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Colorado Springs woman wounds female roommate with handgun
Valentine's Day: How not to celebrate it
Woman busts boyfriend's lip in Vail hotel, both are busted for drug possession
Australian women brawl over man in Vail
No man is safe — DV alleged and restraining order issued against Speaker of the Colorado House
Golden City Council member resigns
District Attorney charges man in jail with restraining order violation
First charge husband with DV then start throwing the kids out the window
Democratic candidate for state legislature jailed after attacking husband
According to the Tuesday, January 16, 2001, issue of the Colorado Springs Gazette (p. Metro2) Darlene Stone, age 52, was being held on suspicion of attempted second-degree murder after shooting her roommate, Bettye A. Ronk, age 57.
The shooting occurred Sunday night, January 14th, at Ronk's home in the 6000 block of Whetstone Drive, near Rangewood Drive and Austin Bluffs Parkway. Darlene Stone appeared to have been living in Ronk's home since early December, 2000.
Apparently Ms. Stone used a .38-caliber handgun against her roommate in the heat of an argument. Bettye Ronk suffered a single bullet wound in her neck and spine and was reported to be in serious and stable condition in the intensive care unit at Penrose Hospital.
According to the February 23-March 1, 2001, edition of the Vail Trail Valentine's Day wasn't a lover's celebration for a couple in the small town of Dotsero.
Apparently the wife had called her husband on February 14 th to remind him it was Valentine's Day as well as her birthday. He promised to be home in half an hour.
According to the wife, during that interval a stranger came to the house asking for the husband. She claims she was sending him away after telling him to come back later just as the husband drove up. The husband thought she was having an affair with the man he saw leaving.
The inevitable argument began. She started fixing some refried beans for dinner while the verbal sparring continued.
At some point a female friend of the husband called. He or she invited the other to either to come over for dinner or go out to dinner.
As the husband was leaving the house his wife turned violent, hitting and kicking him. She then threw the pot of refried beans at him. The pot hit their pickup truck instead, denting it.
When sheriff's deputies arrived, after examining the dent in the truck they arrested the wife on suspicion of harassment involving domestic violence.
At a guess this couple will spend several thousand dollars or more in legal and counseling fees, plus months of legal wrangling in the adversarial arena of a court that seems designed to make a bad situation worse.
Granted their marriage may seem less than idyllic but they would be infinitely better off with mediation or marriage counseling than charged with domestic violence irregardless of the sex of the “perpetrator.” They are virtually certain to rue the day the police were called. That could well lead to a later lack of police intervention when it is truly needed.
The April 7, 2001, edition of the Vail Daily newspaper carried an account of paramedics and police being called to the Vail Village hotel room of 22-year-old Jennifer Brewer, and her boyfriend Ryan Solon, age 24, at 6:41 A.M. on Wednesday, April 4 th . Ms. Brewer was apparently having a bad reaction to ingested drugs and was taken to the Vail Valley Medical Center.
The couple are from Minnesota and had arrived in Vail Tuesday night via Las Vegas according to the newspaper account.
It appears the incident began with an argument over a phone call Mr. Solon received at the hotel from another woman. Ms. Brewer is said to have slapped her boyfriend, but the blow, or blows, are described as “busting his lip.” Jennifer apparently told police she was angry about the phone call and that Ryan was ignoring her most of the night.
As Ms. Brewer was apparently overdosing, police naturally began looking for drugs. Initially they found three grams of cocaine in a blanket she had wrapped around her dog. She was then placed under arrest.
Shortly after this Ryan Solon arrived at the hospital, where his “busted lip” was apparently quite evident. Police began asking him about his girlfriend and what had happened in their hotel room.
Because the police had found drugs in Ms. Brewer's possession, and she was apparently overdosing, they asked Mr. Solon if they could search him, to which he consented. Unfortunately, he apparently had forgotten about a jar of hashish in his pocket, and he, too, was placed under arrest for drug possession.
Vail police then brought in the Silverthorne Police Department's K-9 unit to check the couple's two BMWs. Drugs, including cocaine, Valium, Xanax, marijuana and hashish, and rohypnol ( “roofies” or date-rape drug), and as yet unidentified pills, were found in both vehicles after the dog “alerted” at both vehicles. Vail police then impounded both cars and Ms. Brewer's dog.
