DENVER — The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office released Tuesday all reports and body-worn camera footage “for eligible cases” in connection with interactions deputies had with Courtney “CW” and Nicole Mallery, Black ranchers who live in a rural area of the county.
The married couple is at the center of a controversy after allegations made by them that they are being mistreated by the sheriff’s office and neighbors because of their race.
The couple purchased 640 acres of land called Freedom Acres Ranch near Yoder in 2020. Soon after moving in, the couple claims they have been a target of a harassment campaign, which included the poisoning of their animals.
“Dogs being poisoned, animals being gutted, our lives being threatened, people being sent to our home, under threat of lynching, hanging, pitchforks, fire. We had a chicken coop set ablaze,” Nicole Mallery told Denver7 last month.
The sheriff’s office has denied the Mallery’s claims of racial discrimination. They said they investigated 19 different complaints filed by or involving the Mallerys and responded to over 170 calls for service involving them.
“We take all allegations of crime and civil rights violations seriously,” El Paso County Sheriff Joseph Roybal said.
On Tuesday, the sheriff’s office released 96 videos that contain 38 hours of footage in an “effort to be transparent with our interactions with residents in the Yoder area, and to dispute specific claims made by Courtney and Nicole Mallery,” the sheriff’s office wrote in a tweet.
You can watch the video and read the case reports here.
