Employee Jason Telleen died at a Transfort facility. We dig deeper into what happened.

Hello, Coloradoan subscribers.

Reporter Sady Swanson here. 

I spent the last several months looking into 37-year-old Jason Telleen’s on-the-job death at the Fort Collins Transfort fueling and maintenance facility in January. Jason was run over by a bus driven by another city employee.

To better understand what happened to Jason, I’ve reviewed the police reports and videos, and talked to Jason's mother and her attorney, a city safety official and a former city employee who worked at the same facility.

The former city employee talked about various safety concerns they and other employees have had for a long time, saying a “culture of silence” made employees feel that if they shared their concerns or even asked for additional safety equipment, they would be retaliated against. 

The city’s response to Jason's death included a safety and risk assessment of all city facilities and safety policies, which address some of the safety concerns brought up by employees, including the inconsistent (or what some employees called nonexistent) policies requiring certain employees to wear high-visibility gear. The former employee told me managers were very lax about requiring safety gear, and Jason was not wearing any high-visibility clothing the night he was killed, despite police saying he had two high-vis vests in his locker.

But making safety policy changes is not enough for Jason's mother, who wants to see the bus driver criminally charged and has hired her own investigators to look into her son’s death.

Read my latest subscriber-exclusive story to find out everything we know about the crash that killed Jason and learn about the investigation into it.

Thank you for supporting this important work.

— Sady Swanson, sswanson@coloradoan.com