ICYMI: For the second straight year, Colorado lawmakers are debating whether to support a struggling industry by examining the wage protections of its workers. Last year it was restaurant servers. This year, it’s farmworkers. From @samtabachnik.bsky.social and me: www.denverpost.com/2026/02/14/c...

The municipal court in Montrose, Colorado, is not a "court of record" — meaning the public can't watch court hearings virtually, or access video after the fact, and cannot request any transcripts or audio of the day’s docket. A state law would change that. // Story by @samtabachnik.bsky.social

Colorado’s Behavioral Health Administration suffered from high turnover, low worker morale, and an environment in which staff felt undervalued and unable to freely express their ideas and opinions, even before the agency’s outgoing leader took the job. www.denverpost.com/2026/02/11/c...

Workers at the JBS meatpacking plant voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to authorize an unfair labor practice strike against the company, alleging illegal conduct at the bargaining table and inside the plant. www.denverpost.com/2026/02/05/j...

9 current and former BHA staffers told me that Dannette Smith fostered a chaotic and stressful work culture, which forced many people to seek other employment opportunities. The commissioner exhibited paranoid tendencies and managed through fear. www.denverpost.com/2026/02/02/b...

Yesterday, I spoke with Molly Long, whose brother, Dennis Coyle, was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan a year ago. He remains in detention w/no bed & no light in his room. "He had all his rights and freedoms taken away," Molly said. www.denverpost.com/2026/01/29/d...

The world of city courts was upended in late December, when the Colorado Supreme Court unanimously ruled that municipalities cannot impose harsher punishments on lawbreakers than state statute would allow for the same offense. www.denverpost.com/2026/01/16/c...

Colorado has barred the long-troubled Star Farms in Brighton from bringing migrant workers under the H-2A program after an investigation found the employer, Angelo Palombo, did not pay his laborers for months and obstructed state investigators. www.denverpost.com/2026/01/15/s...

J-1 students say the opportunity to come to the U.S. on a work visa represents a life-changing experience. At other times, though, the program makes participants feel like exploitable low-wage workers with few protections. www.denverpost.com/2026/01/06/j...

Colorado’s youth detention centers are facing a staffing crisis, leading to serious safety concerns for employees and youth and low worker morale. The Division of Youth Services employs more than 1k employees. Nearly 500 additional jobs remain vacant. www.denverpost.com/2025/12/22/c...

NEW: The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday ruled that cities cannot punish lawbreakers beyond what state courts would allow for the same offense in a ruling that could set precedent for hundreds of municipal courts around the state // Story by @samtabachnik.bsky.social

3 Haitian refugees say their experience at JBS in Greeley has been marked by injuries, discrimination and inhospitable living conditions. www.denverpost.com/2025/12/17/j...

This story shows the lengths to which a private-equity landlord will go to quash its tenants’ union efforts, organizers allege, using aggressive tactics honed by employers in the days before the National Labor Relations Act. www.denverpost.com/2025/12/11/c...

Breaking: The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the conditions inside Colorado’s prisons and juvenile detention facilities www.denverpost.com/2025/12/08/d...

The Cambodian government has formally requested records from the family of the late Emma C. Bunker, a former Denver Art Museum consultant who helped museums around the world acquire looted Southeast Asian antiquities. www.denverpost.com/2025/12/04/e...

The National Labor Relations Board has found Starbucks illegally fired workers in response to organizing, closed stores because of union votes and engaged in widespread unfair labor practices designed to quash workers’ efforts. www.denverpost.com/2025/11/23/s...

Update: DOC officials are now allowing all inmates at YOS to purchase food from the canteen. Previous policy only allowed those who hit certain levels based on good behavior. Families say their sons have lost 20-30 lbs in recent weeks www.denverpost.com/2025/11/21/c...

10 mothers told The Post that they have watched their boys lose concerning amounts of weight over the past few months, as they complain about the lack of sufficient food at the Pueblo detention facility. www.denverpost.com/2025/11/15/c...

Ten mothers told @denverpost.com they've watched their sons in Colorado’s youth detention facility lose extreme weight over the past few months as they complain about the lack of sufficient food. “They don’t even treat prisoners of war like this,” one mother told @samtabachnik.bsky.social

The city of Craig has paid $300k to a man who suffered injuries after law enforcement intentionally plowed into him with an SUV. Tanner Sholes sued the city and members of law enforcement last year, alleging they violated his constitutional rights. www.denverpost.com/2025/11/07/c...

NEW - The Trump admin has disbanded its federal cultural property investigations team and reassigned the agents to immigration enforcement, delivering a blow to one of the world’s leaders in heritage protection, according to multiple ppl familiar with the changes. www.denverpost.com/2025/11/06/u...

For the past few months, I've been digging into the tenuous relationship between Telluride and the enigmatic owner of the town's famed ski resort. Everybody in town has a Chuck Horning story. Here's why locals say it's time for him to go. www.denverpost.com/2025/10/30/t...

Billups, investigators allege, was known as a “face card.” He and other former professional athletes were used to attract victims to the poker games. In exchange, they received portions of the criminal proceeds, authorities said. www.denverpost.com/2025/10/23/c...

ICYMI: Our look at how the “deportation machine,” as one lawyer called it, is working as designed in Colorado: www.denverpost.com/2025/10/22/i...

