa Ivey, takes over the Manos stage, featuring a talented lineup of upand-coming artists, including Bodies of Culture Mentorship alumni.
September Feature Artist: Lola Jen
Pastalo Dacpano, aka Lola, is a community member, mother of four, a wife, singer, gardener, flower farmer, clay shaper, school psychologist, entrepreneur, and harmony whore who is happiest when creating connections around song, art, and flowers. Most comfortable in overalls or an apron, she believes you should always be ready to make a huge mess when creating. The bigger the mess, the more fun! Teaching youth how to play the guitar and ukulele and write songs is another way she spends her time, and she will take any opportunity to force a ukulele into your hands, and make you sing, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Also, when it comes to art, she insists she’s not an artist, because she’s not making art - she’s making discoveries.
A program of Levitt Pavilion Denver, Bodies of Culture is committed to investing in and supporting BIPOC youth in the greater Denver area to participate in music through initiatives that celebrate cultural identity and self-expression, understand the healing power of music, and empower musical self-discovery and exploration.
‘Merrily We Roll Along’ opens Sept. 12 at Vintage Theatre
The Tony Award-winning musical Merrily We Roll Along is set to open Sept. 12 at Vintage Theatre, bringing Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s acclaimed story of friendship, compromise and the cost of success to Aurora audiences. Directed by Bernie Cardell, the show plays through Oct. 19 in the
Nickelson Auditorium.
Told in reverse, the musical traces the lives of three friends from adulthood back to their youthful idealism, blending the excitement of a backstage show with a poignant examination of staying true to one’s dreams. The production won the 2024 Tony Award for Best Revival.
IF YOU GO
Dates: Sept. 12 – Oct. 19
Venue: Nickelson Auditorium at Vintage Theatre, 1468 Dayton St., Aurora
Tickets: $39 general admission, $33 seniors, $20 students/children (12 or younger)
Details: 303-856-7830 or VintageTheatre.org
‘Unapologetically Chicano’ art experience
A six-week immersive celebration of Chicano culture at CHAC Gallery @40 West in Lakewood. “Unapologetically Chicano” will showcase traditional and contemporary works of art alongside music, food and community connection.
Curated by Rob and Tammy Yancey, the exhibition highlights the resilience and creativity of Chicano identity across generations. The opening reception runs from 5 to 9 p.m. and will feature local and regional artists, live music, DJs, authentic food vendors, classic cars from Los Compas Car Club and handcrafted spirits served by The Good Ol’ Time Mobile Bar.
A second First Friday event on Oct. 3 offers another chance to meet the artists and experience the work. Organizers describe the show as a celebration of heritage, resistance and joy.
Museo de las Americas presents hospitalitythemed summer exhibition*
A new summer pop-up exhibition is opening at Museo de las Americas this month, celebrating hospitality in Latin American culture through the work of 18 Colorado artists.
“Museo es tu Casa / Museo is your Home” will be on view through Sept. 21 at the Denver museum. Organizers say the show is a reflection on hospitality as both a cultural and artistic value, expressed through paintings, sculptures, photography, mixed media and found objects.
The works were selected through an open-call process and showcase the personal journeys of Latinx and Chicanx artists, highlighting themes of food, family, generosity, spirituality and connection to the land.
Featured artists include Alfredo J. Cárdenas, Amanda López, Anthony LeCombe, Frank Zamora, Gabriela Carrión, Jaime Chihuan, Kimberly Nick Gutierrez, Lupita Borjas, Lupita Jimenez, Mariana Pereira Vieira, Martha Saavedra, Maurilio Tapia, Norberto Mojardin, Odalis Canchola, Romelia Carrillo, Rosa Nájera, Ruth Álvarez Luna and Tony Ortega.
The exhibition is located in the Art District on Santa Fe and is one of the cultural organizations featured on the Bloomberg Connects app.
IF YOU GO:
When: Through Sept. 21.
Venue: Museo de las Americas, 861 Santa Fe Drive
Tickets: Free, Details: museo.org
Smoky Hill
crashes in on the Rangeview goal to try to get a shot off on a service in front of the Raiders’ Alan Lopez in a 3-1 win for the Buffaloes Sept. 3. Smoky Hill has already won four games and is on pace to far exceed last season’s win total of six.
Below: Senior Kason Ottinger, left, has scored three goals to help the Grandview boys soccer team to a 2-1-1 start .
The pitch has heated up around Aurora early in the boys soccer season.
Several area squads have opened the campaign in undefeated fashion and shown promise for potential in the coming weeks of the campaign.
