Duane L. Borden dies......
The Denver Post newspaper, April 1, 2003.
Life Stories
'Honest, fearless' cop helped squelch city Mafia
By Virginia Culver
Denver Post Staff Writer
Duane "Red" Borden, a longtime Denver cop, was
responsible for "saving Denver from becoming a Mafia city,"
said his friend and former colleague, Jerry Kennedy.
Borden died March 25 in the Veterans' Nursing Home in
Walsenburg after a long battle with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
He was 83.
"Red was a tremendous police officer, knowledgeable,
dedicated and a thorn in the side of organized crime," said
Kennedy, a retired police captain.
Kennedy also called him "forthright, honest, quiet and
fearless."
Borden, according to a Denver Post story from 1980, the
year he retired, could name, recognize and relate the criminal backgrounds of 5,000 felons at any given time. He and his partner, Detective Mike Cooney, arrested 90 fugitives in one month because they had memorized the license plates of the wanted criminals.
Borden said he once was offered $2,000 a month by the
syndicate if he would slow the raids on bookies and narcotics dealers, according to The Post story."Infuriated, Borden and his colleagues stepped up the raids," the story reported.
His wife, Katherine Borden, said her husband loved being a policeman "because he believed in right and wrong. There was no gray."
Bob Cantwell, director of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, said that the intelligence division that Borden worked for "was incorruptible. They were untouchable."
Cantwell worked for Borden and said Borden wasn't a talker. "He'd hand me a note that read "see me," and I was close enough he could have tapped me on the shoulder. I told him he could save the paper. He just laughed," recalled Cantwell.
In The Post story, Borden called politicians "mealy-mouthed"
because they "try to jeopardize a police officer's job" by keeping their friends out of jail.
"He was a better cop than a dad," said his daughter, Karen Borden Ball. "He was so intense."
But she praised him for his honesty in a time when more than 50 Denver cops were jailed for corruption. "Dad wasn't on the take, so we were poor."
Borden had another side that many didn't know. He was a cemetery visitor. It started when he went to Virginia to do research on his own family.
Before his death he had visited cemeteries in Virginia, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Pennsylvania, to research families. He wrote 12 volumes of information on the families, and, with his permission,
the Mormon Church now has it all on microfilm.
"He's in his favorite place now," his wife said. "In a cemetery."
Duane L. Borden was born March 11, 1920, in Burchard, Neb., and graduated from high school in Alma, Neb. He was an Eagle Scout and a Golden Gloves boxer and served in the Army from 1940 until 1944.
He married Mary Thompson in Cheltenham, England, in 1944 and they later divorced. They had a daughter, Karen Ball of Bancroft, Neb., and one son, Terry Borden. Terry Borden died in 1964 of leukemia.
In 1975 he married Katherine Chrisler, who survives him. He is also survived by two stepdaughters, Sheryl Sackley and Kathy Ezell, both of Lakewood; three stepsons, Gary Gernstein and David Gernstein, both of Columbus, Neb., and Dale Gernstein of Omaha; two grandchildren; three
great-grandchildren; 17 step-grandchildren and five step-great-grandchildren.
Contributions may be made to United for Colorado, United Way,
2505 18th St., Denver, 80202.