Cell phone store hit with 10 homemade bombs

Investigators are looking for a motive after 10 unexploded homemade bombs were thrown through the windows of an Englewood cell phone store.

Detectives are eager to find a motive and make an arrest, said Officer Scott Allen, a spokesman for Englewood police said.

The owner of the store knew of no one who might be a suspect, Allen said, and investigators aren’t sure what time the bombs were thrown overnight.

“The owner got a call from someone else who works in the strip mall about 7 this morning. They told him his front and back windows were broken out,” Allen said. “The owner went inside and saw the incendiary devices, backed out the door.”

The Arapahoe County Bomb Squad collected the unexploded bombs and evacuated nearby stores in the strip mall on South Santa Fe Circle, off South Santa Fe Drive south of West Union Avenue.

Other than several broken windows, the damage to the store was minimal.

Other than characterizing the bombs as similar to Molotov cocktails — cheaply made improvised explosive devices usually fashioned from a container of flammable liquid — authorities aren’t being specific about how the bombs were made or what type fuel was used.

“That’s all part of the investigation at this point, so were not able to release that,” Allen explained.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined the investigation this afternoon, though the case is currently being investigated as a criminal mischief pending more information, Allen said.

“At this point, we don’t have any suspects,” he said. “We don’t know what their motive was, so it’s very important that we find out who’s responsible for this.”

Grinches cutting, stealing trees from Denver parks

A 7-to-8 foot tall Blue Spruce was cut down this week in Denver’s Ash Grove Park, presumably by someone who wants it for a Christmas tree, according to Mike Swanson, forestry superintendent for the city of Denver.

“I kind of get ticked off,” said Swanson, who admits to getting a little emotional when vandals cut down trees in Denver city parks. “It is pretty senseless.”

Swanson said it takes 5-to-6 years for a Blue Spruce to add two feet in height – from 6 feet to 8 feet – in Denver’s dry, high altitude climate.

And it costs the city about $330 to replace Blue Spruce which is valued at $500 to $600 by the time it reaches 8 feet tall, said Swanson.

“This is supposed to be a season of giving, but they (the thieves) are actually taking away from the park district,” said Swanson.

The thieves used a handsaw to cut down the Blue Spruce at Ash Grove Park, which is located at South Holly Street and East Mexico Avenue in southeast Denver.

It probably took them up to half an hour to cut the tree and then drag it to a car or pickup, said Swanson.

Swanson said a second tree was cut down at Lindsley Park, East 12th Avenue and Dahlia Street.

Each year around Christmas, vandals cut down 2-to-4 Blue Spruce or Conifers in Denver city parks for Christmas trees, said Swanson.

Swanson said that the trees will be replaced eventually but the city is facing a “tight budgetary climate”.

Assault by Florence prisoner leaves two screws with head wounds

Two correctional officers at a federal penitentiary in Florence are recovering from head wounds after at least one inmate assaulted them.

The Tuesday afternoon assaults at the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence were caused by at least one inmate who used his fists to beat two male guards, said William Edwards, a correctional officer there and head of the AFGE Local 1301 union. Prison officials told 9News an inmate went into a staffer’s office and hit two people in the face.

Wikileaks, Denver, Radicals & a Critique of Messaging

Repost from Colorado Indymedia:

In Denver, Colorado outrage about the case of Julian Assange and the illegal attacks on Wikileaks is almost invisible.  Exceptions to the rule include random messaging on college campuses, such as Auroria Denver, and street messaging, such as this graffiti picture, taken from a locomotive next to the Lightrail at the 10th and Osage station.  These messages are beautifully done, and certainly it is better that these exist than nothing at all.  However, these meager offerings, moderately inspiring though they might be to some, are only in reaction to the dominant discourse.  At best these messages are an attempt to radicalize people at an incremental level, influencing the discourse and encouraging people to action and inquiry, however shallow.  At worst they honestly hope to influence policy about Wikileaks or the attack on Julian Assange with some pressure-group theory of politics.  Unfortunately, the current mode of production, system, or totality (krapitalism, the spectacle, the commodity relationship, class rule) not only determines the dominant discourse, it defines it.

Thursday: Demonstration in Solidarity with Georgia Prison Rebels

Thursday, December 16th
6:00 PM
Emergency Solidarity Demonstration with Georgia Prison Strike Rebels
Downtown Denver “Justice” Center
Colfax and Elati

From Denver ABC:

Hundreds of prisoners in Georgia have been on “strike” for nearly a week, refusing to work, leave their cells, and in many instances, eat.

They are demanding payment for their labor (Georgia currently pays prisoners nothing for prison labor), better living conditions, decreased costs for phone calls and stamps (Georgia’s costs for these “privileges” are among the highest in the nation) access to education, access to programs that curb substance abuse, and other improvements to the physical conditions of prisoners’ lives in Georgia’s penitentiaries.

Folks on the outside need to step up and show some solidarity with the prisoners of Georgia! Demonstrations have happened in Atlanta and other large cities in the south, with a large demonstration in Richmond slated for the weekend.

Denver Anarchist Black Cross, a social movement defense organization active in the Denver Metro area, is calling for people of conscience in Denver to show solidarity with the courageous rebels in Georgia, who at this very moment are facing extremely violent reprisals for their actions. In several facilities, heat and hot water have been turned off to the cells of striking prisoners, and violent beatings and cell entries have become the norm.

Bring signs, your feelings of love, solidarity, and rage at the prison industrial complex and the ongoing repression and criminalization of poor and working people across the country as we connect the struggle in Georgia’s prisons to the conditions here in the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center, where Marvin Booker was murdered by guards in July.