CRAIG — Tanner Sholes awoke at his buddy’s home at 6 a.m. on Sept. 22, 2023, and began strolling to his mom’s dwelling throughout city, a BB gun tucked beneath his shirt that he had used to shoot prairie canine.
An hour later, two individuals known as 911 to report a person carrying a rifle via this small metropolis about 40 miles west of Steamboat Springs.
“I actually didn’t suppose something of it,” Sholes stated in a current interview. “I didn’t haven’t any warrants, didn’t do something fallacious to suppose I needs to be frightened.”
However the cops have been frightened. They acknowledged Sholes from a litany of earlier encounters, together with a time earlier that yr when police say he brandished a knife and barricaded himself in an deserted dwelling.
“Tanner is extraordinarily violent, unpredictable and a multi-time convicted felon,” a responding officer later wrote in a police report. Different officers known as him “erratic and unstable.”
The one offense police suspected Sholes of that morning was violating a safety order. However authorities decided he wanted to be stopped, in order that they devised a plan, in keeping with police experiences and body-camera footage: They’d run him over with their SUV.
Moffat County Undersheriff Chip McIntyre gave a number of instructions to Sholes to cease and drop to the bottom, video exhibits. The person continued strolling, however raised his arms to his aspect.
Twenty seconds later, a sheriff’s lieutenant revved his engine and rammed his automobile into Sholes at 20 mph to 30 mph, in keeping with footage of the incident. Sholes suffered tears of the ACL, meniscus, rotator cuff and bicep, amongst different accidents. He nonetheless lives with ache.
“I’m responsible it doesn’t matter what it’s,” he stated. “There’s no grey space — it’s all the time black and white with these guys.”
Violent police encounters and excessive-force allegations have develop into extra widespread in recent times on this metropolis of 9,000 tucked in Colorado’s northwest nook.
Craig has seen simply three police shootings in its recorded historical past, and so they’ve all occurred since 2023 — a per-capita incident fee 20 occasions increased than Denver’s. In the meantime, town paid out a minimum of $400,000 to settle three separate claims of extreme drive by the Craig Police Department inside a 10-month interval in 2020 and 2021. A number of occasions, police have used drive on people, solely to later uncover that they had stopped the fallacious particular person.
One resident, Christopher Rothermund, obtained two settlements from town over 20 years, each stemming from violent police encounters. Officers shot and killed him in 2023 after he pointed a gun at them following a pursuit in downtown Craig.
Media consideration largely focuses on bigger, extra city police departments. JS targeted on excessive-force complaints in a smaller Colorado group to underscore that these incidents additionally routinely happen outdoors the broader highlight.
No documentation offered to The Put up by the Craig Police Division or the Moffat County Sheriff’s Office confirmed officers obtained any self-discipline for these violent responses, together with the 2023 incident with the SUV. The truth is, a number of have since been promoted.
One sheriff’s detective was a part of the workforce that ran over Sholes and likewise fatally shot Rothermund. Police experiences and interviews present the detective, at his earlier job in Routt County, was accused of tapping his ex-wife’s cellphone and making threats. He stays employed by the Moffat County Sheriff’s Workplace.
“You’ve obtained recycled unhealthy cops in quite a lot of these districts,” stated David Lane, a longtime Colorado legal professional who focuses on police misconduct instances. “They’re unhealthy in main metro police stations and are actually the legislation in these smaller jurisdictions.”
Residents who’ve interacted with legislation enforcement in Craig say they’re scared to name 911 for worry of what would possibly occur.
“They’re actually evil individuals,” stated Croix Orona, who obtained a settlement after being shocked with a Taser repeatedly by police seven years in the past. “They suppose they’re a gang. They suppose they’ll do no matter they wish to individuals.”
Craig police representatives, together with McIntyre, who’s now the Moffat County sheriff, didn’t reply to repeated interview requests from The Put up.
Craig Metropolis Supervisor Peter Brixius known as the current police shootings and settlements “uncommon and unlucky,” however stated the division was justified in utilizing drive in all of these instances.
“Our cops are extremely educated,” he stated in an interview. “We satisfaction ourselves on the courteous nature of our officers. After they’re compelled into an incident, they may take acceptable actions to guard the residents of Craig.”
Matt Karzen, the district legal professional for the 14th Judicial District, which incorporates Craig, stated legislation enforcement officers there “function with and demand integrity within the efficiency of their duties. I’m not conscious of any effort or tradition within the cities or counties of northwest Colorado, in my time as DA, to cowl up misconduct by officers.”
The Put up compiled this report from lawsuits, police experiences, body-worn digicam footage, inside affairs investigations, settlement agreements and interviews with these injured by police, and their households.