Charges against Jennifer Brewer included domestic violence and assault, suspicion of unlawful distribution, and manufacturing and possession of a controlled substance. She was held on these charges in the Eagle County jail on $20,500 bond. Her bond was posted the afternoon of Thursday, April 7, 2001.
The original charges against Ryan Solon only included the possession of hashish. Bond was set at $3,000, which he posted, and was set free that same Wednesday. Vail police say he will now be charged with unlawful distribution, and manufacturing and possession of a controlled substance as well.
The much more politically correct weekly, Vail Trail, carried the same story in their April 6-12, 2001 edition. While the drug bust was extensively covered there was no mention at all of the domestic violence against a man that led to the arrests.
According to the May 4, 2001, Vail Daily (p. A7) an Australian man, his girlfriend, and another woman went out drinking on Vail Mountain's closing day, April 22 nd . The trio — all Australian citizens — had spent the season working together for Vail Resorts.
At about 11:30 P.M. that night they were waiting for a bus in the Vail Transportation Center when the male had to go to the bathroom. The 23-year-old other woman followed him and when he came out she apparently kissed him, and he returned the embrace. But his girlfriend came around the corner in the middle of things and exploded.
The girlfriend then pushed the other woman into the men's bathroom where they fought. The boyfriend described them as shoving each other into sinks and urinals, and said his girlfriend also shoved him during the fray.
The fight also spilled out into the bus station lobby where the girlfriend hurled a snowboard across the room according to the article.
The 23-year-old woman told police the irate girlfriend punched and shoved her several times but the girlfriend also had several bruises on her arms, neck, and face.
Given conflicting stories — and the plans of the trio to leave the country — no one was arrested in the Vail bathroom lover's brawl.
In an example of the poor judgement common to men and women when an affair falls apart, the evening of Thursday, May 10, 2001, Speaker of the Colorado House Doug Dean, age 40, went to the house of TAP Pharmaceuticals lobbyist Gloria Sanak, age 35, to retrieve personal items. He had been living with her for some months, but their affair ended on May 9 th according to news reports. Apparently without notice, she changed the locks on the house and put his belongings outside on the lawn sometime on May 10 th .
According to his published statements, as he was going through his possessions, Dean found the charger for his cell phone missing. When he found Ms. Sanak had changed the locks, Dean used a screwdriver to pry open a basement window in order to retrieve missing personal effects from inside. A practical solution many men would likely take to get their property back from a house they had been living in.
Technically, since he had been living there, paying the utilities, remodeling, had furniture there, and his kids came to stay with him on occasion, it was his residence and he had right of entry. Thus, he was not trespassing in entering. Also, if a man were to change the locks on their joint residence and throw the woman's clothes out on to the lawn it would definitely fit the criteria for domestic violence. C.R.S. § 18-6-800.3 “...includes any other crime against a person or against property or any municipal ordinance violation against a person or against property, when used as a method of coercion, control, punishment, intimidation, or revenge directed against a person with whom the actor is or has been involved in an intimate relationship.”
While Dean was in the house, Ms. Sanak came home at about 11:30 P.M., though other reports put the time nearer 1 A.M. Ms. Sanak claims to have been startled to find Dean inside the house, and it would appear his attempts at an explanation went awry.
As a result she went to the house of a neighbor, a police sergeant, where Dean followed her. Though she was already protected by a police sergeant, she still found it necessary to call 911 on her cell phone. During that call she told police in a reportedly-panicked voice that her boyfriend had pursued her to a neighbor's house. But, according to an editorial in the May 26, 2001, Denver Post (p. 7B) in a not-so-panicked aside picked up on the 911 tape, she also states: “Tell him it's going to be a matter of public record.” It would be politically incorrect to suggest Sanak motives for making the call may have involved vengeance and vindictiveness.
When additional police arrived, both Dean and Sanak told officers there were no “threats, coercion, violence, intimidation, control or revenge” between the two. It would also appear the police sergeant did not witness any dangerous behavior when Ms. Sanak arrived at his home. As a result no arrest was made as investigating officers did not find probable cause.