Five Aurora teams have qualified for the postseason in each of the past two seasons — the same five in Aurora Central, Cherokee Trail, Grandview, Regis Jesuit and Vista PEAK Prep — while company could be coming to that group in 2025.
Pitch potential
BY COURTNEY OAKES Sports Editor
Smoky Hill’s last trip to the playoffs came back in 2019, but coach O’Neil Brown’s team is off to a strong start in an attempt to end the drought. The Buffaloes have jumped out to a 4-1 mark (which includes a 4-0 victory over Mountain Range Sept. 8), which puts them just two wins shy of their entire total from a year ago.
Leading goal scorer Elliott Kaganer graduated, but Smoky Hill has made up for it with five different players registering at least one goal (senior John Nino has two to lead the way) and three have picked up assists, including two from junior Andreas Karpouzos, who was second on the team in points scored a year ago. Also returning for the Buffaloes is key senior defender Kevin Torres along with senior goalie John Villamizar.
The only team to defeat Smoky Hill so far in the early going is Vista PEAK Prep, which prevailed 1-0 in an Aug. 28 matchup. That is part of a 3-0 beginning for coach
Federico Gomez’s team, which has earned its way into the No. 8 spot in the Colorado High School Activities Association’s most recent rankings.
That puts Vista PEAK Prep just one spot behind last season’s area leader — Regis Jesuit — which has reloaded in the wake of the loss of a key senior class. Coach Rick Wolf’s team rolled through the majority of last season and suffered its only loss in Colorado to Broomfield in the 5A quarterfinals.
This season’s group hasn’t skipped a beat so far, as it is off to a 3-0-1 start that includes a tie with Ralston Valley (which is 4-0-1 out of the gate and ranked No. 4) at the Arapahoe Warrior Invitational. Junior Jackson Schneller has picked up some of the scoring slack left by the graduation of regular double-digit goal scorer Jack De Simone, as he has tallied three times in the first four games. Regis Jesuit has 14 goals in all and 10 different players have at least one to their credit. The Raiders also had to replace a stalwart in goal in Thayer White, while junior Marcus Hugulet has been up to the task so far.
Cherokee Trail has been slow to ease into the season with just two games in the first two-plus weeks and coach Mark Hill’s group is 1-0-1. The Cougars have plenty of firepower back, including seniors Isaac Wells, Caleb Burgess and Vincent Tchoumba, the team’s three leading scorers who combined for 20 goals and 13 assists in 2024, in addition other veteran contributors.
Grandview has a five-season streak of postseason qualification, but has entered a new era with the retirement of original coach Brian Wood. The Wolves (2-1-1) are in familiar hands, however, as former assistant and former Eaglecrest head coach Greg Watts has taken over. Grandview has back dynamic senior midfielder Alex Kedzierski,
while senior Kason Ottinger already has three goals after he had just one last season.
Overland won its first two games of the season in impressive fashion, which was good enough to get coach Mazen Kayali’s program into the CHSAA rankings at No. 10. The Trailblazers seek the program’s first postseason berth since 2022.
Rangeview had the most eyebrow-raising result of the season thus far as it rolled to an 11-1 win over Douglas County, giving a glimpse of what veteran coach Vic Strouse believes will be an “interesting” group. The Raiders (who have the area’s two most prolific goal scorers so far in senior Luis Castro Morales and sophomore Julian Cortez, who have four apiece). sit 2-1 with only a loss to Smoky Hill. Gateway sits 1-2 in the early going, Hinkley sits 0-1-1 and Aurora Central is 0-3 at the start of the season.
Right:
senior Yassine Assougdam (10)
PHOTOS BY COURTNEY
OAKES/AURORA SENTINEL
FOOTBALL
Aurora area teams finish combined 3-8 in Week 2
Wins were tough to come by for Aurora football teams in Week 2 of the season, in which area teams finished 3-8.
Two of the wins came on the opening day of the week Sept. 4, as Rangeview and Vista PEAK Prep rolled to lopsided victories.
Coach Kyle Reese’s Bison were in action in Week Zero and continued to improve in its third straight contest, as they improved to 2-1 on the young season with a 69-14 victory against Overland at Stutler Bowl. Vista PEAK Prep (2-1) got a monster game from senior Tyrone Smiley, who rushed for 177 yards and reached the end zone three times on the ground, while he also had a return touchdown. Canaan Barthlow upped his touchdown
pass total to six over the past two weeks as he connected once with Isaiah Watson and also with Joshua Gallien, who took back a fumble for a touchdown as well. Tayshaun McClain’s interception return score gave the Bison points on defense as well. The Trailblazers (0-2) got the scoreboard twice on long touchdown runs from junior Elijah Hargrove.
