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04_07_25_am_headlines Gabrielle Mendoza
Yeva Smilianska Convicted
A Boulder jury has found the woman who hit and killed cyclist Magnus White guilty of reckless vehicular homicide.
24-year-old Yeva Smilianska fatally hit the 17-year-old as he rode along the Diagonal Highway shoulder in July 2023.
She could get up to six years in prison, although the sentence is what Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty called “probation eligible,” according to The Daily Camera.
The defense never disputed her responsibility for hitting Magnus White with her car. But the jury rejected the plea that she was guilty only of the lesser charge of careless driving resulting in death.
Magnus White was a member of the US National Team, and an emerging cycling star. After the verdict his family criticized law enforcement and its handling of the case. Michael White, Magnus’s father, said Smilianska was never tested for drugs or alcohol at the scene, according to Boulder Reporting Lab. They said the D.A.’s investigation showed she had been drinking until 6 a.m., about six and a half hours before the crash.
Prosecutors said in court that she fell asleep at the wheel, and didn’t even wake up after hitting Magnus White.
For now, Smilianska remains out of jail, and could remain out until sentencing on June 13th.
CU Students Ejected From Class
CU campus police are investigating an incident involving pro-Palestine protesters who were aggressively thrown out of a classroom by two men on April 2.
A video edited and posted online by the student advocacy group Buffs 4 Palestine shows a person walking toward the front of a classroom, then cuts to that person being dragged out of the room by two men. A different clip shows another person being grabbed and dragged by their keffiyeh – a traditional headdress originating in the Middle East – by one of the men.
According to Buffs 4 Palestine, students disrupted CU Boulder’s “Designing for Defense” class to speak against what they call “CU’s complicity in genocide as bombs continue to fall in Gaza.” The students were told to leave the classroom, but as they began to do so, were both “violently attacked” by the class’s professor and another man.
The University posted a statement online that said the class was interrupted by “unidentified individuals” who were “removed” from the classroom after being repeatedly told to leave by an instructor. They added that “CU Boulder condemns acts of violence and does not tolerate classroom disruptions, both of which violate state law and university policies.”
CU Boulder spokesperson, Nicole Mueksch, did not say whether or not the professor was a part of removing the person from the classroom. They did confirm, however, that the second person seen on the video was not an employee or a student, but a mentor for class. In one of the clips of the aggressive altercation, this mentor is seen exiting the classroom with the students’ keffiyeh in his hands, turning toward one of the protestors outside of the classroom, and saying “you want some, too?” in a threatening manner.
The student organization Boulder Students for a Democratic Society wrote on Instagram that the university’s statement was misleading, and downplayed what really happened in the classroom.
Campus police are still investigating the incident to pursue other actions or charges.
Flood Warning Sirens Test Today
Boulder County will begin testing its outdoor emergency system today, as part of its annual flood season preparedness.
Sirens will blare in Boulder, Eldorado Springs, Erie, Jamestown, Lafayette, Louisville, Lyons, Marshall, and Superior, but they’re only a test. Residents in those communities will hear the sirens twice: at 10 this morning, and again at 7 tonight.
The County said in a press release that these audible tests will continue at those times on the first Monday of the month, from now to August, in Boulder and Lyons only. The other communities will have silent tests on the system after the audible tests today.
The warning system is designed to alert the community to weather-related emergencies and other serious situations, like hazardous materials and wildfires.
CO Trans Rights Bill Clears Committee
Transgender Coloradans would gain increased legal protections against discrimination under new legislation that cleared its first hurdle last week.
House Bill 1312 passed along party lines 7-4 after 10 hours of dueling testimony Wednesday. Supporters talked about the harms of anti-trans discrimination, while opponents invoked parents’ rights and other objections.
The bill is known informally as the Kelly Loving Act, named after a transgender woman who was among those killed in the 2022 Club Q nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs.
Under the new proposal, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act would add deadnaming to the list of discriminatory acts covered by the law. Deadnaming is addressing someone by the name they had before transitioning, and often refers to their given name rather than their chosen one.
Other additions to the bill include requiring family courts to consider a parent’s intentional deadnaming or misgendering of their transgender child during custody proceedings, and prohibiting courts from using other states’ anti-trans laws to facilitate transferring custody of a child if the child received gender-affirming care.
The bill now moves to the full House for the first of two floor votes. If it passes those, it will move to the Senate for a similar process.
