About 170 volunteers spent this Martin Luther King Day helping out at Care and Share Food Bank in Colorado Springs, sorting and packing food. It's to mark National Day of Service.

People came from several local places, like Peterson Air Force Base.

All of the food sorted on Monday will be distributed across the state. Care and Share passes out about 17-million pounds of food every year in southern Colorado.

 

Permalink| Comments

About 1,700 Colorado Springs Utilities customers are out of power Sunday morning.

CSU is reporting about 1,700 hundred customers affected in central and northern Colorado springs, near the N. Academy Blvd. area.

No word yet on what is causing the outage. CSU is working on the problem now.

 

Permalink| Comments

At the Center for American Values in Pueblo, portraits of more than 140 Medal of Honor recipients hang on the walls.

Retired Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha, who served at Fort Carson, will soon be one of the newest additions. He'll be honored in a ceremony at the White House in February where he'll receive the Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama.

Staff Sergeant Romesha is being singled out for his actions during an insurgent attack at Combat Outpost Keating in northern Afghanistan. Eight Fort Carson soldiers died in that fight.

The center is dedicated to honoring extreme sacrifices that were made in effort to maintain American values. They want to make sure that those sacrifices are remembered.

"We've got to get Nick DelCazo, the photographer, out to meet with Clinton, photograph him, and then we'll receive that photograph start the process of framing it and ultimately unveiling it to our community," says Dalton Sprouse, from the Center, describing the work they have to do.

Staff Sergeant Romesha's picture will join the three other living recipients of the Medal of Honor from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The pictures of two of those men are already up - Salvatore A. Giunta and Leroy A. Petry. The portrait of Dakota Meyer - the most recent recipient before Romesha - is in the works now.

For more on the Center for American Values, click here.

 

Permalink| Comments

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (AP) - Commerce City officials are mulling a proposal to implement a daytime curfew for teenagers in an effort to stop students from ditching school.

The Denver Post reports school-resource officers have proposed a plan in which the city's curfew would be extended to weekdays between 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Police also would be allowed to drive truant teens back to school and issue a municipal citation with a fine as high as $499.

The proposed changes are still being reviewed by police but were presented to the City Council last month.

Juveniles in the city currently can be cited for a curfew violation between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Police can't do much during daytime hours unless the juvenile is committing a crime.

Permalink| Comments

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - A group of Boulder residents is organizing a "silent walk" to honor the life of a bull elk that was shot and killed by an on-duty police officer.

The Daily Camera reports the group will walk on downtown's Pearl Street Mall at noon Sunday. Participants are expected to be silent during the walk but plan to play a recording of an elk bugle from their phones.

Police say an on-duty officer killed the animal Jan. 1, and an off-duty officer took the elk home to be processed for meat. The officer who shot the elk allegedly said it was limping and appeared as if it needed to be put down, though a resident has said it wasn't limping a few hours before it died.

Colorado wildlife officials are investigating whether any crimes occurred.

Permalink| Comments

Family and friends of a missing 13-year-old from El Paso County, Dylan Redwine, are hosting a fundraiser to help in the search.

The benefit is called Dinner for Dylan; it‘ll be Thursday, Jan. 17th, at Lewis Palmer High School. The fundraiser starts at 5:30 pm and is open to the public; no RSVP is required.. The cost is $5 per person or $20 per four-person family and includes a pasta dinner, non-alcoholic beverages and entry, according to a press release. There will also be a silent auction.

Redwine went missing the Monday before Thanksgiving 2012 while visiting his father in Vallecito, north of Durango, over the holiday break. Investigators haven't been able to track Redwine down; they've recently said the number of tips coming in has been dropping.

For more on the search for Redwine, or ways to help, visit www.finddylan.com. If you have any information about Redwine's whereabouts, please call the La Plata County Sheriff's Office at (970) 247-1157.

Permalink| Comments

 Extreme temperatues can cause major damage in freeze-ups at home. To protect your pipes, experts say to open cabinet doors to leat heat underneath, crack your faucets just enough to allow for a trickle, as moving water won't freeze. The most common mistake is not disconnecting hoses from outdoor spickets. 