Rangeview picked up the first win for new coach Chris Lopez and evened its record at 1-1 with a 497 defeat of Lakewood Sept. 4 at Aurora Public Schools Stadium. Senior Kylen Mack piled up 109 yards and had two of Rangeview’s five rushing touchdowns, while the others went to junior Braylen Wiley, senior Kemariahe Brown and senior quarterback Tyson Tuck, who also added scoring tosses to seniors Ben Blanco and Keylen Mack.
Also able to even its record at 1-1 was Cherokee Trail, which handled ThunderRidge 21-11 Sept. 5 at Legacy Stadium. Coach Justin Jajczyk’s Cougars were led by senior Logan Posey, who rushed for 237 yards and scored touchdowns in each of the first three quarters. Junior Corbin Cole had an interception and junior Jace Garza a fumble recovery to bolster the defensive effort, which also saw junior Nico Mavromat make 13 tackles.
Grandview’s tough slate of competition to open the season continued with a Sept. 5 trip to the North Area Athletic Complex to face Ralston Valley, which was simply too much for coach Tom Doherty’s team to stop in a 42-21 defeat. Senior Blitz McCarty found junior Matthew Schimberg and senior Julian Savaloja with touchdown passes, while senior Chris Blanks added 119 yards rushing and a touchdown for the Wolves (1-2). Eaglecrest dropped to 1-1 on the season with a 25-13 loss to Fort Collins in a road contest at Fossil Ridge High School. Sophomore William Brinkman rushed for a
touchdown in the first quarter to put coach Jesse German’s team in front, but the Lambkins scored 25 straight points before the Raptors got into the end zone again in the fourth quarter.
Aurora Central fell to hot starting Highlands Ranch 42-12 at The Stadium at Redstone Park, which dropped coach Chris Kelly’s Trojans to 1-1 on the young season.
Smoky Hill could not sustain the momentum from a Wagon Wheel game victory in the opening week, as coach Brandon Alconcel’s Buffaloes dropped to 1-1 with a 4416 loss at Douglas County. Seniors Michael Amohfrimpong and Joseph Cooks got into the end zone for Smoky Hill, which couldn’t overcome four turnovers.
Three area teams — Regis Jesuit, Gateway and Hinkley — remain in search of their first victories as the season reaches Week 3.
Regis Jesuit (which had already had heavyweight matchups with Cherry Creek and Valor Christian) welcomed in Brophy Collegiate Prep from Arizona to Lou Kellogg Stadium for another test Sept. 5.
Coach Danny Filleman’s Raiders fell 44-18 despite sophomore Luke Rubley’s touchdown pass to senior Tyler Henry, while junior Benjamin Bacon and sophomore Joe Pron rushed for scores for Regis Jesuit. Pron finished with 125 yards of total offense (115 rushing, 10 receiving) and Rubley threw for 131 yards. Gateway tallied 26 points in a road contest at Greeley West Sept. 5, but coach Rashad Mason’s team dropped to 0-2 on the campaign with a 34-26 defeat. The rematch from last season was closer, as the Olys fell by 26 points in 2024.
Coach Shawn Barnett’s Hinkley team encountered a difficult Skyview team, which dealt the Thunder (0-2) a 71-0 loss in a contest played at Aurora Public Schools Stadium.