‘This isn’t authorized’
On July 23, 2018, police obtained an nameless name about a person breaking right into a trailer on the Cedar Mountain Cell Dwelling Neighborhood in Craig.
The caller reported {that a} tall, bearded man sporting a hoodie was standing at nighttime outdoors one of many houses.
The officers didn’t know the place the house was positioned, in order that they wandered across the neighborhood in search of the correct location or a suspect, in keeping with a 2020 federal lawsuit.
Croix Orona was sitting on the steps of a camper in pitch-black darkness when officers stopped to speak to him. A household buddy owned the trailer, and he was staying there.
Regardless of Orona not matching the bodily description relayed by the caller, police instantly began questioning him as if he have been the suspect, the lawsuit states. When Orona declined to reply questions from the officers, they shortly approached him.
“What am I (expletive) doing?” Orona stated, in keeping with body-worn digicam footage reviewed by The Put up.
Police wrote in an incident report that Orona took a “combating stance” and that they believed he was holding one thing in his proper hand. However video exhibits Orona elevating his arms and opening his palms. He wasn’t holding something.
“I wasn’t going to combat them,” Orona stated in an interview.
He moved to open the trailer. That’s when officers deployed their Tasers.
“That is the place I’m staying!” Orona stated within the body-camera footage. “This isn’t authorized. This isn’t (expletive) authorized.”
He cried out for assist as officers used the Taser like a stun gun, delivering electrical shocks on to Oronoa’s pores and skin. He misplaced consciousness, then started having a seizure. Orona stated he remembers waking up within the hospital to medical workers giving him a catheter.
He was charged with resisting arrest and obstruction — expenses the district legal professional later dropped, in keeping with the lawsuit.
Shortly after the incident, Orona’s grandfather filed a criticism with the Craig Police Division. A subsequent inside affairs investigation discovered the officers’ actions have been “articulated and justified.” The officers have been exonerated. It’s not clear whether or not they ever discovered the particular person breaking into the trailer.
In 2020, town of Craig paid Orona $60,000 to settle his claims.
One man, 3 violent police encounters
Regulation enforcement was additionally fairly acquainted with one other member of Orona’s household: his uncle Christopher Rothermund.
Rothermund was a “good ass,” his father, Orlando Rothermund, stated in an interview. “He was very considerate and loving, however he was a ache within the ass.”
This abrasive angle towards police led him to fixed hassle. He racked up arrests starting in 1994 for a bevy of various offenses: site visitors violations, resisting arrest, obstructing police, assault, menacing, trespassing and violating restraining orders.
The cops knew Rothermund — and used drive towards him a minimum of 3 times over time.
On Feb. 13, 1999, two officers responded to Rothermund’s home on experiences of an argument between him and his spouse.
Officers by no means requested permission to enter the home, had no possible trigger and lacked a search warrant or arrest warrant, in keeping with a federal lawsuit Rothermund filed towards the officers in 2000. When requested what the argument was about, he advised police that it was none of their enterprise and requested them to go away.
The officers moved Rothermund into the hallway, the place they “bodily assaulted” him by “hanging, handcuffing, pushing and shoving him, and pulling his hair out,” the lawsuit states. In addition they hit him with pepper spray.
Craig police initiated a felony investigation into Rothermund.
A decide in that case blasted the officers’ actions that day, in keeping with courtroom paperwork, saying, “There isn’t a constitutional proper that protects cops from obnoxious individuals.”
“One of many occupational hazards of being an officer is taking the verbal abuse and placing up with the angle that some individuals have towards police,” the decide wrote.
The case was dismissed. Rothermund later reached an undisclosed settlement with town.
Twenty years later, it occurred once more.
Craig police responded to a trespassing name on the Kum & Go fuel station close to downtown on Could 20, 2020. They have been in search of a person named Frank Hickson, who had a number of warrants out for his arrest, in keeping with a police report.
An officer stopped a person they believed to be Hickson outdoors one other fuel station throughout the road. An argument ensued. The person began operating, and the officer used a Taser to shock him within the again, the police report states.
At that time, the officer realized he didn’t have Hickson, he wrote in his report. He had simply shocked Rothermund, hitting him with all 4 probes of the system. Rothermund stated his fingers went numb.
The next yr, simply seven months after town settled along with his nephew, Orona, Craig officers handed Rothermund a $30,000 verify.
However that wouldn’t be the final violent encounter he had with metropolis police.
On March 31, 2023, a witness on the Cool Water Grill in Craig seen Rothermund get nervous when an officer walked into the restaurant. The officer discovered Rothermund had a warrant out for his arrest — which his household stated was associated to a $100 metropolis nuisance ticket for conserving an inoperable automobile on a fuel station’s property.
