A street artist was cited for violating Denver municipal code after police say he illegally posted signs with phrases like “Migrant hookers” and “Caution Undocumented Democrats” around the city in March.

The Denver Police Department is still investigating similar signs posted around the city on Aug. 29, which targeted Vice President Kamala Harris, included phrases like “Blacks must sit at the back of the bus. Kamala’s migrants sit in the front” and drew condemnation from state and local officials.

No one has been cited or arrested in that case, department officials said Tuesday.

Denver police cited 56-year-old Christopher Balli, also known as “Sabo,” on Thursday on suspicion of violating city code related to posting signs on public or private property. People cited under the statute are “liable for the cost of removal,” according to Denver city code.

The signs posted March 22 were found near West 12th Avenue and North Acoma Streets; West Colfax Avenue and North Broadway; and the 1400 block of Grant Street.

Denver Police Department’s Bias-Motivated Crime Unit also investigated the case, but the Denver District Attorney’s Office determined the case did not meet the criteria for a bias-motivated crime and the case was referred to the Denver City Attorney’s Office, according to the department.

Balli posted a copy of the citation on his Instagram on Thursday and previously shared photos of the street signs posted in March and August.

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Originally Published: September 10, 2024 at 4:28 p.m.

Eleventh Judicial District Attorney Linda Stanley will be disbarred for ethical violations on the job, a Colorado disciplinary board ruled Tuesday.

State disciplinary authorities found Stanley made inappropriate comments to the media during the high-profile prosecution of Barry Morphew, did not adequately supervise the prosecution of the case, caused numerous discovery violations, initiated a baseless investigation into the judge on the case and made inappropriate comments to the media in an unrelated case.

“Taken in totality, a majority of the Hearing Board concludes that these ethical violations warrant respondent’s disbarment,” the 83-page disciplinary order, published Tuesday, says.

The decision comes three months after Stanley faced allegations of professional misconduct during a two-week disciplinary hearing in June.

State regulators accused Stanley of making inappropriate comments to members of the media and on a YouTube true-crime show when she prosecuted Morphew for the murder of his wife in 2020, among other misconduct.

Stanley argued her conduct was within the bounds of ethical rules and that the allegations against her were baseless.

The Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, which handles attorney discipline for professional misconduct, brought the allegations against Stanley in October, and the case proceeded all the way to a public disciplinary hearing, which is highly unusual for a sitting district attorney.

Much of the disciplinary hearing centered on Stanley’s handling of the case against Barry Morphew, who she charged with murder in 2021, a year after his wife, Suzanne Morphew, 49, disappeared from the family’s Chaffee County home on May 10, 2020.

Stanley dropped all charges against Morphew in 2022. He has maintained his innocence and is not facing any charges in connection with his wife’s death. State attorneys argued during the disciplinary hearing that the prosecution was a “debacle” because of Stanley’s poor leadership.

Investigators in September discovered Suzanne Morphew’s body in a shallow grave near Moffat, and a coroner later determined her death to be a homicide, finding she died with a cocktail of animal tranquilizers in her body. The investigation into Suzanne’s killing is now being handled by 12th Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly, since her body was found in that jurisdiction.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Originally Published: September 10, 2024 at 2:26 p.m.

I heard ranting. The typical homeless-man ranting that we’ve all become accustomed to. I wasn’t scared. I’m used to walking downtown in cities – New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Chicago. Why should visiting Denver be any more dangerous?

It was about 6 p.m. on a Wednesday last month when my wife, our friends, and I were walking the five blocks on 15th Street from our hotel, Embassy Suites, to a restaurant on Larimer Square. There’s a little pocket park along the way at Arapahoe Street, and it’s apparently become a hangout for unhoused people.

He was yelling something about someone killing his family. I glanced at him – no dirty look or anything, just a curious glance. He was crossing 15th toward our side of the street. I turned back and continued walking. I know that 99% of unhoused people are harmless to strangers. I guess I wasn’t prepared for the other 1%.

I felt something hit the back of my neck, and it knocked me to the ground. I heard my glasses rattle across the pavement. I’d somehow caught myself a bit with my elbows and arms, so my head didn’t hit the concrete. Splayed out on the sidewalk, I heard my wife and our friends yelling, then asking if I was OK, and then they were helping me up. I got to my knees, then my hands, then I was sitting on a bench. I was dazed, and I couldn’t respond. Was I OK? I had no idea.

It turned out – according to surveillance video and witnesses – the guy had stormed up behind me and punched me full-force on the back of my neck. He then walked back across the street and stood watching and yelling at us. We were in front of a bank, and the security guards ran out to help.

EMTs arrived and checked me for a concussion. I was OK. Two scrapes on one arm and one on the other where I hit the ground, and I couldn’t move my neck to the left. Denver Police arrived and spoke with me, then they went to speak with him, and that’s when he decided to run. The police caught him, we did an ID, and he went to jail. I went to our hotel room.

And that bothered me.

The officer asked me, three times I think, “Do you want to press charges?”

Do I want to press charges? What I want is for no one else to get hurt. I’m a 55-year-old guy in good health. What if I’d been 75? What if I’d been a child? What if I hadn’t caught myself and had hit my head on the concrete? What if my attacker had carried a knife?

Do I want to press charges? What I want is for the guy to get help with the addiction or mental health crisis that he’s having. What I want is for him not to be living on the streets. What I want is for someone to fix this.

Because I’m angry.

I’m not angry at the guy who attacked me. (Not anymore, now that I’ve calmed down a bit.)

I’m angry at you. I’m angry at me. I’m angry that we have collectively created and sanctioned a society that is unsafe. Unsafe. If I as a visitor to Denver can be attacked in broad daylight on a nice street, unprovoked, by an unhoused man, then we are unsafe. We have failed; I have failed you, and you have failed me. And we have all failed that man whose psychosis or drug-induced delusion or whatever demons he’s dealing with led him to attack a stranger.

I’m no expert on homelessness, but it’s nothing new to me. Formally, I’ve worked in soup kitchens and volunteered with a Room in The Inn shelter program. Informally, I’ve shared meals with homeless folks and taken people to motel rooms in the middle of winter.

But the last several years, I’ve been surprised to see how bad the situation has become, and it’s become increasingly difficult for me to call any of this OK: Entire sections of public parks in Queens abandoned to become urine-soaked campgrounds. Blocks of roadside RVs becoming permanent lodging along the railroad tracks outside San Francisco. And now this, in Denver of all places.

I have sympathy for those on both sides of this issue as cities grapple over rules that would ban sleeping on the streets. But after what just happened, I have to agree: We need to ban living on the streets. We need a ban, and, in tandem, we need the resources to fix the situation that we’ve created. We need adequate public housing for those sidelined by our high-stakes economy. We need forced re-institutionalization for those mentally ill who cannot take care of themselves. And we need free drug treatment for the victims of our pharmaceutical piracy and our ridiculously failed war on drugs.

If cities can’t afford these solutions, the state and federal government certainly can. If we’re going to let this continue, why do we even have governments?

It should be safe for visitors to walk in Denver and every other city’s downtown. Parks should be for playing children. Everyone should be housed. And we should never be blindly accustomed to the ranting of homeless people.

Chris Smith is a 30-year journalist and is currently editor of Clarksville Now in Clarksville, Tennessee.

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