Welcome to the Laramie Reporter’s “In Other News” segment, a biweekly rundown of the top news stories from Laramie and Albany County as reported by local, state and national media. Subscribe to our newsletter to get this rundown in your inbox every other week.
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Former Albany County Sheriff’s Corporal Derek Colling claims in a recent court filing that he did not tamper with evidence after killing an unarmed man, Robbie Ramirez, in 2018. Colling and other members of the sheriff’s office were accused of deleting and altering body and dash cam footage by the victim’s mother, Debbie Hinkel, in a court filing last month. Body cam footage from that day cuts out when Colling and Ramirez start to wrestle. Hinkel alleges that Colling either intentionally unplugged the cord running to the camera, or deleted the footage after the shooting. Colling claims the cord came unplugged during the physical altercation. Separately, the dash cam footage available today contains no audio. Hinkel alleges that the audio was scrapped at some point by members of the sheriff’s office. The county claims there never was audio and that the dash cam only recorded video. Hinkel pointed to attorneys who remember watching dash cam footage that included audio. The county says those attorneys are confused.
Reading status: Open access
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In an unrelated federal lawsuit also involving the Albany County Sheriff’s Office, a fired sergeant claims the statute of limitations is up for allegations being brought against him. Christian Handley is accused of engaging in a “years-long racist tirade” in which he frequently used the n-word and other slurs to refer to Black community members, arrestees, his colleague and even the colleague’s family. That colleague, former Corporal Jamin Johnson, is the one bringing the civil rights case in federal court. Johnson said Handley orchestrated a “sham disciplinary process” that ousted Johnson from the sheriff’s office. Handley has not denied the racism allegations, arguing instead that Johnson is bringing the allegations too late for them to be actionable.
Reading status: Open access
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The Laramie City Council has squashed any chance of a civilian oversight board — one of the main demands brought by protesters during the summer of 2020. Laramie residents marched en masse in solidarity with the George Floyd protests taking place nationwide in May and June of 2020, and the city council agreed to take up the issue shortly after. Nearly two years of research, meetings, committees, and forums later, a measure to “investigate the creation of” an oversight board was axed as the council considered police transparency recommendations. “It seems that in addition to an aversion to the word ‘oversight,’ there’s an aversion to the word ‘transparency,’ which I find unsettling,” Mayor Paul Weaver said.
Reading status: Open access
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Albany County is developing a natural resource management plan — a document that outlines the county’s interests when it comes to the federal lands within its borders. The document has been crafted so far by Y2 Consultants and a county-appointed steering committee, but Albany County Commissioners have sent the plan back for serious revisions. Commissioner Sue Ibarra accused the consultants of using a “template” and not focusing on Albany County’s specific needs.
Reading status: Open access
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The Laramie City Council finalized its new council wards, dividing the city into roughly north, south and east wards. Each ward is represented by three councilors on the nine member city council. Councilors debated several maps but landed on one that splits West Laramie, the west side neighborhood and the downtown area between Wards 1 and 2, or between the north and south wards. Currently, all of those neighborhoods are grouped together and undivided in Ward 1, which was Laramie’s western ward for the past ten years.
Reading status: Open access
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Gabrielle Allen was appointed as the new UW School of Computing’s first director. Allen, who is the partner of UW President Ed Seidel, has been involved in discussions about the School of Computing since it was first pitched last year. In an interview with Wyoming Public Radio, Allen said the School of Computing will go beyond the technical and engineering side of computing. The school will also advance and support computing’s role in various other disciplines. Allen’s own background speaks to the importance of computing to other fields. Allen helped model black holes — the equations for which one cannot solve “with a pen and paper,” and which directly helped prove Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Reading/Listening status: Open access
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Wyoming’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program is now awarding roughly $3 million a month to help renters struggling amid the pandemic. But, as Wyoming Public Radio reports, the clock is ticking and the federal government is starting to “claw back” money from states that are not spending the money fast enough, giving it to those that have been distributing their funds more quickly. "What we need now is time," Department of Family Services Director Korin Schmidt said. "The program is up and running. We're not going to spend it at the rate of some other states but we will spend the whole amount if we are given the time to spend it."
Reading status: Open access
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A Laramie man and his family must somehow raise a quarter of a million dollars for a living donation procedure, or he could die of kidney failure. The Laramie Boomerang reports Felipe de Jesús Franco is a 37-year-old father of four whose kidneys are failing. Thanks to monumental advancements in medicine in past decades, kidney transplants are safer and more effective than ever before. But every day in the United States, 13 people die waiting for a kidney transplant that never comes. The shortage of living donors is just one problem facing those with kidney failure in the United States. The other is cost. The United States stands alone among the rich nations of the world with its for-profit healthcare system. Relatedly, the U.S. has much higher costs and much worse outcomes across the healthcare system. In addition to the $250,000 Franco will need for the transplant operation itself, he will likely need tens of thousands of dollars a year to afford immunosuppressants for the rest of his life.
Reading status: Laramie Boomerang paywall