“What has been determined, even at the strictest interpretation of this law, is that this particular incident did not fall under the parameters necessary to make an arrest under the domestic violence policy,” said Denver detective Virginia Lopez. Police Chief Gerald Whitman found it was done by the book, Lopez said.
However, on Friday, May 11 th , Ms. Sanak went to court and requested a restraining order, claiming Dean climbed a locked fence and broke into her home. Sanak stated in her request for the restraining order that: “He waited in the dark 30 minutes until I arrived home. He had a screwdriver in his hand. He chased me down the street to a neighbor's house and refused to leave until the police escorted him out.” However, officers were not given that information at the scene, Denver police spokeswoman Virginia Lopez said. And apparently the police sergeant whose home Ms. Sanak went to did not see evidence of a woman in fear or danger before reinforcements arrived.
Exercising a woman's prerogative, Gloria Sanak changed her mind, and asked that the order be dropped Tuesday, May 15 th . She gave no explanation in court, but said in papers filed with the clerk that Dean had “peaceably moved his property” out of the house since the order was issued. In a brief hearing Tuesday morning, Judge Campbell told Sanak he was honoring her request because he is “...always reluctant to stand in the way” of an alleged victim's wishes. That is contrary to feminist dogma that women are so traumatized by such experiences that they are incapable of judging the reality of their situation. Hence, “victims” should not have the power to drop charges.
We suspect, however, that the reality of the situation is that TAP Pharmaceuticals will be seeking another lobbyist with less of a propensity for shacking up with members of the legislature in order to peddle her wares.
After the restraining order was vacated, radical feminists, including Rita Smith, executive director of the Denver-based National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and feminist factoid producer-extraordinaire, questioned why the Colorado Springs lawmaker, one of the state's highest-ranking political leaders, wasn't arrested under the state's mandatory arrest law. Police, armed with information Sanak included in the restraining order, again reviewed the case to see if any laws were broken, and again found no probable cause.
Noting from her comfortable, man-made office that according to the restraining order filed, Dean was alleged to have chased Ms. Sanak down the street to the nearby home of a police sergeant, and did not leave until reinforcements were called, Ms. Smith stated: “That action alone was enough to arrest him under Colorado's mandatory-arrest domestic-violence law.” Continuing, she righteously intoned: “At one point she felt threatened enough to run away from him. I think that's clearly an issue of domestic violence,” she said. “They don't give out restraining orders without cause. There's something going on there. Normally people don't chase you down the street. It's not common behavior.”
Apparently Ms. Smith has never been in love, nor witnessed the incredibly stupid things people do when smitten. And obviously the view of the situation from her office chair is clearer than that of the police on the scene. Ms. Smith, and the NCADV, have a long record of finding domestic violence in every relationship between a man and woman as their funding depends on such discoveries, and their ideology demands the destruction of families. And there is absolutely no consideration by Ms. Smith that in all likelihood it was Ms. Sanak who was guilty of an act of “... coercion, control, punishment, intimidation, or revenge...” by changing the locks and throwing his clothes out; thereby violating the domestic violence C.R.S. § 18-6-800.3.
Dean apologized Tuesday, May 15 th , to members of the Colorado House for any embarrassment the episode may have caused. With Sanak, a dishwater blonde, sitting silently beside him and looking rather shopworn, Dean later gave a brief statement to reporters: “We consider this a personal matter; we ask that you respect our privacy. There was no violence, there was no attempted violence, there was no threat of violence; there were no charges filed; there was no law broken by anyone,” Dean said. Neither of them answered any questions.
However, not content to accept two police investigations of the incident that found no probable cause, Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter, a Democrat, contemplated political assassination of the Republican Speaker of the House. Bill Ritter, you may remember, is the DA who charged the two Calhoun brothers with felony child abuse when Faith Ei stabbed Jerett Calhoun's 3-year-old daughter with a butcher knife, severing the child's femoral artery, and then set Ms. Ei free, stating she was the “victim.” In Doug Dean's case, Ritter realized no jury would ever convict based on the facts of the case and the political firestorm might not do his career much good either. In a public statement, Ritter said the reason Dean was not arrested was that Sanak consistently said she did not believe Dean was violent or trespassed. But, as one might expect, domestic violence advocates expressed dismay that he wasn't charged and arrested even though there was absolutely no chance he could have been convicted. In these cases a man is always guilty because the radicals say so.
