Colorado
Two arrested after Colorado deputy sees panhandler get into
A man and a woman allegedly begging for money to fund their cross-country travels in a stolen car were arrested this week in Colorado.
Their journey came to an end Tuesday in Craig. There, employees of a grocery store called 9-1-1 to complain about a young woman who was repeatedly asking people for money. Staff believed she was disturbing the store’s customers.
A lieutenant with the Moffat County Sheriff’s Office responded to the call. He drove to the store and spoke with the woman. The 21-year-old woman claimed she had “fallen on hard times and just needed help getting home to her mother,” according to a Moffat County Sheriff’s Office press release.
The lieutenant gave her “a few dollars,” as stated in the press release.
He then watched her walk across the store’s parking lot and get into the passenger seat of “a very expensive sports car.”
The lieutenant called in the car’s license plate and learned it had been reported stolen out of Oregon “under allegedly violent circumstances,” per the press release.
The car was pulled over after leaving the parking lot. A police K9 alerted to the scent of drugs, and paraphernalia was located during a search. It tested positive for fentanyl, per the press release.
The car’s driver, Neo Gabrielsen, also 21, was taken into custody along with his passenger, Fallon Frederick.
The search of the car also located a diary in which Frederick had documented the couple’s travels through multiple states in the stolen car. In it, she described how the pair took advantage of people along the way by begging for money.
The press release described the diary as “one of the more helpful pieces of evidence we’ve seen in a while.”
The make and model of the sports car were not provided. But Moffat County did state it was reported stolen in Washington County, Oregon. Moffat County is working with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office to get the car returned to its owner.
Gabrielsen and Frederick remain jailed in Moffat County, according to MCSO Sheriff Chip McIntyre. Both face auto theft charges locally but are also awaiting extradition back to Oregon to face charges there.
Colorado
Kids escape unscathed after van slips off Colorado mountain road and down Blue River embankment
A van carrying campers from a hike near Blue River rolled down an embankment Thursday afternoon, but everyone inside escaped without major injuries. According to the Keystone Science School, the 15-passenger van was transporting 13 campers and two adults back from Mohawk Lakes when it slid off a wet road and rolled over.
Emergency crews responded to Spruce Creek Road after receiving reports of a single-vehicle rollover.
“We’re fortunate that it was low speed, and there was no intrusion into the passenger cabin,” Matt Benedict, division chief of wildfire and community preparedness for Red, White and Blue Fire said.
Investigators believe muddy conditions created by recent rainfall contributed to the crash. The van rolled down a steep embankment before coming to rest against a tree. Two people suffered minor injuries, but neither required transportation to a hospital, according to fire officials.
Keystone Science School confirmed emergency responders arrived quickly and that no major injuries were reported.
“The safety and well-being of our campers and staff is our highest priority,” Executive Director Eric Rightor said in a statement. “We are grateful that there were no major injuries, and we are committed to fully supporting all those involved and their families.”
Fire officials also credited seatbelt use for helping protect those inside the vehicle. “We always encourage everyone to wear their seatbelts… and they did. And everybody left,” Benedict said.
The Keystone Science School is located in Summit County.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — Two weeks have passed since officials closed four blocks of Uintah Street to repair damage under a bridge over Shooks Run Creek, and we’re now learning specifics about the response.
Officials said that the city was the lead entity in the repair response, with Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) providing a supporting role.
The closure began late in the afternoon of June 10 for what officials described as emergency bridge and utility repairs between Prospect and Institute streets, east of the Colorado College campus.
Officials said that on the previous day, a routine bridge inspection by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) discovered a large “void,” or sinkhole, under the bridge that compromised a utility line.
But officials didn’t explain how the void developed or how they repaired it until earlier this week, when Richard Mulledy, the city’s public works director, elaborated on the situation.
“It was about a six-foot by eight-foot void,” he explained. “That void was really caused by an abandoned storm sewer line and then a leaking manhole. It’s something that we see from time to time, but really doesn’t happen often.”
Crews approached the problem from under and above the bridge, with workers excavating into the street to access the utility lines.
“The utility line being compromised was an active storm sewer line,” Mulledy said. “It was sort of hanging out in the open and was unsecured. The old storm sewer line had been abandoned for decades and was starting to fail.”
Crews removed the old stormwater pipe, repaired the manhole, and backfilled the void with a material called “flow.”
“Flow fills almost like a kind of liquid concrete,” Mulledy detailed. “And that’s a really great structural solution. So, we filled that entire thing up, made sure the void is closed, and made sure it’s structurally sound.”
He added that the bridge is around a century old, the same age as most bridges across the creek.
“This was identified and got fixed in 48 hours, rather than let something structural fail, and then we’d be in a big, giant construction project,” Mulledy said. “The structure itself, I don’t think, was ever really threatened.”
The closure ended on Saturday, June 13.
A Colorado man died on Tuesday when a boulder fell on him and crushed him. That’s according to the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office, who identified the man as 59-year-old Paul Frasch.
Frasch is a resident of Silverthorne. The sheriff’s office says he was walking in an area along the Arkansas River in Buena Vista in the middle of the day with his coworker when rocks fell and hit him.
According to investigators, the boulder that landed on Frasch weighed at least 1,000 pounds.
The coworker received injuries to his arms after trying to help Frasch.
When first responders got to the scene, the boulder was still on top of Frasch. He was declared dead at the scene.
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