The officer advised Rothermund he needed to talk with him, however Rothermund ignored the request and took off, in keeping with a decision letter from the 14th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
Rothermund pulled out a handgun and pointed it on the officer, the letter states.
“I wanna die,” he advised police. “Shoot me.” Rothermund put the gun in his mouth.
Moffat County sheriff’s deputies responded, telling Rothermund to get on the bottom. He didn’t comply.
“I’m gonna die earlier than I’m going to jail,” he stated, in keeping with body-worn digicam footage of the incident.
Video exhibits Rothermund elevating the gun once more within the route of the officers. Two of them fired at Rothermund, 52, killing him.
“For a $100 warrant,” his father stated, “I misplaced my son.”
Members of the family stated Rothermund suffered from psychological well being points, together with post-traumatic stress dysfunction, bipolar dysfunction and schizophrenia. He lived for spells in his automotive by one of many fuel stations on the town.
Rothermund was struggling earlier than his dying, Orlando Rothermund stated. He didn’t wish to return to jail as a result of he stored getting crushed up.
Britney Rothermund, Christopher’s daughter, final noticed her father two months earlier than he died. They went ingesting on the In style Bar in Craig — their favourite hang-out to shoot pool. Her father was actually good, she stated, enjoying in leagues over time.
He filtered out and in of her life, she stated. Her dad and mom break up when she was younger and her father labored out of state for some time.
He spent a while in jail, however incessantly despatched Britney letters and, one time, a jewellery field he made out of previous newspapers.
In highschool, police used to tug Britney over repeatedly on her approach to college, she stated. The cops, she stated, would all the time ask about her dad.
“I don’t perceive why the cops have been all the time bothering us,” she stated.
Orlando Rothermund, a former Los Angeles police officer who moved to Craig in 1979, stated he had all the time believed in legislation enforcement.
“They’re too trigger-happy now,” he stated. “They don’t use widespread sense. They know they’ll get away with it.”
Suicide try turns into police taking pictures
Craig’s most up-to-date police taking pictures — the third since 2023 — occurred the morning of April 26 at 730 Ashley Highway.
Troy Curtis Jr. and his spouse of 11 years, Elena, have been going via a divorce. Curtis was in between drugs for bipolar dysfunction and despair, he stated.
The evening earlier than, the couple argued through textual content message concerning their relationship and separation.
“With every day, my thoughts cares much less what occurs subsequent,” Curtis wrote to Elena, in keeping with messages included in a decision letter from the 14th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. “So I’m letting go. You get what you needed. It’s not what I needed.”
Alarmed, Elena ran downstairs to verify on Curtis. She believed he would attempt to go away the home to kill himself, in keeping with the DA’s letter.
Elena slept on the sofa that evening to regulate him. At 8:30 a.m. the subsequent day, she woke Curtis up, telling him he wanted to return to the hospital to handle his psychological well being considerations.
Curtis felt trapped, he stated in an interview. He grabbed his pockets, cellphone and a handgun from the closet and went to his truck.
Elena texted Curtis’s father, Troy Curtis Sr., to come back to their home instantly. She then known as 911 to report that her husband was suicidal and had a gun.
Curtis Jr. tried to start out the automotive, however Elena had the passenger door open, stopping him from leaving.
He loaded the gun and tried to lift it to his head. At that second, his father lunged towards Curtis Jr. and the 2 started to battle, in keeping with interviews and the prosecutor’s letter. Curtis Jr. head-butted his father a number of occasions and pistol-whipped him with the gun.
Curtis Sr. advised The Put up that he ultimately pinned his son over the middle console of the truck. The daddy additionally grabbed his son’s wrist, with the gun caught to the floorboard of the automobile, pointing away from them.
Sgt. Dalton Caudell of the Craig Police Division arrived to see Curtis Sr. on prime of his son within the truck.
At first, Curtis Sr. stated he was relieved to see police on the scene. Then he noticed Caudell’s face.
“I went into panic mode after I noticed the officer’s demeanor,” Curtis Sr. stated. “I knew there was no likelihood of speaking with him.”
The entire encounter took mere seconds.
Caudell yelled a number of occasions for Curtis Jr. to drop the gun, in keeping with body-worn digicam footage launched by police.
Curtis Sr. advised Caudell to seize the weapon, which was nonetheless pinned in his son’s hand on the automotive’s floorboard, going through away from the officer. The gun didn’t seem within the body-camera video.
The video seems to seize audio of Curtis Jr.’s gun firing twice, with bullets touring via the rear passenger door away from the officer.
Caudell then opened fireplace, taking pictures Curtis Jr. six occasions within the higher shoulder and higher torso. In some way, Curtis Sr. was not shot.