Such behavior as Sanak exhibited takes all the trust out of a relationship. As a result, virtually all such affairs end within in a year or so after 911 is called. However, in what we regard as love over common sense, Dean married Sanak on September 2, 2001, and has announced he will be withdrawing from politics at the end of his current term.
We will post an update when we hear about the divorce. And it isn't likely to be an amicable one.
The following article on p. 3B in the Wednesday, June 20, 2001, Denver Post caught our eye. Golden, Colorado, is a small town of about 15,000 folks with a big arch up over main street saying “Welcome to the West.”
Golden was Colorado's first capitol back in frontier days and the Old Capitol Grill, or whatever they call it these days, is still a good place to eat and meet. A pretty, and pretty good little town in the foothills just west of Denver though urban sprawl is definitely encroaching.
Used to be Frank Leek was the mayor and also the barber, as well as a former Marine. You met with the sheriff and other politicians and locals in the Sportsman Barber Shop when you went in to get your hair cut. That way the kids grew up knowing who would be after them if they got in trouble. And many of these kids went into the Marines as Frank had his Marine Corps boot camp book on the table for them to read. Your haircut would have to wait if there was a fire though. Frank was part of the volunteer fire department as well. That environment tended to produce a lot of good citizens but if you mentioned the “patriarchy” it is doubtful any of them would have known what the hell you were talking about.
But things are a bit different today and Frank had to retire with health problems. As an example, how long does it take you to figure out who the “victim” is in this story? And who is suffering the greater punishment?
Golden [City] Councilman Webb Aldrich resigned Tuesday [June 19, 2001] following a domestic violence incident over the weekend, said City Manager Mike Bestor.
Aldrich cited his “health, family, and career” needs in his resignation letter. He could not be reached for comment.
Bestor said Aldrich had a confrontation Friday with his wife. She broke her arm trying to hit him, Bestor said. Police said he was intoxicated. Aldrich's wife was charged but he was not, Bestor said.
Did you have to read it a couple of times to figure out that he was the one who was viciously assaulted? So viciously that she broke her arm in the attack! And despite Colorado's “primary aggressor” laws, i.e., arrest the big, ugly, hairy one, her attack was so obvious that she was the one arrested despite a broken arm.
Note the fact that he is said to be “intoxicated.” Are we then to assume she was perfectly sober and his drunkenness drove her to madness?
Had it been the city councilman who had broken his wife's arm in a vicious attack we can bet it wouldn't be a three-paragraph story on the back pages. It is probably also a safe bet that this isn't the first time she has attacked him. The suffering of his children can only be imagined!
We can only be grateful that enough progress has been made by law enforcement, if not the Denver Post, that violent women are sometimes recognized.
However, from past experience it can be anticipated that in the divorce she will be given custody of the children. He will then be forced to pay child support and likely alimony as well while she plays game with his visitation rights. Not very likely those kids will grow up to be good citizens or Marines.
Maybe patriarchy isn't such a bad idea after all?
A man in the Eagle County jail, arrested for alleged domestic violence, was charged by Fifth Judicial District Attorney Michael Goodbee with violation of a restraining order. The man's girlfriend, in a change of heart, visited the man whom she had caused to be imprisoned the night before. She gained access to the visitor's room under an assumed name.
The man did not know how she got in to visit him but thought she had been given approval to enter the prison facility to see him. He was happy to see her, as she was him, and the pair talked about making amends. This behavior and desire opposes the true intent of domestic violence laws that seek to blame the man regardless of extenuating circumstances, and to separate partners declaring the woman as “victim.”
In attempt to manipulate, not understand, the couple's dilemma, the DA's office charged the man “who was already in a severely distraught emotional state” with the restraining order violation, a more serious offense than any he faced due to a spontaneous, and regretted call placed to police by his girlfriend. She learned after the fact, as many 911 callers do, that the courts were now in control of her life and she had no say in the matter.
In the meantime, the DA's office got double-bonus points from the overseers of domestic violence funding, providing them with another set of wife-beater and stalking statistics.
