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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>You Still Here? Thursday, November 24, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

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You Still Here? Thursday, November 24, 2022

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

Courts

A now-former Newcastle police officer is behind bars, accused of stalking a nurse at Weston County Health Services Hospital and demanding she come outside, then sprinting toward her vehicle with a loaded gun in his hand.

Nicholas Joseph Kaminski, 36, was arrested Sunday by Newcastle Police Chief Derek Thompson, as first reported 

. Thompson later contacted the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation because Kaminski was employed as a sergeant by the Newcastle Police Department.

[{"type":"text","text":"He’s being held on a $35,000 cash-only bond."}]

DCI recommended the Weston County Sheriff's Office investigate the case, according to an affidavit of probable written by Weston County Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Fields.

On Tuesday, Kaminski was charged in Weston County Circuit Court with aggravated assault and battery and threatening another person with a drawn deadly weapon, both felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

As conditions of bond, he is prohibited from contacting the alleged victim and must be fitted with a GPS monitoring device before any release from custody.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'U Have 3 Minutes'"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The confrontation reportedly began May 22, the affidavit says."}]

Fields wrote that Kaminski had been placed on leave earlier that day following an incident involving a nurse who worked at the hospital. 

Around 10 p.m., the nurse contacted law enforcement to report Kaminski was repeatedly calling and texting her while he was outside the hospital, the affidavit says. The messages included demands, threats and ultimatums.

"U should have went outside," one text allegedly sent by Kaminski reads.

Another followed, saying: "Hey ur f***ing ass outside. Or I'm coming in."

[{"type":"text","text":"The nurse repeatedly tried to de-escalate the situation."}]

"Please just stop all of this," she texted back. "It doesn't have to be like this. You are the only one making it this way. Please."

Kaminski answered with a series of text messages: "U have 3 minutes to either come out here or answer the phone;" "Answer the f***ing phone;" and "U made this worse by not coming outside."

Kaminski eventually left the parking lot, but the calls and texts continued through the night, wrote Fields.

Hours later around 3:30 a.m. Saturday, a hospital employee stepped outside for a smoke break and reported seeing a man dressed in dark clothing walking nearby.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Crossing The Parking Lot"}]

Just before 4 a.m., the nurse prepared to leave work, and the affidavit says Weston County law enforcement Officer McKinzie Parrish accompanied her outside.

The nurse got into her vehicle, then Kaminski emerged from the nearby Wayback Burgers parking lot, crossed the connected lot and headed toward her car, the affidavit says.

[{"type":"text","text":"Parrish ordered Kaminski to leave."}]

As the nurse began driving away, Parrish told him that, "She doesn't want to talk to you."

Kaminski allegedly answered: "I don't give a f***. Shut the f*** up” as the nurse drove toward the back side of the hospital.

Kaminski then "started to sprint towards the vehicle," appearing to try to catch it or cut it off, the affidavit says.

As the nurse drove away, Parrish went inside to secure the hospital, and she saw Kaminski's vehicle loop through the parking lots at a "a high rate of speed," wrote Fields. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Loaded Glock, Knife And Brass Knuckles"}]

Chief Thompson later located Kaminski and initiated a traffic stop at an intersection in town. 

According to the affidavit, Thompson ordered Kaminski out of the vehicle and placed him under arrest. A subsequent search revealed a Glock 48 handgun tucked into Kaminski's waistband.

The pistol was loaded with a 10-round magazine and one round chambered, according court records. Investigators also found a large folding knife, brass knuckles, and a cellphone.

Kaminski was transported to the Weston County Detention Center, and his initial court appearance was held on Tuesday morning.

[{"type":"text","text":"The case was prosecuted by Crook County Attorney DaNece Day."}]

Sgt Nicholas Kaminski in March 2025 5 29 26

<title>Newcastle Police Sergeant Accused Of Stalking, Chasing Nurse With Loaded Gun | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A now-former Newcastle police officer has been charged with stalking a nurse and chasing her with a loaded gun. "U made this worse by not coming outside,” police say he texted her during an hourslong vigil outside a local hospital where she was working.

Newcastle Police Sergeant Accused Of Stalking, Chasing Nurse With Loaded Gun

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

For the first time in the current leadership’s memory, the Wyoming Democratic Party has county parties all 23 counties.

Party leaders revived the Democratic parties of Campbell, Goshen, Sublette and Weston counties in the past three years.

