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Week of March 30, 2023
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DENVER, COLORADO
A publication of
VOLUME 96 | ISSUE 19
Check out:
Spring HOME & GARDEN Special Section
In this week’s paper!
Armed police are temporarily headed back to DPS high schools
Polis targets local land use in bid to make housing less costly BY JESSE PAUL AND ELLIOTT WENZLER THE COLORADO SUN
dent, who had a previous weapons charge and had been expelled from Cherry Creek’s Overland High, shot two deans at East High School and later killed himself, parents, students and educators are asking how officials can keep them safe while at school. Some want armed officers and other strict security measures back in school hallways. Others, who remember why officers were removed in the first place, think putting them back in classrooms would be short-sighted and won’t solve the
Fast-growing, housing-strapped Colorado communities would be barred from limiting construction of duplexes, triplexes and add-on housing units under a marquee measure unveiled in March by Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic state lawmakers aimed at addressing the state’s housing crisis by increasing residential density. The land-use bill would also block limits on how many unrelated people can live in the same home and prevent Colorado’s largest cities from restricting what kind of housing can be built near transit stops. A separate measure, meanwhile, would ban municipalities from imposing new growth caps and eliminate existing ones. The land-use proposal would apply differently throughout the state depending on population size and housing needs, with the biggest impacts on Colorado’s most populous cities — Denver, Aurora, Boulder, Lakewood, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction — but also rules for rural communities and resort towns, which have faced their own unique housing struggles. “This is an affordability crisis
SEE DPS, P2
SEE HOUSING, P6
The iconic “E” outside Denver East High School on March 22 adorns flowers and a “#11” painted on the surface in commemoration of Luis Garcia, who was shot outside the school in late February. Two school staffers were injured in a shooting at the school on March HART VAN DENBURG/CPR NEWS 22.
they didn’t feel safe. DPS board approved the asTools like metal detectors gave officers the chance to search a stureturn of officers following dent’s belongings and catch them small infractions that sometimes shooting at East High school for led to arrests or worse. BY KYLE HARRIS AND DESIREE MATHURIN DENVERITE
In 2019, Denver Public Schools safety officials handcuffed a 7-yearold at a Green Valley Ranch elementary school. Police pointed a gun at a teacher during a search at Rise Up Community School in 2018, prompting students to stop attending class
Black and Latino children were statistically the most likely to face consequences, ranging from tickets to arrests, and so justice-minded parents and advocates successfully pushed to remove those officers from schools in 2020, arguing that police were not actually keeping kids safe in the classroom. But after March 22, when a 17-year-old East High School stu-
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 11
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2023
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