MAN KILLED BY SUSPECTED DRUNKEN DRIVER
BASALT» A 54-year-old Colorado man has been killed by a suspected drunken driver while crossing a highway.
Michael Campion from Aspen Village was hit and killed while crossing Highway 82 in Basalt just after 9 p.m. Friday.
Colorado State Patrol Trooper Gary Cutler says the suspect was arrested about a mile away on suspicion of driving under the influence and fleeing the scene of an accident.
Basalt Police Chief Greg Knott told the Aspen Daily News that a police officer saw the collision and attended to Campion while others found the driver.
He had lived in the area for more than 20 years and worked as a mason. Friend Jay Edelmann says Campion had just finished having dinner with friends and was crossing the highway to get the bus back home when he was hit.
Man sentenced for building illegal road on Forest Service land on Western Slope. A former president of a Western Slope landowners association was recently sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution for illegally building a road on Forest Service land, a news release from the U.S. Attorney for Colorado said Monday.
Earl Bennett, 72, had pleaded guilty to a Class B misdemeanor for using a bulldozer in June 2014 to plow a road near the Cathedral Peaks Subdivision near Crawford. The road — on Forest Service land and adjacent to the subdivision — was nearly a mile long.
Along with soil and rock removal, numerous oak trees were cut and the hillside was weakened, threatening a home below the damaged area, the news release said.
Bennett was president of the Cathedral Peak Ranch Landowners’ Association at the time.
“Destroying public land is selfish and steals from all of us,” U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer said. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office works together with the Forest Service and local law enforcement to protect our public land.”
United Airlines flight evacuated after blown tires. Passengers and crew on a United Airlines flight were bused to a concourse at Denver International Airport because of two blown tires.
Airport spokeswoman Emily Williams says Flight 448 from Boston landed safely before the problem was discovered Monday evening. United released a statement saying the tires on the Boeing 737 flattened after landing, and the airline apologized to its customers for the inconvenience.
The plane stopped on the taxiway, and the 165 people on board were loaded onto buses.
No injuries were reported.
Man fatally shot by officer identified. A man fatally shot by a Westminster police officer this past weekend has been identified.
Birendra Thakuri, 27, of Broomfield, was pronounced dead at Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette after being involved in an incident with police, according to the Adams County Coroner’s Office.
The cause and manner of Thakuri’s death is under investigation.
Police have not released the name of the officer or the name of the other man who “advanced” on the officer.