WEEK PAST
The week past in Aurora prep sports MONDAY, SEPT. 8: The Hinkley girls volleyball team defended its home court with a 25-17, 22-25, 2519, 25-13 victory over DSST: Green Valley Ranch. ...The Regis Jesuit softball team pounded out 14 hits in a 13-1 win over Smoky Hill 13-1 in a
FAR LEFT: Rangeview senior shortstop Diana Esquivel (7) stretches out to snare a throw down to second base as Overland senior Angelica Montelongo slides in safely during the Trailblazers’ 20-5 softball win over the Raiders Sept. 3. LEFT: Overland senior Aubrey Butler (9) elevates for an attack at the net in the Trailblazers’ four-set home victory against Aurora Central Sept. 3. ABOVE: Overland’s Melia Relford, left, waits to make the tag on Rangeview baserunner Azul Macias Reyes as she attempts to move up to third base during the Trailblazers’ 20-5 win Sept. 3. BELOW: Two Gateway girls volleyball players arrive at the same time to bump the ball during the Olys’ three-set home dual match loss to Hinkley Sept. 2. RIGHT: Overland senior Sahniya Vaughn (5) reaches in to break up a pass intended for Eagle Ridge Academy’s Faith Lucero-Foreman during the fourth quarter of the Trailblazers’ 18-6 girls flag football win Sept. 3 at Overland High School. (Photos by Courtney Oakes/Aurora Sentinel)
local matchup. Starting pitcher Alex Tavlarid es allowed just a single hit and a single run over four innings of work with eight strikeouts, while Alexis Colvin led the offensive highlights with three hits and three RBI. Caitlin Fairchild drove in two runs as well and joined Abby Canedy with two hits for the Raiders, while Morgan Wilson drove in the only run for the Buffs. ...The Regis Jesuit field hockey team downed Smoky Hill 3-1 in a matchup of two of the three local programs. ...The Regis Jesuit boys golf team won the title of the Continental League tournament played at Heritage Eagle Bend, as the Raiders put three players in the top 10 individually to win by a stroke over Legend. Will Farber’s plus-1 73 put in him fourth place, while Mason Mix tied for seventh with a 76 and Brady Davis shot 77 to tie for 10th. ...The Cherokee Trail boys golf team finished atop a field of 24 teams that played in the Windsor Invitational at Pelican Lakes Golf & Country Club, as the Cougars were 5-under-par as a team to win by 11 strokes. Individually, Brayden Forte shot 3-under 69 to tie for third, while
Dalton Sisneros tied for fifth with a 70 and Braydon O’Neil and Jeffrey Chen were part of a five-way tie for eighth with even-par 72s. ... SATURDAY, SEPT. 6: The Smoky Hill girls volleyball team won the Overland Invitational with a perfect 4-0 record that included wins over host Overland , George Washington, Poudre Community Academy and ThunderRidge. ...The Overland boys soccer team tallied twice in each half of a 4-0 road win over Fountain-Fort Carson. Hammam Swasi scored two goals, while Wyatt Dunkly and Justin Rodriquez also found the back of the net. ...The Grandview softball team finished a 4-1 showing at the Dave Sanders Memorial Tournament at the Aurora Sports Park with an 11-1 victory over Brighton and a 5-4 defeat of Pueblo Central. Monroe Donaldson went 5-for-7 between the two contests and scored six times, while Sasha Kennedy had two hits in each game and Lily Jackson had a combined four RBI. Aaliyah Carter earned a complete game win over Pueblo Central and Christi Birx went the distance against Brighton. ...The Eaglecrest softball
team defeated Ponderosa 2-1 and ThunderRidge 16-4 in its final two games at the Dave Sanders Memorial Tournament. Haisley Elliott had a big game against ThunderRidge with three hits and four RBI, while she also got the pitching win. Sybella Trevino had three hits and two RBI in the contest, while Lelia Kelliher and Zaya Elliott also drove in two runs apiece. The Raptors edged Ponderosa with just two base hits. ... Madison Lange of the Cherokee Trail girls cross country team ran a time of 17 minutes, 21.50 seconds, to finish in second place amongn 207 runners in the girls varsity race in the Steve Lohman Invitational at Cherry Creek State Park. The Cougars finished in 14th place among 30 scoring teams, while Eaglecrest finished an area-best ninth with top performances from Jenna Winn and Jenna Hallman , who finished 25th and 26th, respectively. In the boys varsity race, Regis Jesuit led local teams with a ninth-place finish as Liam Martin set the pace for the Raiders in 35th. ...The Grandview girls flag football team got three touchdown passes from Brooke Sullivan and
three touchdown receptions from Abby Kirkpatrick in a 27-12 victory over Rock Canyon. Sullivan added two interceptions for good measure as the Wolves snapped a three-game losing streak. ... FRIDAY, SEPT. 5: The Vista PEAK Prep girls volleyball team earned a four-set victory over Mountain Range. …The Cherokee Trail softball team earned a 6-5 home victory over Valor Christian as Emma Rice got the clinching strikeout with a runner on base in the top of the seventh inning. …The Grandview softball team defeated Grand Junction Central (13-1) and Ponderosa (7-4) on the opening day of the Dave Sanders Memorial Tournament at the Aurora Sports Park. Sasha Kennedy finished 7-for-8 at the plate with four RBI, while Maddie Donaldson had six hits and four RBI and Madison Jaramillo drove in five runs. Christi Birx threw a one-hitter in the win over G.J. Central. The Wolves suffered one loss on the day, a 4-3 defeat against Holy Family in 10 innings. …The Eaglecrest softball team split two games at the Dave Sanders Memorial Tournament with a 13-3 victory against Golden
coupled with a 6-3 loss to Windsor. …The Vista PEAK prep softball team doubled up Adams City 14-7. THURSDAY, SEPT. 4 : The Eaglecrest girls volleyball team had a two-set lead over Denver South get away in a 21-25, 22-25, 25-22, 25-21, 15-11 defeat. …The Gateway boys soccer team rolled to a 5-0 Colorado League victory over Thornton. … The Regis Jesuit boys soccer team entered Continental League play with a 6-0 win over Chaparral. …The Grandview boys soccer team dealt Golden at 3-1 loss. …The Smoky Hill softball team won a second straight contest as it knocked off Douglas County 10-6. …The Regis Jesuit field hockey team shut out its second straight opponent to start the season in a 2-0 win at Denver East.
