Posted inColoradans, COVID, Health, News

Coronavirus-related calls are dominating Colorado’s mental health crisis hotline

About 60% of calls to Colorado’s crisis hotline this month had the same theme: the new coronavirus. Callers are isolated and anxious. Some are stressed because the pandemic cost them their jobs or reduced their income. Others are overwhelmed by spending whole days with their families and helping kids with online school. And some are […]

Posted inEducation, News, Politics and Government

These five bills are designed to make Colorado schools safer. None touches on guns.

Colorado’s School Safety Committee moved forward with five bills on Thursday that seek to prevent any more children from becoming victims of school violence. None, however, addresses a core issue related to many incidents of school violence: firearms and students’ access to them. The only mention of guns came at the tail end of Thursday’s […]

Posted inCrime and Courts, Education, Health, Politics and Government

Colorado’s trailblazing Safe2Tell system needs significant upgrades, lawmakers say

Two decades ago, in the wake of the Columbine school shooting, Colorado officials created the Safe2Tell anonymous tip line to help prevent more school massacres.  The system set a standard for prevention efforts, one replicated across the nation. But now, lawmakers and mental health experts think Colorado’s system needs a significant upgrade to address an […]

Posted inCrime and Courts, News

Highlands Ranch school shooting suspects were too young to purchase handguns used in deadly attack

Investigators on Wednesday morning are digging into how the two teenage suspects obtained a pair of handguns they allegedly used Tuesday afternoon in a deadly shooting at a school in Highlands Ranch — weapons neither are old enough to legally purchase themselves. Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock declined to go into detail about the firearms […]

Posted inUncategorized

What we learned investigating school safety for our “After Columbine” series

The Colorado Sun’s After Columbine series of investigative reports found that much has changed in Colorado schools 20 years after that mass shooting pierced the nation’s consciousness. Here are a few of the big things we learned during our reporting: Investigative journalism like this is only possible because of the support of readers like you. […]

Posted inEducation, News

Use of Safe2Tell, created in response to Columbine, is growing as front line tool in school safety

Susan Payne remembers the year, 2010, when the Safe2Tell platform for tips on potentially harmful school behavior had just introduced a texting option that yielded only about 100 reports. One of them involved some boys, online gamers, who were winding up their video competition and signing off when something happened that caused them to sound […]

Posted inEducation, News

A fight on a school bus, a knife in a backpack, suicide tips from Safe2Tell: The post-Columbine world of school safety runs 24/7

“Fight in progress,” the dispatcher’s voice crackled into the patrol car. Officer Clyde Casados slowed to a stop on a quiet neighborhood street in northeast Denver and checked his laptop screen for more detail: students were brawling on a school bus near Xenia Street and East 23rd Avenue. It was 4:33 p.m. on a Thursday, […]

Posted in2018 Voter Guide, Coloradans, News, Politics and Government

How Donald Trump, guns and cash spelled an end to Mike Coffman’s decade in Congress

Days before the election, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman stood at a busy intersection in the 6th Congressional District waving campaign signs and smiling at passing motorists, searching for any sign that he might keep his job. His 30-year political career hung in the balance, and the five-term incumbent Republican from Aurora acknowledged that he was […]