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 folks referred to as 911 to report a person carrying a rifle by way of this small metropolis about 40 miles west of Steamboat Springs.
“I actually didn’t assume something of it,” Sholes stated in a current interview. “I didn’t haven’t any warrants, didn’t do something mistaken to assume I needs to be apprehensive.”
However the cops had been apprehensive. They acknowledged Sholes from a litany of earlier encounters, together with a time earlier that 12 months 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 referred to 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, so that they devised a plan, based on police stories 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 facet.
Twenty seconds later, a sheriff’s lieutenant revved his engine and rammed his automobile into Sholes at 20 mph to 30 mph, based on 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 grow to be extra frequent lately on this metropolis of 9,000 tucked in Colorado’s northwest nook.
Craig has seen simply three police shootings in its recorded historical past, they usually’ve all occurred since 2023 — a per-capita incident fee 20 occasions larger than Denver’s. In the meantime, the town paid out at the least $400,000 to settle three separate claims of extreme power by the Craig Police Division inside a 10-month interval in 2020 and 2021. A number of occasions, police have used power on people, solely to later uncover that they had stopped the mistaken individual.
One resident, Christopher Rothermund, obtained two settlements from the 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. JHB centered 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 Submit by the Craig Police Division or the Moffat County Sheriff’s Workplace confirmed officers obtained any self-discipline for these violent responses, together with the 2023 incident with the SUV. In reality, a number of have since been promoted.
One sheriff’s detective was a part of the staff that ran over Sholes and in addition fatally shot Rothermund. Police stories 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 received recycled dangerous cops in a whole lot of these districts,” stated David Lane, a longtime Colorado lawyer who makes a speciality of police misconduct circumstances. “They’re dangerous in main metro police stations and are actually the regulation in these smaller jurisdictions.”
Residents who’ve interacted with regulation enforcement in Craig say they’re scared to name 911 for concern of what would possibly occur.
“They’re actually evil folks,” stated Croix Orona, who obtained a settlement after being shocked with a Taser repeatedly by police seven years in the past. “They assume they’re a gang. They assume they will do no matter they need to folks.”
Craig police representatives, together with McIntyre, who’s now the Moffat County sheriff, didn’t reply to repeated interview requests from The Submit.
Craig Metropolis Supervisor Peter Brixius referred to as the current police shootings and settlements “uncommon and unlucky,” however stated the division was justified in utilizing power in all of these circumstances.
“Our law enforcement officials are extremely educated,” he stated in an interview. “We delight ourselves on the courteous nature of our officers. Once they’re compelled into an incident, they are going to take acceptable actions to guard the residents of Craig.”
Matt Karzen, the district lawyer for the 14th Judicial District, which incorporates Craig, stated regulation 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 Submit compiled this report from lawsuits, police stories, 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 Group in Craig.
The caller reported {that a} tall, bearded man carrying a hoodie was standing at midnight outdoors one of many properties.
The officers didn’t know the place the house was positioned, so that they wandered across the neighborhood in search of the precise location or a suspect, based on 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 had been the suspect, the lawsuit states. When Orona declined to reply questions from the officers, they rapidly approached him.
“What am I (expletive) doing?” Orona stated, based on body-worn digicam footage reviewed by The Submit.
Police wrote in an incident report that Orona took a “preventing 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 battle 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 employees giving him a catheter.
He was charged with resisting arrest and obstruction — costs the district lawyer later dropped, based on the lawsuit.
Shortly after the incident, Orona’s grandfather filed a grievance with the Craig Police Division. A subsequent inside affairs investigation discovered the officers’ actions had been “articulated and justified.” The officers had been exonerated. It’s not clear whether or not they ever discovered the individual breaking into the trailer.
In 2020, the 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: visitors violations, resisting arrest, obstructing police, assault, menacing, trespassing and violating restraining orders.
The cops knew Rothermund — and used power towards him at the least 3 times over time.
On Feb. 13, 1999, two officers responded to Rothermund’s home on stories 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, based on a federal lawsuit Rothermund filed towards the officers in 2000. When requested what the argument was about, he informed 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. Additionally they hit him with pepper spray.
Craig police initiated a prison investigation into Rothermund.
A decide in that case blasted the officers’ actions that day, based on court docket paperwork, saying, “There isn’t a constitutional proper that protects law enforcement officials from obnoxious folks.”
“One of many occupational hazards of being an officer is taking the verbal abuse and placing up with the angle that some folks have towards police,” the decide wrote.
The case was dismissed. Rothermund later reached an undisclosed settlement with the 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 had been in search of a person named Frank Hickson, who had a number of warrants out for his arrest, based on 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 working, 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 machine. Rothermund stated his fingers went numb.
The next 12 months, simply seven months after the town settled together with his nephew, Orona, Craig officers handed Rothermund a $30,000 examine.