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 3: John Nino, Bryan Ramirez and Alexis Rojas tallied goals, Andreas Karpouzos assisted on two of them and John Villamizar made seven saves for the Smoky Hill boys soccer team in a 3-1 home win over Rangeview . …The Overland softball team played its
See PREPS, 16
HIGH KICKS: Grandview senior Alex Kedzierski (14) leaves his feet to a play a ball in the midfield during the Wolves’ non-league boys soccer contest against Hinkley Sept. 2 at Auroar Public Schools Stadium. Grandview and Hinkley combined for just 10 shots on goal and neither found the back of the net as the teams played to a 0-0 tie. (Photo by Courtney Oakes/Aurora Sentinel)
›› PREPS, from 15
first game of the season — as it finally had enough numbers to field a whole lineup — and started on a high note with a 20-5 victory over host Rangeview Malia Relford crushed a home run among three hits and drove in five runs, while winning pitcher Michaela Halton added three hits, three RBI and four runs scored and Kourtnie Batch knocked in three runs for the Trailblazers, who registered 16 hits in three atbats. Diana Esquivel and Shannon Henry drove in two runs apiece to the Raiders. … Ava Matheny struck out 10 hitters in a complete game victory in the circle as the Smoky Hill softball team topped Highlands Ranch 12-7. Morgan Wilson had a four-hit day and joined Nikiah Light and Amia Colton with two RBI apiece. …The Eaglecrest boys tennis team edged Thomas Jefferson 4-3 in a road dual match. …The Overland girls flag football team held off Eagle Ridge Academy for an 18-6 home victory. ...A 7-over-par 79 for Vista PEAK Prep’s Ace Kelly tied him for seventh individually and the Bison placed seventh as a team in the City League boys golf tournament played at Murphy Creek G.C. Rangeview finished in eighth place in the final standings ... TUESDAY, SEPT. 2: Cailyn Baldermann racked up 10 kills and Anayah Rucker had nine (to go with eight service aces) as the Eaglecrest girls volleyball team dispatched Lakewood 25-15, 25-18, 25-16. …The Hinkley girls volleyball team extended its unbeaten start to the season with a 25-16, 25-18, 25-23 road win at Gateway . … In a game where only 10 shots on goal were registered by both teams, the Grandview and Hinkley boys soccer teams played to a scoreless cross town tie at Aurora Public Schools Stadium. Angel Trejo turned aside seven shots for the Thunder, while Camden Kuhn made there saves for the Wolves. … Zaya
For more on these stories, visit sentinelcolorado. com/preps
Elliott scattered three hits over five innings and struck out 10 for the Eaglecrest softball team in an 11-1 win over Heritage. Abby Files homered and drove in three runs for the Raptors, who got two hits apiece from Haisley Elliott and Sybella Trevino , who joined Zaya Elliott and Lexi Bargar with two RBI apiece. …Errors plagued the Aurora Central softball team in an 8-7 Colorado League loss to Alameda. Stephanie Gomez doubled twice and drove in three runs, while she allowed no hits and struck out 11, but yielded eight unearned runs. Yoselin Reyes Rosales had three hits and Miley Rivera Romero drove in two runs for the Trojans. … The Vista PEAK Prep girls flag football team got back on the winning track with an 18-0 road win over George Washington. …Despite 275 yards of total offense, a touchdown pass and interception from Brooke Sullivan the Grandview girls flag football team lost to Legend 14-13. Kendall Tracey had 135 yards receiving and caught a scoring pass for the Wolves. …The Smoky Hill field hockey team played Poudre School District to a scoreless draw in a road contest. …
The Regis Jesuit boys tennis team dropped only the No. 3 singles match in a 6-1 Continental League dual match win over ThunderRidge. …The Regis Jesuit boys golf team got top-10 performances from Will Farber (who shot 71 and tied for 5th) and Brady Davis (who tied for 7th with an even-par 72) on its way to fourth place in the final team standings at the Continental League tournament played at South Suburban G.C. …A split Regis Jesuit boys golf team won the Regis Jesuit Invitational tournament at Murphy Creek G.C. by seven strokes over Air Academy, as the Raiders had individual medalist in Aiden Casey , who shot an even-par 72 to win by three strokes. Gianni Ghiselli (77) tied for 4th and Henry Millen (78) tied for seventh for the Raiders.
