The Home Front: Pueblo’s pooch problem, where dogs bite mail carriers more than anywhere in two states

“The cliche image of a mail carrier tentatively approaching a house and opening the gate, only to be instantly charged and bitten by a vicious dog may seem like a scene from a comedy movie or old cartoon, but for U.S. postal carriers in Pueblo who go door-to-door delivering the mail, it’s an everyday possibility that poses an anything-but-comedic danger,” reports The Pueblo Chieftain. “The problem is especially prevalent on the South Side, as eight mail carriers from the U.S. Post Office-Sunset Station have been attacked so far this year, one of which was so severe the carrier required nearly a month of extensive medical treatment. “The number of dog bites over the years are increasing,” said Pueblo Postmaster Minette Williams. “We need to make sure that we can let the public know, so we can have the neighborhood’s help. Dog attacks on postal workers at the Sunset Station have risen 62 percent over the past year and, on average, one out of every nine carriers at Pueblo-Sunset has experienced a serious dog attack incident so far in 2017. The ratio of carriers to dog attacks at Sunset is twice that of any other office in the two-state district of Colorado and Wyoming, according to numbers provided by the U.S. Postal Service. The district has seen a total of 114 dog attacks this year.”

“As rumors of a shutdown for a program intended to protect young immigrants from deportation swirl around Washington, the University of Colorado is calling for all hands on deck to defend its immigrant students,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “President Donald Trump ran on a promise to undo the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides legal presence for young, unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. “Literally, the last 72 hours have been everybody on edge,” said Violeta Chapin, clinical law professor at CU’s law school. “Students are very concerned.”

“An enormous, black armored truck set on waist-high wheels towers over a host of other vehicles in the back parking lot at the Greeley Police Department,” reports The Greeley Tribune. “Most of the time, it remains parked at the station, but sometimes — such as during SWAT standoffs — officers take the mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle to the city’s streets. The Greeley Police Department acquired the vehicle — and a host of other equipment — through the federal government’s 1033 program. The program allows local law enforcement agencies to receive equipment the military is no longer using. On Monday, President Donald Trump lifted restrictions placed on the program in 2015, meaning local law enforcement will have more access to surplus military gear.”

“Jurors on Thursday convicted Rafael ‘Shorty’ Garcia of first-degree murder in the 1989 shooting death of a Palisade man, siding with prosecutors who argued Garcia was out for vengeance on his ex-wife’s new boyfriend when he first stabbed, then shot the victim,” reports The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “Mesa County District Judge Lance Timbreza will sentence the now 67-year-old Garcia to life in prison without parole on Sept. 8, the only option he has under the law, for the slaying of 38-year-old Charles Porter. Assistant District Attorney Rich Tuttle asked that sentencing be delayed until then to allow all of Porter’s children the opportunity to attend the hearing.”

“City Manager Harold Dominguez has authorized the extermination of a small number of prairie dogs that had moved onto part of a former city landfill east of Longmont, according to city spokesman Rigo Leal,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “There appear to be fewer than eight prairie dogs on the site, Dominguez said in a memo provided by Leal on Thursday. Information from city officials was not immediately available about when the extermination will take place, although Dominguez wrote that ‘we can guarantee that the city’s process will be done in a humane way, utilizing carbon monoxide.’ State regulations require Longmont to keep the onetime landfill’s cap intact, with no surface penetrations, which could be caused by burrowing prairie dogs.”

“The signs on the prairie are subtle. Native plants are a little too straight, a little too short, a little too meticulously spaced apart,” reports The Coloradoan in Fort Collins. “All told, the scene is far cry from the piles and stacks of old car tires that previously stood in their place. ‘Everything is coming in the way it should,’ Roberts Ranch manager Zach Thode said on a recent walk-through with members of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. That particular site, on the rolling prairies of northern Larimer County, had just a year earlier been a staging area for removal of thousands of tires. The scenic ranch had turned into an illicit dump site after owners took in the tires as a hopeful bulwark against erosion.”

“While a third of American adults and one in six children are obese, a report Thursday suggests the rate of increase could be stabilizing in some states,” reports The Durango Herald. “Colorado had the lowest obesity rate at 22.3 percent, but it was one of four states where obesity rates increased. The rate rose 2.1 percent, up from 20.2 percent in 2015, according to a report by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.”

“A former Cañon City High School ROTC teacher will serve more than five years in prison followed by a possible lifetime of probation,” reports The Cañon City Daily Record. “Robert Davidson, 45, was sentenced Thursday for having an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old student. He was charged and convicted of one count of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust and one count of sexual exploitation of a child. ‘This is a parent’s worse nightmare,’ the victim’s stepfather said in a statement during the hearing.”

“Thousands of young Colorado immigrants are anxiously watching the White House to see whether President Donald Trump will undo an Obama-era program that shields them from deportation and allows them to legally work,” reports The Denver Post. “Trump hasn’t made clear what he plans to do with the 2012 initiative, officially known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which grants new rights to immigrants brought as children illegally to the U.S.”

“Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper established himself as a national policymaker Thursday by unveiling a bipartisan healthcare plan he co-authored with Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich,” reports The Gazette in Colorado Springs.