“Are you kidding me?” the daddy stated within the video.
At no level was the gun pointed on the officer, each Curtises stated, and Curtis Jr. stated he had stopped resisting his father. He stated he by no means threatened his father, his spouse or the officer that day. He solely supposed to harm himself.
“He by no means made any try to de-escalate,” Curtis Jr. stated of Caudell. “If he tried to take my gun, I wouldn’t have resisted.”
Curtis Sr. stated he didn’t perceive why the officer felt deadly drive was the one reply.
The bullets, miraculously, missed Curtis Jr.’s organs. He nonetheless has a bullet lodged towards his proper lung and one in his chest. He sustained two fractured ribs and a damaged arm.
It’s been troublesome to eat and sleep within the aftermath of the taking pictures, Curtis Jr. stated. He’s shed 30 kilos since April.
After taking a couple of weeks off to recuperate, Curtis Jr. returned to work at an auto physique store in Steamboat Springs.
An avid gun fanatic with a number of members of the family in legislation enforcement, Curtis Jr. stated he doesn’t suppose he may name 911 if he wanted assist. Even the sight of a uniformed officer with the badge and gun holster offers him nervousness now, deep, bodily nervousness burrowed into his chest.
“I’m extra afraid of them now than anybody else,” he stated.
Curtis Jr. was charged with felony menacing and illegal personal switch of a firearm.
Karzen, the district legal professional, dominated the taking pictures was justified this month. Caudell won’t be charged.
Caudell, in an e-mail, stated he couldn’t touch upon the case because of the pending felony proceedings towards Curtis Jr.
‘Cops are supposed to guard individuals’
Civil rights attorneys say rural legislation enforcement companies typically lack coaching and assets, which might result in constitutional violations.
“You see a sample in smaller police departments in much less city environments,” stated Raymond Bryant, Orona’s legal professional. “Officers suppose the one software they’ve is drive.”
And after they do use drive, they’re unlikely to be disciplined for his or her actions, these attorneys stated.
Analysis suggests rural areas are typically extra politically conservative and fewer targeted on police reforms. On prime of that, rural residents are much more prone to be gun house owners, which can enhance police anticipation of risk, in keeping with a 2024 study by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
One other examine, in the New York University Law Review, famous that small jurisdictions are far much less probably than bigger cities to have authorized and political accountability buildings, akin to police commissions and inspectors common, a strong media presence or an energetic plaintiffs’ bar.
“Within the absence of exterior prodding, small jurisdictions could also be even much less probably than their big-city counterparts to repair these issues on their very own,” the report’s writer famous.
In small, rural areas like Craig, police usually tend to know the suspects and make assumptions about them, stated Elizabeth Wang, Tanner Sholes’ legal professional.
“They have been primed to be in a headspace the place they needed to escalate something that occurred with Mr. Sholes,” she stated.
Wang focuses on instances involving individuals injured by police. She stated she had by no means seen an incident just like the one Sholes encountered, wherein legislation enforcement used a automobile as a weapon to run over a pedestrian with premeditation.
“There’s no coaching on this,” she stated. “There’s no coverage to ever use a automobile to hit a pedestrian.”
Sholes final yr filed a federal lawsuit that accused Craig cops and Moffat County sheriff’s personnel of extreme drive and violating his constitutional rights.
Michelle Workman, Sholes’ companion and mom of his kids, stated she’s watched his relationship with police deteriorate over time. Each time they work together with him, she stated, it’s a number of officers with their weapons drawn.
“In my thoughts, they wish to homicide Tanner,” she stated.
In a small city like Craig, police focus on the identical few individuals, Workman stated. When you get a reputation with the police division, you earn a goal in your again.
“When you have a run-in earlier than, that shouldn’t smear you as a foul particular person,” she stated. “Everybody makes unhealthy decisions. Tanner’s greatest downside: He obtained in hassle and he’s by no means been left alone.”
Sholes stated his knee nonetheless causes him a great deal of ache. A former wildland firefighter, he loves tenting and climbing and operating round along with his children. However the damage limits his exercise, he stated. He can’t chase his kids like he used to. All the things needs to be carried out a little bit slower.
“It’s put a damper on my complete life,” he stated.
Sholes avoids public areas for essentially the most half out of worry of the police. He opts towards taking his children to the general public pool or metropolis capabilities.
His kids, he stated, are deathly afraid of legislation enforcement.
“They suppose each time police are known as, Tanner’s gonna die,” Workman stated.
What sort of message does this ship to kids, Sholes stated.
“Cops are supposed to guard individuals, not harm individuals,” he stated. “My children have seen the other of that.”
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