[{"type":"text","text":"That changed this month."}]

“I think people are just really paying a lot more attention to what’s going on around them and wanting to get involved,” Wyoming Democratic Party spokeswoman Mandy Weaver said during a Tuesday phone interview. “A lot of people are concerned with the leadership of the Freedom Caucus.”

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is a controversial wing of the Republican Party’s state House delegates, comprising about 25 members. People 

 for big changes to the state’s K-12 school system; and it made headlines this year for pushing unsuccessfully 

to cut the University of Wyoming’s budget

Conversely, the Freedom Caucus often casts its out-group GOP colleagues as milquetoast Republicans.

“Most voters don’t pay a lot of attention, and most people don’t get involved,” said Weaver. “But this stuff has been egregious enough, and really opened some eyes and motivated people to get involved.”

She said "there aren't records that go back" far enough to tell when the party last had this many county iterations, and that through talking to past leadership, it's been decades at least.

Weaver credited the state party’s deputy director Greg Haas with mobilizing the new movements across the state.

Niobrara County is one of the reddest counties in the nation, and sits within the reddest state in the nation.

It contains 35 registered Democrats, out of 1,233 registered voters as of May 1.

[{"type":"text","text":"Niobrara Democratic Party Chair Becky Blackburn wants to change that."}]

“My vision for the party is to grow, recruit young people, and become an active and vibrant party that people want to be a part of,” she told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday.

She hopes to focus the party on local campaigns, mostly, but will also support 

“We definitely have an uphill battle here,” said Blackburn. “But my personal vision is to give Dems a voice regardless of how outnumbered we are.”

[{"type":"text","text":"This is exactly what some Republicans want."}]

“All of us are better off with a functioning opposition party. Single party states are breeding grounds for corruption and waste, regardless of the platform of the party in power,” said Rep. Tom Kelly, R-Sheridan, in a Facebook post earlier this month.

, but said it’s “dangerously close” to that.

“My hat is off to those stepping up to run as Democrats this year,” he wrote. “Even though we disagree on policy choices, I recognize how much Wyoming needs you.” 

Rep. Nina Webber, R-Cody, raised a similar concern multiple times at a Friday meeting of the Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee.

“Are you hearing the same thing I’m hearing,” Webber asked of get-out-the-vote activist Gail Symons. “Wyoming would be better if we had an active – more active party of Democrats?”

Webber also asked about more active and sincere Republicans, Libertarians, and Constitution Party adherents.

“If all of those people that believe that way would register in those parties and promote those values so that everybody does not jump into the Republican Party,” added Webber, “Do you promote that when you’re doing your sessions?”

Symons countered that she believes in people being able to be independent and associate how they wish.

[{"type":"text","text":"Lincoln County"}]

Lincoln County contains 559 registered Democrats. That’s 5% of the 10,920 registered voter total, and 6% of the Republican base of 9,072.

The Lincoln County Democratic Party held its convention May 2 and elected Donald Shelton chair, Shelton told Cowboy State Daily in a Thursday phone interview.

“A lot of people inside our county are hurting financially and otherwise,” said Shelton. “We give them another option to change how things are going – not just in the county but also as a state and country as well.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Shelton’s vision is a two-fold grassroots approach."}]

He said he wants to galvanize the party behind working people, and focus on raising up precinct committee people who can relay concerns directly from their neighbors to the party.

“(Precinct committee people are) how the party actually gets in touch with the voters,” he said. “We want to hear from communities, not from the Party.”  

[{"type":"text","text":"Who Cares If That’s Retro"}]

Shelton said it’s the party’s duty to center on working people, as “the backbone of our country.”

The Democratic Party touted a bond with the working class at least as early as the 1930s and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” policies.

New York Times political columnist Jonathan Weisman opined in a 

 that the party’s estrangement from working-class voters became clear when President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 – “powered by broad shifts in the preferences of white voters without college degrees.”

Trump displayed gains there again when he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November 2024, in what Weisman called “a reckoning for a party that thought it had fixed its problems with blue-collar voters by heavily revisiting in domestic manufacturing.”

But to Shelton, who is an AV technician, those historical arcs and impressions don’t matter as much as the work at hand: mobilizing workers around the Democratic Party’s offerings and goals.

