Collateral Consequences
May 4, 2021
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Susan Greene
Susan Greene is a reporter, editor and coach for the Colorado News Collaborative (COLab). She was editor and executive director of The Colorado Independent before it merged with COLab and a longtime reporter and metro columnist at The Denver Post. She was selected as a 2020-2021 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow, and is the inaugural recipient of the Benjamin von Sternenfels Rosenthal Grant for Mental Health Investigative Journalism.
Deputy Accused of Killing Unarmed Man Had History of Using Deadly Force
May 4, 2021
Kiowa County’s sheriff ignored questionable incidents, records show
Colorado’s Quietest Police Killing
Mar 15, 2021
Dear reader, The people of Kiowa County woke Wednesday morning to an edition of their local newspaper unlike any other. The cover story, “Three Bullets to the Back,” is a deep investigative
Three Bullets to the Back: The Striking Silence Around a Police Killing in Small-town Colorado
Mar 11, 2021
KIOWA COUNTY, Colo. – Nearly a year has passed since the local undersheriff and a rookie deputy gunned down handyman Zach Gifford in this Eastern Plains county where trust in law
After Wanting to Die, Learning to Live
Jan 29, 2021
Navee Essien has grown up keenly aware of her gifts. More times than she can count, people have reminded the senior at Aurora’s Rangeview High how fortunate she is to
How Friendship Can Be a Mental-Health Safety Net
Jan 26, 2021
It started about four years ago when Laurel Carpenter and Melissa Humphrey bought matching parkas and then matching comfort shoes. Soon enough, the nurses-slash-best friends from Grand Junction found themselves
When Politics Feels Like a Moral Injury
Jan 7, 2021
Scott Zayatz upped his dosage of antidepression and antianxiety medication in early spring when the pandemic started clobbering the nation and the presidential race, post-primary, turned foul. The 43-year-old news
With Family Missing in Ethiopia’s Civil War, Denver Woman Says Her ‘Mind is the Hardest Place to Be’
Dec 23, 2020
Millete Birhanemaskel, a refugee, long-time Denver resident and businesswoman, grappled with 2020 as many others have: She tried to protect her family, her employees, her tenants from COVID’s reach. She
Colorado’s Behavioral Health Chief Opens Up About His Own Severe Depression
Dec 17, 2020
Some words fail us, and for Robert Werthwein, “depression” is one of them. The 41-year-old director of Colorado’s Behavioral Health Office prefers to say “everything turned to complete shit” when
What Can’t Be Washed Off: Psychiatrist Absorbs Her Patients’ Pain
Dec 11, 2020
Dr. Patricia Westmoreland washes her hands 20 to 30 times each day she does rounds at the Medical Center of Aurora. That, she says, “doesn’t count sanitizing them who-knows-how-many times