Permalink| Comments

Look for cones and lane advisories at Fillmore Street and I-25 as work is underway to move Chestnut street west from the intersection. CDOT and the city of Colorado Springs are working on plans and funding for a new, safer interchange. Until then, the Fillmore Corridor Improvement project hopes to improve safety and traffic flow. Over 21,000 cars a day use the intersection.

Permalink| Comments

 A military wife in Colorado Springs is angry over a scam.  Nikki Rico received a call from the ''American Veteran Support Fund'' saying they were taking donations for homeless and struggling vets. After contacting the State Office of the Attorney General, and the Secretary of State's Office, she found that they are not a legitimate non-profit. Colorado Springs Police are investigating.

Permalink| Comments

January brings changes for the Palmer Lake Police Department; a complete shuffling of the staff. News 5 first brought you this story in November.

As we move forward in 2013, there will be no more full-time officers for Palmer Lake PD -- only part-time. Also, there will be no more police chief.

"We grew up with Dale Smith as Town Marshall, and he knew almost everybody in town," says Pat McCarthy; a Palmer Lake resident. He's not sure how to take the moves that the department is making this year.

"Right now we're just kind of waiting and seeing,"

"That sounds like there isn't going to be as much help as there has been," says Genevieve Newton; another Palmer Lake resident.

In November the out-going chief, Kieth Moreland, told News 5 these changes were for budget reasons; there wasn't enough sales tax revenue to support the department as it was. So, they made a change, but the department has been hoping it doesn't mean a change in service levels to go with it.

"As it stands right now, you will still have the Palmer Lake Police Department to call upon for your services," Former Chief Moreland told News 5 in November. "There will be somebody on the road 24/7."

Residents say, in this close-knit community, they'll keep an eye out for one another, but the road ahead for the police department is unclear.

"I just hope that the crime is covered," says Newton.

Right now a department lieutenant is running things; they'll re-evaluate the new format in 90 days.

 

Permalink| Comments

A fun story to cover every year - the first local baby of the New Year.

Vivian Rayne Travis was the first in Colorado Springs. She squeaked into 2013; arriving just after midnight at 12:13. She weighed seven pounds, 11 ounces.

Vivian already has two brothers and two sisters; they all had a busy New Year's Eve.

"I know the kids did New Years; they called us and left a message, but when everyone came in our room and said, "Happy New Year," I was like, "happy birthday!" says Richard Travis, Vivian's father.

Richard says the brothers and sisters still can't believe that they get to take her home; that should be sometime Wednesday.

 

Permalink| Comments

It was a chilly morning, Tuesday, for a run, but people still bundled up for it anyways. It's the 35th annual Rescue Run, in Palmer Park. 866 runners came out for 5K and 10K races. The rescue Run is the largest fundraiser for El Paso County Search and Rescue -- which works year round, and relies on donations and grants.

"It absolutely has grown," remembers rescuer Teresa Burgess with El Paso County Search and Rescue. "The first year I think we had like 200 runners, and now we're up to 866 today. The weather is rain, snow, or 20-below, and we are out here. Last year was very cold, lot of snow, so, you know, fun to come out and run."

El Paso County Search and Rescue averages about 120 to 160 missions per year.

 

Permalink| Comments

The Salvation Army say's this year's ''Kettle Campaign'' didn't meet their goals, but they are happy with what they did get. Generous donations of 552 thousand dollars poured in, with a last minute push of 100 thousand dollars in the last week alone. This is 48 thousand short of their goal, still 30 thousand ahead of last year.

Permalink| Comments

McDivitt law firm will pay to keep drunk drivers off roads this new year. From 10 pm New Years Eve to 3 am New Years Day, you can call a cab and charge the ride to McDIvitt. Yellow cab in Colorado Springs will take you home, straight home. Over the past five years the law firm has paid out over a quarter of a million dollars to get partiers home safely.

Permalink| Comments

LONGMONT, Colo. (AP) - A mural painted on a wall in northern Colorado in response to the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. is gone but will be preserved.

