59 NEW DENVER DEPUTIES GET BADGES
Fifty-nine men and women graduated Friday from the Denver Sheriff Department academy, putting the department closer to its goal of adding 200 deputies this year.
The class was the second to graduate in 2016, and a third class is scheduled to begin in December.
“The aim this year was to try to get 200 through the academy, and it looks like we’re going to get somewhere near there,” said Simon Crittle, a sheriff ’s department spokesman.
The city decided to build the department’s ranks to relieve staffing shortages and to embrace a culture change in which deputies are asked be guardians instead of warriors. The recruits are part of an ongoing reform at the department.
Denver police arrest man in slaying of Jordan Valdez. Police in Denver
have arrested a 21-year-old man on suspicion of firstdegree murder in connection with a fatal Monday night stabbing in the city’s southwest corner.
Lorenzo Mark Simental was taken into custody Tuesday night, police announced Friday.
The stabbing happened just before 9 p.m. Monday near the intersection of West Mexico Avenue and South Raleigh Street. The victim, 23-year-old Jordan Valdez, was taken by friends to a nearby 7-Eleven store on the 1400 block of South Federal Boulevard before authorities rushed him to Denver Health medical center.
The stabbing apparently happened during what was supposed to be a fight between two girls who had been in an argument on Facebook, the affidavit said. When two groups arrived at the park, Simental allegedly ran up to Valdez and stabbed him.
A witness said Valdez was unarmed.
Power restored to 26,831 after raccoon trips transformer. Power was
restored to all 26,831 Xcel Energy electrical customers in Aurora and Denver after a raccoon managed to defeat security at a substation, blow out a transformer and cut off power early Friday, officials say.
The raccoon was electrocuted.
“We had a raccoon get into a substation and onto a large piece of equipment,” said Xcel spokeswoman Michelle Aguayo.
The incident happened at 3:55 a.m. Street lights from Yosemite to Sable streets and from Colfax to Alameda avenues were affected, according to Aurora police.
“48 Hours” to examine Fallis death, trial.
CBS’s Saturday edition of “48 Hours” will air a segment on the shooting death of Ashley Fallis and the murder trial of her husband.
The segment, “Death After Midnight,” will air at 9 p.m. on Channel 4.
The Jan. 1, 2012, death of Fallis in the couple’s home in Evans initially was ruled a suicide. Years later, a neighbor said in a television interview that he heard Tom Fallis confess to shooting Ashley. In the wake of that interview, police reopened the case.
After a three-week trial in March and a little more than three hours of deliberation, a district court jury decided Tom Fallis was not guilty of killing his wife. Staff and wire reports