APD hurts its credibility by ordaining the facts
The Aurora Police Department and its chief are under the delusion that the embattled police department has restored its credibility after being forced to address its years-long “patterns and practices” of using excessive force against people of color.
For more than three years, Aurora police have been working under a state-imposed consent decree requiring them to fix problems in the police department that have wrongly left a long line of Black people dead, injured or traumatized after confrontations with police.
APD has a very long way to go before it can expect the public, and especially the Black and brown communities, to bestow a level of trust they need to do their job.
It’s clear Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain does not understand that.
The Aurora Police Department was not simply admonished by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in 2022 for dubious instances of treating Black residents they encountered unfairly.
The exhaustive investigation that led to the Consent Decree illustrated and made clear the long list of “patterns and practices” of the department to allow for, overlook and even hide instances where some officers abused and even killed people because they were Black or brown.
The notoriety from the Elijah McClain killing was only the city’s most infamous example of how some Aurora police officers treated Black people in a very different and sometimes deadly way than they have treated others.
Aurora has paid out tens of millions of dollars in court settlements to families of Black people wrongly maimed or killed during interactions with Aurora officers.
Sentinel investigations revealed that the police department, for years, swept all kinds of police misbehavior under the rug, even after extensive evidence was produced during internal investigations. A famously drunken police officer avoided firing by the department. A police officer who referred to Black witnesses to a crime were called “porch monkeys” by an Aurora officer who was fired and then reinstated by the Aurora Civil Service Commission. Two years ago, an Aurora ranking officer was promoted to division chief after the Sentinel made public her involvement with a house break-in in Denver, and an APD Internal Affairs investigation determined the chief had lied about her involvement. This is a department battered by its own actions, such as when officers forced Black women and girls to lie face down on hot asphalt during a bungled traffic stop. Some members of this department fought back when former Chief Vanessa Wilson fired an officer who pistol-whipped a Black man accused of trespassing while the police body camera was rolling. Numerous relatively new state laws were created because they were based on the misbehavior of Aurora police over the past decade or longer.
The department has made big strides over the past few years in trying to uncover the why and how so many people of color are mis-
On
Ahandled by some Aurora officers. And the Sentinel and others have rightfully pointed out that the vast majority of Aurora police officers are skilled, honest and capable of treating Black and brown people with the same dignity and care as everyone else they encounter.
But despite some initial progress, Aurora police continue to kill and injure Black people that officers encounter, raising serious questions about officer training, competence and department policies and procedures.
Two weeks ago, an officer shot and killed 37-year-old Rajon Belt-Stubblefield during a bizarre traffic stop in central Aurora.
Within hours, Chamberlain called a press conference to dispense details of the shooting, and much more.
“We are not going to hold back anything,” Chamberlain told reporters. “I ask the community to please realize we are going to provide real and factual information, and I ask for their support in this process.”
While Chamberlain did provide some clear and factual details about the shooting, much of what he provided was unproven conjecture about what happened, and why.
Chamberlain told the media that, at the time, police had not even interviewed the officer involved in the shooting, yet he made a variety of comments based on a police-body-cam video that was not, and has not, been made public.
What’s clear is that an officer, who police still have not publicly identified, was working on a holiday weekend DUI patrol and, for an unspecified reason. He tried to pull over Belt-Stubblefield as he drove by. In a short distance, Belt-Stubblefield crashed into the back of one car, and then hit another. When the officer confronted Belt-Stubblefield in his car, a dispute began. At one point, the dispute moved outside of the car. From there, Chamberlain pieced together a narrative of what happened, outright determining that Belt-Stubblefield was to blame for his own death at the hands of the officer who shot him.
A real, external investigation may determine the same thing, some day.
But Chamberlain did nothing but undermine the department’s already damaged credibility. He did that by insisting his assumptions and conjectures were “facts” even before any real “facts” were gleaned and examined by an agency that is not under investigation for wrongly killing Black people it encounters.
Shooting-incident video made by bystanders reveals what appears to be a heated argument between Belt-Stubblefield and the officer. At one point, the officer takes a swing at the man, hitting him in the face with the punch.
Chamberlain said that was the officer’s attempt to “de-escalate” what he described as a stand-off.
Police training experts say that officers are trained to punch people in the face, but not as a “de-escalation” technique, rather as a critical maneuver to prevent a catastrophic event, usually involving someone who is nearly hysterical or delusionally upset.
