It took four agonizing hours and one painful minute on a September afternoon in Coors Field to remind us why they’re the Dodgers and the Rockies never will be, so long as franchise owner Dick Monfort makes a major-league mockery of baseball in Colorado.

After Our Scrappy Lil Rox blew a late lead Thursday and lost 7-5 in 10 innings, the ballpark was awash in Dodger Blue, transplants from the West Coast partying in LoDo like they owned the joint. If championship contention can be bought with a $261 million payroll, maybe if Dodgers offered to a $20 tip to Monfort, he’d also agree to play “I love L.A.” by Randy Newman so they could properly celebrate a victory in Denver.

“Their team travels well, wherever they go. Dodger fans are everywhere. Something you’ve got to deal with. But at the same time, it makes it that much more sweet when you take them down,” said Rockies pitcher Kyle Freeland. He’s a Colorado native who grew up watching fans of the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs and the Evil Blue Empire stage unfriendly takeovers of Coors Field in a great sports town that deserves winning baseball.

The Rox rocked high-priced Dodgers ace Max Scherzer, who had allowed only five earned runs in 58 innings since being hoarded by L.A. in trade, for five runs before he could record his 13th out Thursday.

Freeland, who called home-plate umpire Ed Hickox names that no mother would approve, battled for six solid innings despite being squeezed with a strike zone smaller than the Grinch’s heart.

And Raimel Tapia hit his first home run since before Memorial Day to put Colorado ahead 5-3 in the fifth inning.

It all made the audience of Big Blue transplants, who accounted for at least 50% of the 22,356 tickets sold, as miserable as if they were stuck in traffic on the 405 freeway back in LaLa Land. It was a beautiful thing.

“We enjoying creating that pressure and watching a little bit of panic on the other side of the field,” Freeland said.

Maybe playing spoiler in September is as good as Our Scrappy Lil Rox can do.

“This isn’t the situation we want to be in,” Freeland said. “We want to be one of the teams that is going for a playoff spot.”

Isn’t that why Nolan Arenado wanted out of this dusty old cow town? Isn’t the lack of ownership commitment to fielding a competitive team in Colorado the reason shortstop Trevor Story will soon pack up his glove and bat and seek happiness elsewhere?

Even when the Dodgers were down to their last strike, reliever Carlos Estevez was unable to hold a one-run lead in the ninth inning. A two-run homer by Max Muncey in the 10th turned LoDo into the farthest eastern suburb of Los Angeles.

As die-hard Rockies fans in attendance filed out in the street, I felt like the Red Hot Chili Peppers should’ve been playing on the loudspeakers. Some song about California and the sad pursuit of hollow happiness. Sing along, if you know the lyrics: “Tidal waves couldn’t save the world from …”

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – Racial slurs were found in another Parkway high school after similar verbiage was found at Central High School.

Parkway School District announced that racial slurs were found in bathrooms at Parkway North High School in addition to Central High School.

Parkway Superintendent Keith Marty said the district launched a police and school investigation, and whoever is responsible will be disciplined and could possibly face legal consequences.

A letter that he sent to parents reads in part, “students and staff are hurt, angry and feeling outnumbered by those willing to stand by and watch without taking action to stop it.”

In protest against the hate speech, hundreds of Parkway Central High School students walked out of class Thursday.

“It makes me sad to think that anybody would be in a class with someone where they feel unsafe and know someone said this about people. I don’t like the feeling,” student Olivia Saphian said.

Students said the racist slurs are hurtful to all students and they are demanding to know what school officials will do to help change the culture.

“It’s honestly so upsetting, and it’s not surprising. We have had issues for the last five years. It’s just frustrating, it’s still happening here at Parkway, and they are not meeting us with the action we are trying to bring,” student Grace Bauer said. 
  

Dear Amy: My father has realized his memory is failing and is using this to whitewash his questionable parenting skills.

Now I have no closure or recourse on events like his racist outburst of 2012 that led me to a very awkward Thanksgiving in a house full of people I did not know.

My dad will even see if his partner remembers an incident, and if she doesn’t remember, then it definitely didn’t happen; but she is apt to ignore it like it didn’t happen just to move off the subject.

I don’t need an apology (not that it would come), but it is just a new insult on top of an old one.

