Colorado
Documentary on fentanyl crisis premieres in Colorado
COLORADO SRPINGS, Colo. — The film’s director stresses, “We can do something about it.” A Colorado-produced documentary takes a hard, in-depth look at the fentanyl crisis in our state.
WATCH: A check back in on Fentanyl data in Southern Colorado
With the financial backing of Weld County rancher Steve Wells, Mountain Time Media spent the past 18 months creating Devastated: Colorado’s Fentanyl Disaster.
News5 spoke with the documentary’s director, Steffan Tubbs. Below are excerpts from that interview:
“Putting this film together, the one thing that I had to do as a filmmaker was to give justice to the families, the family members that you know decided to talk with a complete stranger and talk about their most devastating moments of their lives. And the one thing that has never been lost on me and I think will stick with me the rest of my life is these families in Colorado wanted to share their stories in hopes that other Colorado families would never ever have to experience the grief that they’ve gone through.”
“When you have children, they are your most precious asset. And my two sons are in their early 20s. And we focus on young teenagers that are never going to see their 21st birthday. And I think just as a concern Coloradan most certainly as a concerned father. So as a parent, I would just urge you, you don’t even have to like the film, but have the discussion. And the one thing that I will always have with me from these parents is yeah, it may be a tough conversation to have. But you’d rather have the tough conversation than plan a funeral.”
“We’ve got to crack down. And I will say… one of the leading prosecutors in the state of Colorado against the fentanyl epidemic, not thinking that the drug cartels are victims here, or drug dealers are victims, and that is Colorado’s fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen… He understands it in the Colorado Springs area. The Fourth Judicial District, you all understand most of the prosecution’s dealing with fentanyl and fentanyl-related deaths or death resulting cases as they call it. It’s happening in Colorado Springs, we need to take that model, and we need to have it go coast to coast. This is not going away. The problem is only getting worse. And we can either all stand by and watch and go to another funeral in Colorado. Or we can do something about it.”
The film premieres in Colorado Springs May 18. The premiere is sold out, but anyone interested in watching the film can watch it onlinefor free.
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Colorado
Colorado elections clerk Tina Peters released from prison after governor commutes sentence
DENVER (AP) — Tina Peters, the former clerk convicted of participating in a scheme to chase election conspiracy theories promulgated by President Donald Trump, was released from prison Monday after the president successfully pressured Colorado’s Democratic governor into commuting her sentence.
Peters’ release was confirmed by the Colorado Department of Corrections. The state agency said it would have no more information about the 70-year-old inmate. Her sentence was shortened by Gov. Jared Polis last month after Trump waged a lengthy pressure campaign against the governor and his state.
Peters served less than a quarter of her nine-year sentence.
Peters was the first local election official to be charged with breaching security after the 2020 election. She snuck in an outside computer expert affiliated with My Pillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell — who himself denied that Trump lost the White House in 2020 — and the person copied the county’s Dominion Voting Systems computer server as it was updated in 2021.
Peters then joined Lindell onstage at a “cybersymposium” that promised to reveal proof that the election was rigged. Video and photos of the computer system upgrade, including passwords, were posted online. The move stoked false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Trump.
WATCH: Trump’s attempt to pardon Tina Peters runs into constitutional limits
Peters was convicted in 2024 of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty and other crimes by jurors in Mesa County, a Republican stronghold that supported Trump. An appeals court upheld her conviction in April, but ordered Peters to be resentenced because it said the judge who sent her to prison wrongly punished her for speaking out about election fraud.
Trump had championed Peters’ case, but because she was convicted under state law, he did not have the power to pardon her. Instead, the president pressured Polis to do so, lambasting him on social media and disinviting him to a White House meeting with other governors. The Trump administration also announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and relocated the U.S. Space Command to Alabama.
Polis commuted Peters’ sentence on May 15. In a letter, he wrote that although Peters was convicted of serious crimes and deserved to spend time in prison, the sentence was “extremely unusual and lengthy” for a first-time non-violent offender.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, on Monday released a statement warning that the release will “embolden the election denier movement” and adding that, since the clemency announcement, Peters “has continued to spread election falsehoods and conspiracies.”
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Colorado
Colorado elections clerk set to be released from prison Monday based on her sentence commutation
DENVER, Colo. (AP) — Former Colorado elections clerk and conspiracy theorist Tina Peters is scheduled to be released from prison Monday after serving less than a quarter of a nine-year sentence for her role in a scheme to copy her county’s election system.
Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted Peters’ sentence last month following pressure from President Donald Trump.
The Colorado Department of Corrections would not confirm the time of Peters’ release, and a representative for her attorney said Peters would not speak to the media when she is freed.
Peters was the first local election official to be charged with breaching security after the 2020 election. She snuck in an outside computer expert affiliated with My Pillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell — who himself denied that Trump lost the White House in 2020 — and the person copied the county’s Dominion Voting Systems computer server as it was updated in 2021.
Peters then joined Lindell onstage at a “cybersymposium” that promised to reveal proof that the election was rigged. Video and photos of the computer system upgrade, including passwords, were posted online. The move stoked false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Trump.
Peters was convicted in 2024 of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty and other crimes by jurors in Mesa County, a Republican stronghold that supported Trump. An appeals court upheld her conviction in April, but ordered Peters to be resentenced because it said the judge who sent her to prison wrongly punished her for speaking out about election fraud.
Trump had championed Peters’ case, but because the 70-year-old was convicted under state law, he did not have the power to pardon her. Instead, the president pressured Polis to do so, lambasting him on social media and disinviting him to a White House meeting with other governors. The Trump administration also announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and relocated the U.S. Space Command to Alabama.
Polis commuted Peters’ sentence on May 15. In a letter, he wrote that although Peters was convicted of serious crimes and deserved to spend time in prison, the sentence was “extremely unusual and lengthy” for a first-time non-violent offender.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, called the move a “dark day for democracy” and said it amounted to ”selling out our state’s justice system for Trump.”
Colorado
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