Chamberlain said that, from observing unreleased body camera
to the next school shooting, again, and
nother school year, another mass shooting. A shooter opened fire at a Catholic parish school in Minneapolis last month as children were attending Mass. The shooter fired through the church’s stainedglass windows, killing two children and injuring more than 17 before perishing from a self-inflicted gunshot.
Once again, the horror of school shootings — and mass murders in general — has reemerged at the forefront of American society: Columbine, Colo. (1999); Virginia Tech (2005); Sandy Hook, Conn. (2012); the Navy Yard in Washington (2013); Oregon (2015); the Pulse nightclub in Orlando (2016); Sutherland Springs in Texas (2017); Parkland, Fla. (2018); El Paso, Texas (2019); Uvalde and Buffalo (2022); Lewiston, Maine, and Monterey Park, Calif. (2023); and Jacksonville (2025).
Through them all, we find ourselves circling back, pondering the same questions and harboring the same emotions.
Mass shootings are hardly news. In August 1966, Charles Whitman murdered 17 people after locking himself down in the central clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin, targeting random individuals from the 28th-floor observation deck. A decade later, a string of horrific school shootings commenced. In 1976, Charles Edward Allaway killed seven people at California State University, Fullerton. More than a decade later, in 1989, Patrick Purdy killed five children in Stockton, California. In 1991, graduate student Gang Lu killed three faculty members at the University of Iowa, while one year later Eric Houston killed three students and a teacher at Lindhurst High School in Olivehurst, Calif.
It’s therefore not accurate to state the trend of mass shootings began with the terrible events at Columbine High School in 1999.
video, Belt-Stubblefield had a handgun that he threw onto a nearby grassy median. During the reportedly headed confrontation between the officer and Belt-Stubblefield, the man yelled at his son, who had unexplainedly appeared on the scene, to “get the shit.”
“He said, ‘get the shit, get the shit,’” Chamberlain told reporters. “Get the shit, referring to the weapon, and if he’s not referring to the weapon, I will be 100 percent completely surprised, because every time that statement is made, he is looking back exactly where that weapon is at, and he is talking to the individuals. He is talking to his relatives. He is talking to other people in the area. Get the shit. Get the shit.”
Chamberlain gave the impression Belt-Stubblefield was commanding people to bring him the gun or possibly wield it. He could be right, but he offered nothing but conjecture about the gun and what Belt-Stubblefield’s intent was at the time.
Instead of providing only what police actually knew, Chamberlain essentially convicted Belt-Stubblefield and cleared the officer, without even hearing the officer’s statement.
He asked that the community make its determination about the shooting based on his “factual” statements.
But he has continued to press the department’s unproven narrative of how the shooting unfolded, and that the suspect was to blame for the shooting.
“I wish that the suspect would have listened to what the officer said,” Chamberlain said. “Again, these are decisions, and these are things that he decided. This is not what the officer decided, it’s what the suspect decided.”
It may well turn out after a real, outside investigation into the shooting, underway by the 18th Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team, that some or all of Chamberlain’s conjecture will prove to be accurate.
But neither police in Aurora, nor anywhere, can be trusted to investigate themselves for potential crimes they have been repeatedly convicted of in the past.
State lawmakers need, again, to use Aurora as an example of what can go wrong in policing, and create a system that precludes an agency involved in a CIRT investigation from being the sole provider of public information about details linked to their own potential crimes and misdeeds.
Had it been an outside police agency — or better, a member of the yet-to-be-created Aurora police independent oversight commission providing these preliminary details — the public and people directly affected by the shooting could have confidence in the information.
But Chamberlain’s zealous demand for accuracy and facts mixed with pure conjecture and speculation does nothing but undermine the credibility this agency is working so hard to restore.
again, and again...
Certain conservative activists have attempted to weaponize Westman’s gender identity to define transgender people as prone to violence or mental illness. Law enforcement officials provided no motive for the attack, but Westman’s sprawling social media history portrayed a colossal litany of hostility and grievance.
Numerous videos she posted indicated an obsession with guns, violence, and school shooters. She displayed her own cache of weapons, bullets, and what appeared to be explosive devices. She harbored white-nationalist views espousing vile attitudes toward Blacks, Latinos, and Jews – “the shooter appeared to hate all of us,” said Joe Thompson, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota. President Donald Trump earned her ire as well. Videos revealed excerpts from her diary, with lengthy entries detailing self-hatred, violence toward children, and a desire to inflict self-harm.
Disingenuous agitation over Westman’s gender mirrored the reaction to the 2023 mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, where a former student who identified as transgender killed three children and three adults.