“I’m not so concerned with whether or not it seems retro,” said Shelton. “I’m more concerned with what is right and what is wrong.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The Transparency Check"}]

Though their blue gains on the state’s district map are rare and few, Democrats in Wyoming have ventured transparency checks on Republicans multiple times this year.

Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, shot a photograph of then-Teton County GOP leader Rebecca Bextel handing out checks on the floor of the House of Representatives – two days before the introduction hearing for a bill Bextel championed.

Provenza sent the photograph to media outlets. She’s since said that she did so out of a wish for transparency, but also because she believed the media would investigate the matter and may corroborate what she believed she’d witnessed.

A House committee cleared the checks’ recipients of wrongdoing and bribery.

But the controversy sparked a massive public response, and new rules from the Senate, House and governor about handing out campaign donations in the Capitol and amid legislative processes.

In more recent weeks, Wyoming Democratic Party data director Erin O’Doherty was combing through the party’s canvass list, and puzzling over why Rep. Joel Guggenmos’s listed address fell outside his House district.

She has a system by which she pulls sitting representatives from the canvass list so activists don't knock on their doors, O'Doherty 

She relayed her concern to Fremont County Democratic Party Chair Julie 

who gathered more evidence and handed their findings to the Fremont County Clerk.

Clerk Julie Freese, in turn, called for a sheriff’s investigation to sort the issue before the May 14-29 candidate filing period.

She opined last Friday that Guggenmos, a Riverton-based Republican, is unable to run for his current seat this year.

The Wyoming Constitution calls for one year of residency as of the general election.

“I think we all feel it’s important for our elected officials to be following the rules, so it was important to bring that to light,” reflected Weaver.

She said Democrats are “definitely” a transparency check on their Republican counterparts.

“We’ve seen what happens when there’s not a balance on one party, and they have complete control… It’s really important to have people willing to look at something and shine a light on it that others might not.”

But neither Shelton nor Blackburn want to go around policing Republicans, they both told Cowboy State Daily in their separate interviews.

“I think, again, the primary goal is to be centering working people in Lincoln County, rather than policing the Republicans so much,” said Shelton. “Presenting an alternate vision.”

Wyoming Dems at convention 8 22 24 5 28 26

<title>Democrats Now Have Parties In All Wyoming Counties For First Time In Modern Memory | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For the first time in modern memory, Democrats have parties in all 23 Wyoming counties with Niobrara and Lincoln counties finally reviving theirs. "A lot of people are concerned with the Freedom Caucus," a spokesman for the Democrats said.

Democrats Now Have Parties In All Wyoming Counties For First Time In Modern Memory

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Energy

Just last month, Microsoft announced it would triple its data center footprint in Cheyenne by adding 3,200 acres of land for new projects. 

That expansion is already growing, with an additional 420 acres, or an increase of about 13%, just announced.

According to an email from Microsoft and information filed with the city of Cheyenne, the company is adding two areas on top of its previously announced 3,200-acre plan. 

The two areas are on opposite sides of Cheyenne, but one of them, a 385-acre parcel, is near the 3,200-acre site, which is not far from Laramie County Community College.

Microsoft in an email to Cowboy State Daily described the parcel as east of College Drive near Cheyenne Business Parkway. 

On a map shared with Cowboy State Daily by Cheyenne LEADS Executive Director Betsey Hale, the parcel appears along the eastern edge of Laramie Community College. 

The other parcel, roughly 35 acres, is located near the North Range Business Park, where Hale said Microsoft already operates data centers and where utility infrastructure, including a major substation, is already in place. 

New Parcels Tucked Into Existing Industrial Corridors

Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins refused to comment on Microsoft’s expansion. Hale, however, told Cowboy State Daily that the 385-acre parcel sits in an area already surrounded by industrial-scale uses, including the Bison Business Park, large solar and oil-and-gas projects, and gravel pits.

“The property is surrounded by a business park and undevelopable ground bluffs which are going into a conservation easement,” she said. “And then the solar field — a huge, huge solar field — and then 5,000 acres of oil and gas.”

The proximity to existing industrial uses on the ground means a data center is one of the best use cases for the property, Hale said. 

“There isn’t any residential use close to the project, other than the small county subdivision,” she said.

That particular neighborhood was notified about the project, and a meeting was held Wednesday night with landowners to discuss it, Hale added. 

The meeting was not required by city regulations, but was held voluntarily by Microsoft under its community-first guidelines.