It makes me resentful when he literally says I must be wrong because:

1. Both of them don’t remember.

2. One of them doesn’t remember.

or

3. Both remember, but act like they don’t.

My past has been check-mated by insecure septuagenarians. There is nothing I can do, is there?

— Manipulated S

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaking in personal terms, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said extensive news media coverage of the disappearance and death of 22-year-old Gabby Petito while on a cross-country trip should be a reminder of hundreds of Native American girls and women who are missing or murdered in the United States.

Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary, said that her heart goes out to Petito’s family, but that she also grieves for “so many Indigenous women” whose families have endured similar heartache “for the last 500 years.”

The search for Petito generated a whirlwind of news coverage, especially on cable television, as well as a frenzy of online sleuthing, with tips, possible sightings and theories shared by the hundreds of thousands on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

The Florida woman, who disappeared while on a cross-country trip with her boyfriend, was found dead at the edge of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Authorities have determined she was a homicide victim.

A report prepared for the state of Wyoming found that at least 710 Native Americans were reported missing between 2011 and late 2020. Between 2010 and 2019, the homicide rate per 100,000 for Indigenous people was 26.8, eight times higher than the homicide rate for white people, the report said.

Haaland, a member of the Pueblo Laguna tribe, said she has frequently seen Native American family members posting pictures on fences and the sides of buildings to help locate missing girls or women. When that happens, “you know I see my sisters,” she told reporters Thursday at a news conference. “I see my mother. I see my aunties or my nieces or even my own child. So I feel that every woman and every person who is in this victimized place deserves attention and deserves to be cared about.”

A former New Mexico congresswoman, Haaland pushed for a law signed last year to address the crisis of missing, murdered and trafficked Indigenous women. The law, known as Savanna’s Act, is intended to help law enforcement track, solve and prevent crimes against Native Americans, especially women and girls.

The law is named for Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, a member of the Spirit Lake tribe who was abducted and killed in 2017 near Fargo, North Dakota. Greywind, 22, was pregnant, and her unborn baby was cut from her body. Her remains were found in the Red River.

Haaland said she sees her mission as interior secretary in part as a way to elevate attention on Native American issues.

“I feel like it’s my job to lift up this issue as best I can. And hopefully, the folks who are writing the news, and broadcasting the news will understand that these women are also friends, neighbors, classmates and work colleagues,” she said.

Haaland stressed that her comments were not intended to downplay the pain suffered by Petito’s family.

“Anytime a woman faces assault, rape, murder, kidnapping — any of those things — it’s very difficult and my heart goes out to any family who has to endure that type of pain,” she said. “And so, of course, my heart goes out to the young woman who was found in Wyoming.”

Everyone deserves to feel safe in their communities, Haaland said, but “where I can make a difference in particular is in addressing the missing and murdered Indigenous peoples crisis, which has occurred since the beginning of colonization of Indigenous people on this continent for about the last 500 years and it continues.”

Haaland created a Missing & Murdered Unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services earlier this year and has established a joint commission of national tribal leaders and experts, led by the Interior and Justice departments, to reduce violent crime against American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Haaland also ordered Interior to investigate its past oversight of Native American boarding schools that forced hundreds of thousands of children from their families and communities.

“The primary goal of this work is to share the truth of this dark chapter in our nation’s history, so that we can begin to heal,” Haaland said.

A written report is expected next year.

SARATOGA COUNTY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Blake Heflin is facing additional criminal charges after a boating fatality on Saratoga Lake on the 4th of July.

The Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office says Blake Heflin, 19, has been charged with criminally negligent homicide (a Class E felony) in the death of 20-year-old Ian Gerber.

Heflin was operating a pontoon boat with several young adults. Police say Gerber jumped off a boat that was being operated by Heflin.

“The lives of those families are forever impacted by the conduct and the outcome of the tragedy that occurred that day,” said Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggin.

Police say Heflin was drinking alcohol and did not take proper safety precautions.

“There was not a chemical test administered by way of a breathalyzer in a police station that day, but a blood test was taken,” said Attorney Matt Chauvin at Ianniello Anderson, P.C.

Gerber was severely injured by the propeller of Heflin’s boat and then he was hit by a second boat as Heflin was turning around to pick him up.