According to the October 11, 2001, edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette (p. Metro 1 and 4), on Tuesday, October 9 th Maria Zamora-Sanchez, age 28, and a citizen of Mexico, threw her 6-month old baby daughter out of a third-story window of the Days Inn motel on South Circle Drive. Sheriff's deputies arrived as she was attempting to throw her 4-year old daughter out the same window. The baby suffered a broken left leg and multiple bruises but survived what amounted to a two-story fall.
The arrest affidavit for attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault, and child abuse indicated she initially told Detective Gabe Firpo she had thrown her baby out the window after watching news accounts of the U.S. and British assault on Afghanistan. She apparently had to kill her children because of the war news.
Later she said she had no money to buy food or diapers for her baby girl so she had to kill her. The baby had apparently been crying for a long time and she was overwhelmed with her inability to care for her children. As a result she had planned to kill the children and herself.
One might reasonably conclude that she was mentally disturbed, depressed, and suicidal. Psychiatric care would seem to be definitely indicated.
But the story wouldn't be complete until we could blame her husband.
Court records show that Zamora-Sanchez had been separated from her husband(?), Rodolfo Santos, age 32, also a Mexican citizen, for about a month after filing domestic violence charges against him. A restraining order was issued against him on September 12, 2001.
Police officers had tried to place her in a shelter but when it was full they had rented the Days Inn room for her and her children. Deputies had been called to the motel on Monday because she was reportedly acting “despondent” because she had misplaced the paperwork for her husband's court appearance, which the deputies located for her. When they left Zamora-Sanchez was reported to be “fine.” However, at 1:15 AM Tuesday morning someone in a nearby room heard screaming and dialed 911. As described above, deputies arrived to find her attempting to throw her 4-year old daughter out the window after already having thrown her baby daughter out.
On the Sunday prior to Ms. Zamora-Sanchez's attempting to kill her children, police had arrested her husband for allegedly violating the restraining order after he had been found on the grounds of the eastside apartment building where they had lived.
A reasonable man might even suspect that her husband, aware of her problems, had been concerned about his children and tried to contact her. But such speculation does not fit the domestic violence ideology. And it would be foolish to consider that the absence of the help of her husband increased the problems she faced with their children and her own difficulties. Thus, the October 10, 2001, Denver Post (p. B1) claimed she was despondent “...over domestic violence...” as a basis for her actions.
On Tuesday, October 8, 2001, Rodolfo Santos pled guilty to violating the restraining order. He was sentenced to two years probation, ordered to take 36 weeks of domestic violence classes within thirteen months, stay away from alcohol and drugs, and pay $138 in court costs. He was given a deferred sentence but as a foreign national he will be deported under Immigration and Naturalization laws.
According to the Friday, October 26, 2001, edition of The Gazette (p. Metro6) Maria Zamora-Sanchez did not appear in court for arraignment as she had been transferred to the state mental hospital in Pueblo.
On Monday, April 15, 2002, Maria Zamora-Sanchez entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity (Gazette, April 17, 2002, p. Metro2). However, she withdrew that plea and pled guilty to felony child abuse on Monday, October 8, 2002, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette (October 29, 2002, p. Metro8). She faces one to sixteen years on probation or in prison under the terms of the plea bargain and will be sentenced on January 6, 2003. She also faces deportation back to Mexico. Note that it will then have taken the justice(?) system fifteen months to deal with her case.
The children have reportedly been returned to their father.
In the interim, once again a woman's insane actions have been placed squarely on the shoulders of her male partner.
According to the Sunday, September 1, 2002, Colorado Springs Gazette on October 31, 2001, Phyllis Marie (P.M.) Wynn was fighting with her husband. She claims she scratched his face after he threw her down some steps but states she: “...got in quite a few blows myself.” However, she claimed the injuries to her husband were inflicted in self defense.
Surveys show that about 50% of domestic violence cases amount to mutual combat, as in this case.
It isn't known who called the police but Mrs. Wynn spent the night in jail after police saw the injuries to her husband. In a very familiar pattern, what we regard as mutual assured destruction of the relationship once 911 is called, the couple have since filed for divorce.
The domestic violence charges were eventually dismissed but came to light again as Mrs. Wynn was running for state representative in House District 17 in El Paso County in the November, 2002, election. She was not elected.
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