The new industrial piece at North Range Business Park, meanwhile, folds additional land into the existing data center cluster west of town, near the Walmart Distribution center and Microsoft’s original Cheyenne data center campus. 

That means most of the power and infrastructure needed is already in place there.

Expansion Comes Amid Rising Data Center Debates

The two additions are on top of the 3,200-acre proposal on ranch land east and southeast of Cheyenne, much of which is associated with U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis’ family holdings. 

That 3,200-acre tract has become caught up in a broader community debate about water, industrialization, and how much data center growth Cheyenne should host.

Councilman Larry Wolfe said it’s really no surprise that reaction to data centers in Cheyenne has sharpened. 

“I mean, you can see them from your front porch,” he said. “That’s why I keep telling people, and I said it at the meeting the other night, it’s the difference between having them out in these, where they have been, in the North Range Business Park.”

There, he said, they haven’t felt as big and imposing. 

“Now you don’t have to look very far to go around and see these just enormous construction sites,” Wolfe said. “In fact, you can buy homes where you can sit and watch the Tonka trucks moving the land and keep your kids entertained for the rest of his life, or at least, a couple of years.”

Microsoft Pushing 'Community-First Infrastructure' Message

Microsoft is trying to frame its expansion under a new “Community First Infrastructure” banner, emphasizing responsible growth and partnership with local communities, including a focus on job creation and contributions to the local tax base, according to an email message they sent to Cowboy State Daily.

The company confirmed that the 385-acre parcel is near its proposed 3,200-acre expansion, but declined to answer further questions about the additions. 

It did offer the Cheyenne community an open-house forum with a variety of stations to discuss water use, energy, jobs and community investments.

On its Cheyenne data center expansion update page, Microsoft says data centers are the physical infrastructure for all the technology modern society depends upon for everyday life.

“Whenever you open an app on your phone, join a virtual classroom or meeting, snap and save photos, or play a game online, you are using a data center,” the website continued. “Local businesses, government, hospitals, and schools rely on data centers everyday to deliver goods and services to you. 

"Investing in cloud infrastructure in Wyoming supports long-term digital growth and helps ensure that essential online services remain reliable and accessible.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Portal"}]

Hale said Cheyenne is continuing to evolve its public process tools and told Cowboy State Daily she has only recently learned of the city’s “Connect Cheyenne” website portal, which includes a tab that lists all of the city’s incoming development projects.

Those pages reveal upcoming dates for hearings on all of Microsoft’s planned additions, though each application associated with the projects are listed with coded numbers, rather than recognizable project names.

Hale recommended using city council agendas to find the numbers to projects of interest and then using those numbers to find the information pages available for each project. 

Each of the pages includes an email address to whichever planner is handling that particular application.

It’s “the clunkiest,” she acknowledged, and said she only learned of it herself last week.

“Please help people understand,” she said. “And if you want to, put my name in (the article) and say, ‘Please call Betsey, she’ll walk you through this information.’”

Hale said Microsoft also announced new transparency measures in January, something she said was spurred by the Trump administration.

“The president of the United States brought them in and said, ‘You know, we want a new corporate policy (like) community transparency,'” Hale said. “So they will now go into communities incredibly early and begin working with the communities very early and having conversations with them.”

The announcement included a pledge to end all non-disclosure agreements with local governments. 

Between Microsoft’s efforts to engage with the community sooner and the city’s efforts to evolve its transparency, Hale said she hopes the public will begin to feel more in the loop.

“It’s not necessarily that the city council or city staff were trying to hide anything from the public,” Hale said. “But the city has not done a very good job of explaining how long the process takes, how many times the public can comment.”

LEADS, meanwhile, will also be making an effort to help educate people on where to find information about proposed data centers, Hale said.

“I thought both sides of the (moratorium) issue did a fabulous job,” she added. “And I want to thank everyone who participated in it and did so well. They were professional, they were respectful, they stuck to their three minutes. 

"And the City Council was respectful, the mayor ran the meeting well.”

Good information from both sides was also presented, Hale said, and Cheyenne LEADS is already following up on many of the ideas and questions that surfaced.

Microsoft data center IMG 2777 4 4 25

<title>Weeks After Unveiling 3,200-Acre Data Center Expansion, Microsoft Adds Another 420 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Just weeks after unveiling a 3,200-acre data center expansion around Cheyenne, Microsoft is adding two more parcels totaling 420 acres. The move comes amid a deepening debate over data centers, growth, and water.