Heflin’s Attorney Matt Chauvin says they are looking into why the driver of the second boat wasn’t charged.

“We don’t have all the information that the sheriff office has upfront, so they are going to turn that stuff over to us,” said he.

Chauvin says Heflin maintains his innocence and he is mourning the loss of his friend Ian Gerber.

“No one ever intended for that young man not to be with us today, and Blake feels that. It’s hard for him having to see the potential of his life being destroyed for something that he very much maintains he did not do,” said he

“There are a variety of factors which we believe this case will bring forth why the charges are appropriate here,” said Heggin.

Heflin was arraigned on September 23 in Malta Town Court and released. He did not have to pay bail.

The next court appearance has not been set, but News10 will continue to follow the case.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — The Rochester Police Department “has determined potential grounds for legal recourse” against one officer involved in the March 23, 2020 incident involving Daniel Prude.

Officer Mark Vaughn was served with departmental charges on Thursday.

Vaughn was the officer seen leaning on Prude’s head and neck area in police body camera video of the encounter. Attorneys for the officers said the “segmenting” technique was performed in accordance with the latest training.

The department did not immediately elaborate on the nature of the “departmental charges,” saying only that it “fully supports Officer Vaughn’s right to due process and to defend himself against the charges, of which no pre-determined outcome has been put in place.”

“They’re pressing some vague undefined charge against Officer Vaughn,” said Elliot Shields, an attorney representing the Prude family. “Now if they were going to charge officer Vaughn with the most serious charges and seek his termination, which is what they should be doing, they would have said that.”

“If we were involved in this we would have done a quick, thorough and transparent investigation,” said Rochester Police Accountability Board Executive Director Conor Dwyer Reynolds. “You’d know what charges we were recommending and it would have been done by an independent civilian rather than people within the department so that people could trust that the right charges were being brought.”

No other officers involved in the incident have been charged. A formal hearing for Vaughn has yet to be scheduled.

“Every other officer that was present at this scene had a duty to intervene, and they’re equally liable for Daniel Prude’s death under the law,” Shields said. “Troy Taladay put his full body weight across Daniel Prude’s back while he sat there and breathed his last breath.”

The Rochester Police Department confirmed in July it had completed the internal investigation into the death of Prude. That report has not been released.

In March 2020, Rochester police responded to the area of Jefferson Avenue Dr. Samuel McCree Way, where Prude was having what New York Attorney General Letitia James would later call “a mental health crisis.” Body camera footage showed officers pinning him to the ground, naked on a freezing night, and putting a mesh spit mask over his head.

Prude lost consciousness, was hospitalized, and died 7 days later. He was 41 years old.

The Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Prude’s death a homicide, listing his cause of death as “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” The report also showed he had a small amount of PCP in his system at the time of his death.

The circumstances of Prude’s death were not made public until September of 2020, six months after it happened. The body camera footage and the delay sparked protests in Rochester and beyond.

Public disagreements between Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren and then-Police Chief La’Ron Singletary highlighted the controversies brought up by the official handling of the case. That culminated in a nearly nine-hour deposition in which Singletary disputed the mayor’s claims regarding Prude’s death and the six-month delay between when it happened and when the public was notified.

An independent City Council investigation concluded that key City of Rochester officials “knowingly suppressed” information about Prude’s death, and said the ultimate decision to not disclose the death of Prude to the public was that of Mayor Lovely Warren, but it fell short of saying she was solely responsible.

A grand jury decided not to indict any of the police officers involved in Prude’s death back in February.

The seven Rochester police officers initially suspended with pay in connection to the incident were Mark Vaughn, Troy Taladay, Paul Ricotta, Francisco Santiago, Andrew Specksgoor, Josiah Harris, and Sgt. Michael Magri.

The Rochester Police Locust Club responded to Thursday’s development in a tweet, saying “Ask [Interim Police Chief Cynthia] Herriott[-Sullivan] to stand next to us and answer questions. Ask her why she had the results since last April. Ask why she repeatedly said she would make the decision – now it is the conflict attorney’s decision? Ask her why she will lie for a corrupt mayor!”

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Check back with News 8 WROC as we will continue to update this developing story.