Speaker 1: A story that featured Sheriff Steve Dreams from Weld County
Speaker 1: expressing his displeasure about the fact that his office had
Speaker 1: to release a man who's proven himself to be dangerous. Well,
Speaker 1: that man is back in jail. We don't know how long,
Speaker 1: but I've got Sheriff Steve Riams with me now to
Speaker 1: talk about it. Sheriff, first of all, thanks for making
Speaker 1: time today.
Speaker 2: Hebette, thanks for bringing this an issue to attention. Mandy.
Speaker 1: So, my first question, and just as a reminder for
Speaker 1: my audience from Divisa, is the man's name. If you
Speaker 1: could tell me how you encountered or have encountered mister
Speaker 1: de Visa in the past and what inspired you to
Speaker 1: sort of make this public. What's going on?
Speaker 2: Sure, Well, he's a twenty one year old individual that
Speaker 2: lives in the Weld County area can really specifically most
Speaker 2: of the time. He's a Tanzania national. He's a refugee
Speaker 2: in this country. I believe he's been here for six
Speaker 2: or seven years, maybe even longer. My interaction with him
Speaker 2: is because he's been repeatd brought to the Weld County
Speaker 2: jail from numerous police agencies, and I believe he's been
Speaker 2: arrested as of yesterday, eleven times on some very serious charges.
Speaker 2: But his last arrest was the most significant one, and
Speaker 2: that was for attempted second degree murder. And my interaction
Speaker 2: with that case was because I was I'm friends with
Speaker 2: the victim's family, and so the victim in that particular incident,
Speaker 2: you know, he was beaten very severely by by this individual,
Speaker 2: and all the beating incident was filmed or videoed by
Speaker 2: Debisa's friends, and so that video got posted to social media.
Speaker 2: The victim in that incident, his family shared that video
Speaker 2: with me and said, you got to help us. You know,
Speaker 2: this guy's likely to be released because he's been found
Speaker 2: incompetent to stand trial, and this just seems like a
Speaker 2: travesty of justice. And I agree with him, and so
Speaker 2: I definitely leaned into that situation and tried to figure
Speaker 2: out every possible scenario to keep this person from being
Speaker 2: released from my facility. And unfortunately, the lodge just tied
Speaker 2: my hands and we were forced to release him. This
Speaker 2: a little over two weeks ago, but he was re
Speaker 2: arrested yesterday on new criminal charges.
Speaker 1: Who could have guessed, So let's go back to that release.
Speaker 1: The last time. Governor Jared Polis released a rather snarky
Speaker 1: and terse tweet about it, saying, well, there's other laws
Speaker 1: in Colorado they could have used to commit him to
Speaker 1: a facility or something along those lines. Did you look
Speaker 1: at every other opportunity to get this guy off the streets?
Speaker 1: And if you did, why did that not work?
Speaker 2: Well, it might surprise you to hear this, but the
Speaker 2: governor was just dead wrong. He made an assumption that
Speaker 2: my county attorney and the district attorney up here had
Speaker 2: not done their jobs in trying to figure out if
Speaker 2: there was a different way that this person could be
Speaker 2: handled other than released to the street. But that would
Speaker 2: have required some on a mental health commitment. And you know,
Speaker 2: right or wrong, this person does not have an underlying
Speaker 2: mental health issue. Competency and mental health aren't necessarily tied together.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they are. In this individual's case, his lack of
Speaker 2: competency has nothing to do with an underlying mental illness.
Speaker 2: So the governor was trying to point to provisions in
Speaker 2: the statutes that allow for mental health holds to be
Speaker 2: placed and whatnot, but they're just not applicable with this guy.
Speaker 2: He's just geared wrong. I believe he has an evil
Speaker 2: mind and he has no intention of following the law.
Speaker 2: But does he have an underlying mental health a diagnosed
Speaker 2: mental health issue. No, he's not been on a mental
Speaker 2: health plan at all while he's been in my facility,
Speaker 2: and he probably won't be this time either.
Speaker 1: So wait a minute, how has he been declared unable
Speaker 1: to stand trial if he doesn't have any diagnosed or
Speaker 1: diagnosable mental conditions. I'm confused by that.
Speaker 2: Well, you and me both. Basically what it comes down
Speaker 2: to is my understanding is he does not have the
Speaker 2: cognitive ability and I say that in their quotes to
Speaker 2: understand the gravity of his actions or the legal or
Speaker 2: the criminal justice system as it pertains to those things.
Speaker 2: I think it's a ruse. I think it's a game.
Speaker 2: I just I think this guy is just flippant towards
Speaker 2: towards any consequences. And because of that, you know, he's
Speaker 2: likely he comes off to these professional persons that do
Speaker 2: his evaluation as someone who's just you know, is incapable
Speaker 2: of understanding the severity of what they're doing. Regardless even
Speaker 2: if they're correct. If that is the case, it still
Speaker 2: shows another giant hole in our criminal justice system, because
Speaker 2: if he's if he's incapable of understanding the severity of
Speaker 2: what he's done, then he's probably incapable of functioning in
Speaker 2: society in a way that's not dangerous to folks. But again,
Speaker 2: our laws, for lack of better terms, they sucker right
Speaker 2: now when it deals with when you're dealing with criminals
Speaker 2: and the laws are tilted to their side, and this
Speaker 2: guy's taking firm advantage of it.