Longmont artist Gamma Acosta has been painting temporary murals on his uncle's vacant building for over five years, painting over the previous works each time. The day after the Sandy Hook shooting, he painted six shattered crayons along with a small red heart.

He said an anonymous art collector contacted him about preserving it. The Longmont Times-Call reported that he and friends carefully removed the wood paneling the mural was painted on Monday. The collector will also replace the paneling.

Acosta had already been planning a work to address shootings following the Oregon mall shooting when 20 children and six adults were killed in Newtown.

Permalink| Comments

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) - A Colorado Springs group is launching the Peak Military Care Network to make it easier for military personnel, veterans and their families to find the help they need.

The group is launching a pilot program in January to improve communication among service providers and expand and promote its website, which catalogs a wide range of services.

Kate Hatten, executive director of the network, says the idea is to allow people to quickly see the full range of help available, including health care, housing, employment, education, legal services and more.

It will also allow individual service providers to see what others are doing.

The network's website is in place. It had 400,000 hits between July and September 2012, up from 97,000 a year earlier.

To visit the Peak Military Care Network, click here.

Permalink| Comments

Colorado Springs Police and neighbors were able to thwart a Christmas Day burglary of a pastor's house. Two people were arrested; police are looking for a third suspect.

Tuesday morning on the 2500 block of San Miguel St. neighbors saw people moving stuff out of a home where they knew the family that lived there was out of town. They also knew the home belonged to the church next door -- Central Church of the Nazarene; the children's minister and his family lived in the home. The neighbors called the church's youth minister, Jim Stevens, who lives nearby. Stevens came over to find the suspects still moving stuff out of the home.

"The guy came out of the back and then sort of rushed me, and hit me, and then threw stuff at me and took off," describes Stevens. He says he wasn't injured by the hit.

After that, two females came out of the house. Stevens caught one of them; the other was caught by Colorado Springs Police.

The three also left a car in the church's parking lot.

"With what we find in the car when we process it, and talking to the females that were arrested, we should be able to get to a conclusion," says Sgt. Tony Erickson with C.S.P.D.

Stevens is happy they were able to protect his friend and co-worker's home, but he's still a little discouraged about a Christmas Day burglary attempt.

"For one, on Christmas, but two, for a pastor's house; I don't know, just seems like a double hit to me," says Stevens. "We've got to love our neighbors today, you know, and this is not what I was expecting but I'm glad to be here for our neighbors."

 

Permalink| Comments

A Colorado Springs woman is celebrating her 100th birthday this Christmas.

Grace Bragonier had an early party on Christmas Eve with friends at Laurel Manor Care Center.

Bragonier says her mother's birthday was also on Christmas Day, so her family would celebrate Christmas during the day and then their birthdays that night.

Bragonier says she didn't like having a birthday on Christmas as a little girl; she says school was always out for the holiday on her birthday, so she never got to bring cupcakes to her class like other students got to on their birthdays.

 

Permalink| Comments

DENVER (AP) - Efforts by Denver city parks managers to lure avian predators back into the city appear to be paying off with at least one wild bald eagle confirmed to be hunting in City Park.

The Denver Post reports Sunday that park managers have been erecting "raptor" poles around eastern Denver. The idea is to lure the avian predators to hunt prairie dogs, which have proliferated in urban parks. Park officials believe the eagle is hunting geese.

A large male has been documented in the 333-acre park east of downtown at least three times since Thanksgiving. It is believed to have flown from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, at the north edge of Denver, where 42 bald eagles nest in cottonwoods around a former chemical- weapons and pesticides plant.

The bald eagle in the attached photo is not the one that's been spotted in Denver's City Park.

Permalink| Comments

A 12-year-old boy in Colorado Springs is recovering after being shot in the leg overnight.

According to our news partners at the Gazette, police say the incident, "looks like a random act."

Colorado Springs Police say the boy was inside a home in the 100 block of Murray Blvd. Shots were fired around midnight, hitting the building; one of the bullets struck the boy's leg. The boy was hospitalized but expected to survive, according to the Gazette's report.

Police say evidence of gunfire was found at the scene, but police are still looking for the shooters.

 

Permalink| Comments