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 observed 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 retaining an inoperable automobile on a fuel station’s property.
The officer informed Rothermund he wished to talk with him, however Rothermund ignored the request and took off, based on a call letter from the 14th Judicial District Lawyer’s Workplace.
Rothermund pulled out a handgun and pointed it on the officer, the letter states.
“I wanna die,” he informed 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, based on body-worn digicam footage of the incident.
Video exhibits Rothermund elevating the gun once more within the path of the officers. Two of them fired at Rothermund, 52, killing him.
“For a $100 warrant,” his father stated, “I misplaced my son.”
Relations 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 demise, Orlando Rothermund stated. He didn’t need 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 Standard 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 mother and father break up when she was younger and her father labored out of state for some time.
He spent a while in jail, however often despatched Britney letters and, one time, a jewellery field he made out of outdated newspapers.
In highschool, police used to drag Britney over repeatedly on her method to faculty, she stated. The cops, she stated, would all the time ask about her dad.
“I don’t perceive why the cops had 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 regulation enforcement.
“They’re too trigger-happy now,” he stated. “They don’t use frequent sense. They know they will 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, had been going by way of 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 relating to their relationship and separation.
“With every day, my thoughts cares much less what occurs subsequent,” Curtis wrote to Elena, based on messages included in a call letter from the 14th Judicial District Lawyer’s Workplace. “So I’m letting go. You get what you wished. It’s not what I wished.”
Alarmed, Elena ran downstairs to examine on Curtis. She believed he would attempt to depart the home to kill himself, based on the DA’s letter.
Elena slept on the sofa that evening to regulate him. At 8:30 a.m. the following day, she woke Curtis up, telling him he wanted to return to the hospital to deal with his psychological well being issues.
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 return to their home instantly. She then referred to 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 wrestle, based on 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. informed The Submit that he finally 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 high 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 once 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, based on body-worn digicam footage launched by police.
Curtis Sr. informed 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 by way of the rear passenger door away from the officer.
Caudell then opened hearth, 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 meant to harm himself.
“He by no means made any try and 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 power 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 number 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 regulation enforcement, Curtis Jr. stated he doesn’t assume he may name 911 if he wanted assist. Even the sight of a uniformed officer with the badge and gun holster provides 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 lawyer, dominated the taking pictures was justified this month. Caudell is not going to be charged.
Caudell, in an e-mail, stated he couldn’t touch upon the case because of the pending prison proceedings towards Curtis Jr.
‘Cops are supposed to guard folks’
Civil rights attorneys say rural regulation enforcement businesses usually lack coaching and assets, which may result in constitutional violations.
“You see a sample in smaller police departments in much less city environments,” stated Raymond Bryant, Orona’s lawyer. “Officers assume the one software they’ve is power.”
And after they do use power, 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 centered on police reforms. On high of that, rural residents are much more prone to be gun house owners, which can enhance police anticipation of risk, based on a 2024 examine by the American Journal of Preventive Drugs.
One other examine, within the New York College Regulation Evaluation, famous that small jurisdictions are far much less doubtless than bigger cities to have authorized and political accountability buildings, comparable to police commissions and inspectors common, a sturdy media presence or an lively plaintiffs’ bar.
“Within the absence of exterior prodding, small jurisdictions could also be even much less doubtless 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’ lawyer.
“They had been primed to be in a headspace the place they wished to escalate something that occurred with Mr. Sholes,” she stated.
Wang makes a speciality of circumstances involving folks injured by police. She stated she had by no means seen an incident just like the one Sholes encountered, wherein regulation 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 12 months filed a federal lawsuit that accused Craig law enforcement officials and Moffat County sheriff’s personnel of extreme power and violating his constitutional rights.
Michelle Workman, Sholes’ associate 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 need to homicide Tanner,” she stated.
In a small city like Craig, police think about the identical few folks, Workman stated. When you get a reputation with the police division, you earn a goal in your again.
“If in case you have a run-in earlier than, that shouldn’t smear you as a foul individual,” she stated. “Everybody makes dangerous decisions. Tanner’s largest drawback: He received 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 mountain climbing and working round together with his youngsters. However the damage limits his exercise, he stated. He can’t chase his kids like he used to. All the things needs to be completed just a little slower.
“It’s put a damper on my complete life,” he stated.
Sholes avoids public areas for essentially the most half out of concern of the police. He opts towards taking his youngsters to the general public pool or metropolis capabilities.
His kids, he stated, are deathly afraid of regulation enforcement.
“They assume each time police are referred to as, Tanner’s gonna die,” Workman stated.
What sort of message does this ship to kids, Sholes stated.
“Cops are supposed to guard folks, not damage folks,” he stated. “My youngsters have seen the other of that.”
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