Non-lawyers offering fraudulent legal advice has been going on for a long time. But advocates and attorneys say we're seeing sophisticated scams targeting immigrants now more than ever as arrests, detentions reach record levels Story w/@sethklamann.bsky.social www.denverpost.com/2025/09/22/c...

Lotta people know the Beatles story in Colorado. Not a lotta people have actually reported it out, as @denverpost.com's @samtabachnik.bsky.social did. Plus lots more weird Colorado music lore!

Colorado’s Division of Youth Services last month removed all youth from its Lookout Mountain detention center amid what advocates say were deteriorating safety conditions. www.denverpost.com/2025/09/08/l...

Discipline authorities seek removal of Colorado judge over frivolous hearing, lies, ticket-fixing attempt trib.al/RkP39rH

Every 15 days, Ruth Rivas and her fellow housekeepers received two checks. This arrangement allows Telluride Ski & Golf to avoid paying all the overtime that Rivas and her colleagues were owed under Colorado wage and hour laws, she alleged in the legal filing. www.denverpost.com/2025/09/04/t...

The Denver Post's @elliottwenzler.bsky.social interviewed 5 former city employees laid off by Denver last month about what the loss of their jobs means for them and their families. “It felt horrible,” one said through tears. “I honestly thought I was a person who was going to retire from the city.”

JBS USA, the meatpacking giant headquartered in Greeley, pressures instructors to falsify safety trainings so its employees can get to work on production lines with a history of causing injuries, a whistleblower alleges in a recent lawsuit. www.denverpost.com/2025/08/28/j...

Experts say they have never seen this many deaths from a single hydrogen sulfide exposure incident www.denverpost.com/2025/08/27/d...

Some really great journalism in here - honored to work alongside so many super talented folks www.denverpost.com/2025/08/18/c...

Colorado law prohibits landlords from evicting people who utilize voucher or subsidy programs solely over the nonpayment of utilities. Yet this phenomenon is happening frequently across the state, advocates and legal aid organizations say. www.denverpost.com/2025/08/17/c...

Even if you win the lottery and receive a federal rental voucher, it’s a coin flip as to whether you’ll be able to find a place to use it. www.denverpost.com/2025/08/11/c...

A study published this year by New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy found just 57% of voucher recipients nationally have successfully used the rental assistance to lease a home — down from 65% in previous years // Story by @samtabachnik.bsky.social

Public housing agencies across Colorado are not handing out new housing vouchers this year for low-income residents as they reckon with budgetary shortfalls // Story by @samtabachnik.bsky.social

In this rural Colorado town, violent police encounters have been on the rise in recent years. Craig, pop 9k, has seen its only 3 police shootings in recorded history since 2023 and has paid at least 400k to settle excessive force claims in recent years. www.denverpost.com/2025/07/27/c...

A lot of really eye-popping details in this @samtabachnik.bsky.social piece about Craig’ police department, including: The police paid out two settlements to the same guy, 20 years apart, and then shot & killed him in a 3rd incident, when the man pulled a gun and told officers to shoot him.

Denver Fire responded to 3,481 elevator rescue calls since the start of last year, and @denverpost.com reviewed the 30 addresses with the most elevator entrapments. In 33% of those cases, one or more of the elevators had expired certificates of operation // Story by @samtabachnik.bsky.social

Elevators across the city are trapping people inside or are otherwise inoperable, and Denver conveyance regulators aren’t doing enough to ensure they’re working properly and safely www.denverpost.com/2025/07/06/d...

Masked ICE agents grabbed a man at Denver's federal immigration court and pushed him into a women’s bathroom, throwing his partner to the floor, a witness tells @samtabachnik.bsky.social. Agents detained the man “very roughly, very violently” as their child watched in tears, the witness says

A Montrose judge blocked the city from disbanding a homeless encampment. Then the city fired her. The move underscores Colorado’s deepening housing crisis and the lengths to which city officials will go to crack down on homelessness in their communities. www.denverpost.com/2025/06/16/m...

Previously unpublished court records detail life on the inside of the notorious Sunset Mesa funeral home in Montrose. -Koch using YouTube to learn how to dismember bodies -Extracting gold teeth to sell for Disneyland vacations -Handing families random ashes www.denverpost.com/2025/06/08/s...

A woman died in a Denver public housing building in 2023 after her apartment soared to 127 degrees. She wasn't the only one. www.denverpost.com/2025/05/29/d...

Hey, Denver. Check out this project from my @denverpost colleagues. I love working with smart, talented people! At a crossroads: Downtown Denver is waiting for its rebound www.denverpost.com/2025/05/29/d... via @denverpost.com

Gov. Jared Polis on Friday vetoed a bill that would have mandated Colorado’s municipal courts conform to state sentencing guidelines. www.denverpost.com/2025/05/16/c...

Important reporting by @samtabachnik.bsky.social on efforts to cover up the highly unusual death of a Colorado police officer's 7-year-old son. “We have many unanswered questions, and those responsible for giving these answers are unwilling to do so,” the state's child protection ombudsman says

A really horrifying @samtabachnik.bsky.social story about the death of a 7-year-old adopted son of a Granby police officer and a pledge by some in power to ensure the case was tossed aside. www.denverpost.com/2025/05/15/i...

7-year-old Isaiah Stark died in 2020, likely from drinking too much olive brine. This is the story of how Grand County tried to make the case disappear. www.denverpost.com/2025/05/15/i...