Speaker 1: So let me ask this, though he's a refugee, what
Speaker 1: about his immigration status, is there any opportunity you know,
Speaker 1: And I realize you cannot coordinate with ICE because of
Speaker 1: the stupid laws in Colorado, but I mean, would that
Speaker 1: be an opportunity for ICE to maybe if they're listening,
Speaker 1: to just go, hey, this guy's in jail right now,
Speaker 1: maybe we need to check this out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know, we've had some i'll just say
Speaker 2: hypothetical questions of ICE. And my understanding is that unless
Speaker 2: he's unless this individual is charged and convicted of a
Speaker 2: serious of a violent crime or a felony, then his
Speaker 2: refugee status cannot be revoked. Well, obviously he's not getting
Speaker 2: convicted of any of these cases because he's being found
Speaker 2: and competent to stand trial. So I pushed this as
Speaker 2: far as I can, all the way up to hopefully
Speaker 2: Tom Holman's desk to see if there's a different viewpoint
Speaker 2: that can be taken with this individual. But you know,
Speaker 2: we're also exploring if if federal charges might apply, especially
Speaker 2: in this most recent case, because of having a firearm
Speaker 2: on a college campus, and so if that's the avenue
Speaker 2: to get him out of a criminal justice system that
Speaker 2: is not as broken as Colorado's, then maybe that's the
Speaker 2: way that we finally could get a conviction on him
Speaker 2: and get him deported from the United States. But he
Speaker 2: doesn't deserve to be here. He doesn't he doesn't add
Speaker 2: any value to the United States or to this this
Speaker 2: state specifically, because all he does is victimize people. He's
Speaker 2: he's a criminal opportunist.
Speaker 1: He's a predator.
Speaker 2: He's a predator. Yeah, that's a that's a great way
Speaker 2: to put it. And he's taken advantage of the citizens
Speaker 2: in Well County and specifically in the city of Greeley,
Speaker 2: and he creates fear and discontent pretty much wherever he goes.
Speaker 2: From what I can tell you.
Speaker 1: Know, basically what you just told me about him, being
Speaker 1: declared incompetent. It seems that he's he's in you know,
Speaker 1: I remember Vinnie the chin Jagante. You remember him walking
Speaker 1: around in his bathrobe to prove to prosecutors in New
Speaker 1: York that he was crazy. That was his whole stick,
Speaker 1: Like he was just going to prove this. To me,
Speaker 1: seems like this guy has figured out if he just
Speaker 1: acts like he cannot follow along and does not understand
Speaker 1: the process, he's going to keep getting out. And is
Speaker 1: that what's going to happen this time?
Speaker 2: Well, that's very likely what could happen in this particular case.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that with enough attention on this case, we
Speaker 2: get a professional person, qualified person that puts way more
Speaker 2: effort into determining competency with this individual. I don't know
Speaker 2: that that's probably a pie in the sky dream there,
Speaker 2: but ultimately I think you hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 2: He knows, you know, he's he's been trained through the
Speaker 2: system that if he's just you know, if he just
Speaker 2: doesn't care about the consequences the null demi men competent,
Speaker 2: he'll get released and he can go back to doing
Speaker 2: whatever he wants to do. The interesting thing is, oftentimes
Speaker 2: when he commits one of these acts, he has a
Speaker 2: crowd around him where he has, you know, a friend
Speaker 2: with him who's filming this stuff or taking pictures of him,
Speaker 2: and so that he can turn around and post it
Speaker 2: on social media as friends can. In fact, the attempted
Speaker 2: second degree murder was all on video that was posted
Speaker 2: to social media. I was given that video from the
Speaker 2: victim's family that's publicly available. It was so that to
Speaker 2: me does not speak of someone who doesn't understand their actions.
Speaker 2: I just the system's broken, and I've called on Governor
Speaker 2: Polus with every one of these these reports to call
Speaker 2: a special session and fix this. If nothing else, just
Speaker 2: repeal House Built twenty four ten thirty four. That's the
Speaker 2: law that they change that really sped this process up
Speaker 2: and created this bigger hole in the system than it
Speaker 2: ever been. So let's just start by repealing that. I mean,
Speaker 2: they don't have to fix everything at once, but just
Speaker 2: undo what you've broken. And it's been crickets.
Speaker 1: Well, that's because to admit that they have made crime
Speaker 1: too easy and too available and too soft in Colorado
Speaker 1: would be to admit that all of their efforts at
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform have done nothing but in bolden criminals.
Speaker 2: But that's just me.
Speaker 1: Share Steve Dreams from Welld County. I appreciate your time today, man.
Speaker 2: You bet many. Thank you for having me on now,
Speaker 2: thanks for
Speaker 1: Making the time that is Steve Dreams