Like many fellow mass shooters, Westman was part of a sordid online community of secret dark web groups, influenced by much of the blatantly callous, acidic rhetoric steadily emanating from the current fractured political environment. Much of it comes from the depths of the political and cultural right-wing echo chamber.
As has been the case with preceding tragedies, we hear the same routine, obligatory commentary from politicians across the political spectrum: “Guns don’t kill people, people do,” “We
need to address the issue of mental health,” “We must harden our schools,” “We cannot trample on the Second Amendment,” and so on. In essence, the same gun violence cultivates the same response: denounce the killings and then offer our thoughts and prayers to the dead victims’ families, the brokenhearted, and the emotionally devastated.
With regard to donating resources to mental health, I concur with such an effort. But the vast majority of people who suffer from mental health issues are not murderers. Rational Americans are getting sick and tired of the constant and redundant commentary from gun manufacturers, right-wing politicians, and others who continue to look for scapegoats instead of confronting the issue head-on.
The motives behind such shootings do indeed matter, despite well-meaning yet misguided rhetoric from individuals saying they don’t or shouldn’t. Most rational people can distinguish the moral difference between an unfortunate tragedy that culminates in death and an act of malicious, intentional violence. Yes, family members whose loved ones were victims are grieving, but there is indeed a stark distinction in the cause of their loved ones’ demise.
The Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms, but it does not give gun users, owners, sellers, or manufacturers the freedom to absolve themselves from their responsibility if doing everything possible to ensure we establish a society as free from gun violence as possible.
ELWOOD WATSON, CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST
SENTINEL EDITORIAL
Look what you made us do. Again.
SentinelColoradostaffers won seven top honors last week competing among the state’s best and largest newspapers during the annual Colorado Press Association newspaper awards.
Competing against TheDenverPost,TheColoradoSpringsGazette, The Colorado Sun and other top Colorado media, TheSentineltook away honors for its investigative work, breaking news coverage, enterprise reporting and more.
“Despite having the smallest newsroom among our peers and competitors, TheSentinel steadfastly raises a powerful and illuminating voice that’s critical to maintaining reader trust,” said SentinelEditor Dave Perry. “I’m inspired every day by the talent, dedication and persistence of some of the top journalists in the state, and we’re endlessly thankful for a community that supports our mission.”
This year’s awards included:
• The Sentinelwon Second Place for the press association’s coveted Public Service Project for the staff’s dedicated effort to reporting, analysis, investigation and opinions on the impact of then presidential candidate Donald Trump’s focus on Aurora immigrants and his proposing “Operation Aurora,” which has since become a national campaign of mass deportation. Credited were reporter in residence Susan Greene, staff reporter Cassandra Ballard and editor Dave Perry.
• The Sentinelwon First Place for Best Opinion Writing for house editorials written by Perry.
• The Sentinelswept First and Second Place for Best Breaking News Reporting. First place was awarded to reporter Max Levy for a story about the Aurora City Council fleeing council chambers during a protest by activists linked to the police shooting of Kilyn Lewis. The Sentinelwas also honored for its on-deadline comprehensive news, photo and oped coverage of Donald Trump’s rally in Aurora. Honored were Greene, Ballard, Perry, and photographer Tri Duong.
• The Sentineltook Second Place for Best Investigative Story for “Give and Take” by reporter Max Levy. The story focused on how an astonishing $2.08 million out of $2.86 million raised by Aurora police, with the help of a national firm that helps solicit donations from the public, was kept by that fundraising firm.
• The Sentinelwon First Place for its sustained and comprehensive coverage with stories, editorials and signed columns by Greene, Ballard and Perry all focusing on controversy over three Aurora apartment complexes and unproven allegations of “takeovers” by Venezuelan gangs
• SentinelSports Editor Courtney Oakes won Second Place for his photograph “Flipping Out” depicting an athlete upside down in a jump.
• The Sentinelwon Second Place for Best Website among the state’s largest news media.
• The Sentinelwon Second Place for Best Headline Writing for headlines created by Perry.
We’re able to do this because of you.
It’s your trust, support and generous contributions that allow us to provide you and the region stories, photography, investigations, analyses, editorials, sports and commentary you’ve come to expect.
Trusted, fearless journalism takes resources, and we need your help. Please consider signing up for our free daily E-ditions sent to your email box, subscribing to our print editions or gifting someone a subscription that can’t. Please consider a contribution to the Sentinel, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) news media to ensure vital, local news remains available to you and everyone. Contributing is secure and easy. Just go to SentinelColorado.com and click Donate 4 Sentinel in the navigation bar at the top of the page.
You depend on us. We depend on you.
Students, educators say Trump’s threat of mass deportation is as problematic as carrying it out