Weeks After Unveiling 3,200-Acre Data Center Expansion, Microsoft Adds Another 420

Law Enforcement

Body camera and dash camera video released Thursday shows the chaotic end of a high-speed Interstate 80 pursuit that topped 120 mph that authorities say ended with a wanted Wyoming woman getting struck by her own moving vehicle as she bailed out of it.

The Albany County Sheriff's Office reports chase began around 6:25 p.m. Saturday after a sheriff’s sergeant spotted a stolen vehicle traveling eastbound near mile marker 323 on Interstate 80 in Albany County.

Authorities identified the driver as Sarah Grazin, 45, who deputies said was tied to multiple felony warrants out of Sublette County. Law enforcement alerts also reportedly warned officers she had a history of fleeing police, violent behavior and narcotics use.

Investigators said Grazin was also considered a suspect in a recent vehicle burglary and larceny case in Laramie.

In a Facebook post featuring dashcam video of the end of the pursuit, the Albany County Sheriff’s Office plays the 1997 pop hit “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba at its famous refrain, “I get knocked down, but I get up again” as the woman hits the pavement, then gets up to run from officers.

At first, deputies simply followed the vehicle while waiting for more units to help with a stop, but once officers tried to pull the vehicle over, authorities say Grazin punched it and took off down I-80, at times topping 120 mph.

An Albany County deputy and a Laramie Police Department officer eventually deployed stop sticks, flattening two tires on the fleeing vehicle.

Even then, the chase kept going, hitting speeds over 100 mph with two flat tires.

Albany County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Jeff Beeston said pursuits like Saturday’s are uncommon, but not rare. 

The pursuit finally came apart near mile post 348 just off I-80 in Laramie County when the vehicle crashed.

Then the video shows Grazin trying to get out of the still-moving vehicle moments after the crash. 

Authorities say she ended up getting clipped by her own vehicle while trying to make a run for it. Officers quickly caught her, and reported that she sustained only minor injuries. 

“Don’t flee from the police,” said Beeston when asked what message he hopes people will take away from the video. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Grinding Metal, Flying Sparks"}]

Retired Wyoming law enforcement officer Frank Groth said what happened during the chase — even the vehicle continuing at extreme speeds on ruined tires — is something officers around the country have seen before.

“You see people who are running from the police, and they'll get a tire or two, or sometimes even all four taken out by stop sticks, and they will keep going,” Groth told Cowboy State Daily.

Groth said he has seen pursuit video where tires completely disintegrated and fleeing drivers kept barreling down the road anyway.

“All that's left is the brake on the end of the axle and it's just grinding into the pavement and they're still doing 80, 90, 100 mph,” he said.

Groth said pursuits like this carry major risks for officers and the public, especially the deputies deploying stop sticks on the interstate.

“There have been a number of officers who have been seriously injured and killed deploying stop sticks,” Groth said. “Just getting them out there sometimes puts the officer in a very bad place.”

He added that suspects jumping from moving vehicles is unusual, but far from unheard of.

“It’s not an all-the-time thing, but it certainly has happened that drivers or passengers trying to foot bail get hit by their car, which they leave in gear and it’s still moving,” Groth said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Long List Of Charges"}]

A passenger in the vehicle, identified as Justin Coulston, remained inside the vehicle and complied with commands from law enforcement, according to the Albany County Sheriff’s Office.

Grazin was arrested on numerous alleged offenses, including felony warrants from Sublette County, possession of stolen property, eluding law enforcement, aggravated assault, reckless driving, speeding, controlled substance violations, larceny, vehicle burglary and multiple additional traffic and criminal charges.

[{"type":"text","text":"Coulston was arrested on allegations of meth and marijuana possession."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Authorities said the stolen vehicle was recovered."}]

Grazin had her first appearance in Albany County Circuit Court on Tuesday and is being held on a $12,000 bond, the court confirmed Thursday. A preliminary hearing on her charges has been set for June 2.

Contact Kolby Fedore at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com

120 mph chase 1 5 28

<title>Wyoming Woman Flees Police At 120 MPH, Gets Hit By Her Own Car | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Dashcam video released Thursday shows the wild end to a 120 mph Wyoming I-80 chase where a woman was struck by her own moving car as she bailed out and ran on foot. Even with two flat tires, she was still driving more than 100 mph, officials report.

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