ELDERLY MAN HURT IN ROAD RAGE SHOOTING AT I-70 AND COLFAX AVENUE

An elderly man was wounded by a road-rage gunman who blasted his auto with bullets in the vicinity of I-70 and Colfax Avenue, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office said Thursday.

The incident occurred at about 9 p.m. Tuesday. "The victim’s vehicle was struck by five bullets," officials said. "One traveled through the vehicle and the driver’s seat, striking the victim in the back. Despite his injury, he was able to drive to the hospital." The suspect’s vehicle was described as a red four-door sedan, make and model unknown. "The victim told investigators that he and his wife were returning home to Arvada from a friend’s house in Golden when they had an altercation with the driver of a red car," officials said. "According to the victim, the suspect then pulled behind their vehicle and fired multiple rounds." The victim is in his 70s. He was treated at Lutheran Hospital. If you have information, contact the sheriff's office at (303) 980-7300.

COPS FIND MURDER VICTIM IN DENVER LODO

The body of a male murder victim was discovered in Denver's Lodo district, police said Thursday.

The location of the incident is in the 2100-block of North 15th Street. The victim is an adult.

The case was initially classified as an "outdoors death investigation." Detectives changed the classification several hours later to homicide.

Police provided no other details.

DOPE SUSPECTS ATTEMPT TO FLEE IN BROOMFIELD

Cops spotted an auto with a shattered windshield parked at a Kings Soopers in Broomfield - and the driver and passenger fled as they left the store and spotted the law.

The two - a man and a woman - were arrested and the police seized 84 grams of methamphetamine from beneath the auto's center console on Tuesday at the supermarket on Sheridan Boulevard. Officers became suspicious when they noticed the steering wheel had been tampered with. "Suspects sometimes go to great lengths to conceal drugs inside vehicles, hiding them behind panels, underneath consoles and in other compartments," police said.
The woman was also found to be in possession of a "small amount of fentanyl," police said. The two were booked into the Broomfield Detention Center.

[Photo: Broomfield Police]

BIG TRUCK HITS AUTO NEAR LIMON; 1 DEAD

A semi-truck slammed into an auto early Thursday south of Limon, killing the car's driver and injuring his teenage passenger.

The truck driver was also injured in the crash at the intersection of Highway 71 and Highway 94, according to the state patrol.

The semi apparently failed to stop at a stop sign and struck the auto's passenger's side, the patrol said.

The injured passenger, a girl, was airlifted to Denver. Limon is 90 miles southeast of Denver. 

DRONE SPOTS MEN POINTING GUNS AT EACH OTHER IN BOULDER

With the help of a drone, police located and arrested two men pointing guns at each other in south Boulder. One man was released. The other was detained - a felon with a gun and nearly 30 grams of drugs. He was also wanted by police in Denver.  

A police drone responding to a 911 call arrived overhead in a minute and spotted the men in separate trucks stopped at a traffic light on Baseline Road near Broadway. Police identified the suspect as Quinn Sims, 38, of Commerce City. The incident occurred Wednesday.

1 INJURED IN BELMAR BLAZE, DOGS SAVED

A person was sent to hospital from an apartment fire in Belmar early Thursday and rescuers saved two dogs, West Metro Fire said.

The blaze broke out at 6:20 a.m. in the 7200-block of West Center Avenue.
Firefighters "found heavy smoke coming from a ground-floor unit" and "quickly contained the fire to the room where it started," officials said. [Photo: West Metro Fire]

TODAY'S SERENE ROCKY MOUNTAIN ARSENAL NATURE PARK ONCE WAS FIERY INDUSTRIAL HELLHOLE

The old Rocky Mountain Arsenal - today a serene nature preserve - was once an industrial hellhole plagued by major fires that posed potentially catastrophic consequences for the Denver area.

The sprawling, secretive U.S. Army site in Commerce City was used to manufacture and store a variety of weapons. It was built during World War Two and closed 50 years later. Sections were leased to private industry after the war.

The popular nature preserve opened to the public in 2011 after an extensive cleanup.

A giant inferno at the old site threatened the wellbeing of the surrounding community on July 27, 1947, erupting in coal bunkers and spreading toward towering chlorine storage tanks and eight railroad chemical cars.

A hero locomotive engineer, James Priller, braved the heat and moved the cars and their volatile cargo - cutting the risk of all-out catastrophe.

"We'd have been powerless if those tanks exploded," Denver Fire Chief Allie Feldman said.

Miraculously, no one was hurt. The situation had been so bad that at one point that journalists covering the blaze were told they did so at their own risk, the Rocky Mountain News said.

On Oct. 11, 1951, a gasoline bomb fuse triggered an explosion that injured nine women. Two succumbed to their injures at Aurora's Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora.

On Feb. 28, 1952, fire destroyed a three-story building on the arsenal grounds operated by the Julius Hyman Chemical Company. On July 20, 1952, a worker died in an explosion on the fourth floor of another building on the arsenal used by the Hyman company.

On Oct. 24, 1953, flames erupted at a building housing the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. The Rocky Mountain News described the blaze as spectacular "with phosphorous bombs shooting hundreds of feet into the air."   

And on July 4, 1953, appropriately enough, there were more fireworks at yet another Hyman company operation on the arsenal grounds. "Flaming chemicals spurted out of pipes," the News said.

[Photo: U.S. Air Force]