{"id":7296,"date":"2017-03-19T06:56:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T06:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=2394719"},"modified":"2017-03-19T06:56:05","modified_gmt":"2017-03-19T06:56:05","slug":"yuma-county-sheriff-is-struggling-with-a-massive-land-area-and-too-few-deputies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/yuma-county-sheriff-is-struggling-with-a-massive-land-area-and-too-few-deputies\/","title":{"rendered":"Yuma County sheriff is struggling with a massive land area\u00a0\u2014 and too few deputies"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/yuma-county-sheriff-is-struggling-with-a-massive-land-area-and-too-few-deputies\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>WRAY \u2014 Yuma County\u00a0sheriff\u2019s Sgt. James Thomson was on his way to deliver an eviction notice when a long-running family feud erupted in shooting about 40 miles from where he was driving on a rural farm road.<\/p>\n<p>Thomson made a dash\u00a0across the county, the speedometer in his pickup spiking at more than 110 miles per hour.<\/p>\n<p>By the time he arrived, all but one of the six patrol members of the sheriff\u2019s office were on the scene, where one suspect allegedly fired an AK-47 several times into the air outside his cousin\u2019s house.<\/p>\n<p>Inside, two children huddled behind mattresses their mother had propped against a wall to protect them when two armed men had arrived at the house.<\/p>\n<p>Arrests were made and deputies found the gun and a magazine that one of the suspects had thrown from the window of a pickup into a ditch along the road.<\/p>\n<p>It was just another day for a budget-strapped department with few officers, a vast area to patrol, and criminal acts that run the gamut from hog theft to methamphetamine distribution.<\/p>\n<p>Complicating the patrol of the vast county that ends at the Nebraska\u00a0and Kansas state lines is confusion about Colorado\u2019s marijuana industry that leads to complaints from residents about legal pot grows, and rules that make it difficult to determine whether a grow is state-sanctioned or weed destined to cross state lines illegally.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe majority of the time, I only have two patrol deputies on duty to cover 2,400 square miles,\u201d Sheriff Chad Day said, \u201cand many times just one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>County leaders say there is little chance of beefing up the sheriff\u2019s budget in a county that has experienced a tumble in its revenue base due to a decline in the oil and gas business and a plunge in agricultural commodity prices.<\/p>\n<p>In rural counties statewide, sheriff\u2019s and other elected officials will \u201ctell you that commissioners need to appropriate more money for their departments,\u201d said Chip Taylor, executive director of Colorado Counties Inc.<\/p>\n<p>Commissioners who hold the purse strings\u00a0are\u00a0trying to squeeze every service they can out of every dime they get, Taylor said.<\/p>\n<p>On the day that Thomson responded to the felony menacing call that ended with two men in custody, one deputy at the scene was working on his day off and another was on overtime.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\" \/>\n<p>Before the paperwork was done, Undersheriff Adam Wills had also come to the scene.<\/p>\n<p>Every year since he was elected in 2010, Day has asked the Yuma County commissioners to OK hiring four more officers. They\u2019ve declined.<\/p>\n<p>The first-year cost of adding four deputies to the roster would boost the sheriff\u2019s $1.8 million budget by $536,000, and then $332,000 in subsequent years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is just what I believe we need to get to a basic level of efficiency and provide basic safety for deputies while they\u2019re on duty,\u201d Day said.<\/p>\n<p>A contraction in the oil and gas industry has dragged down the assessed value of land in the county \u2014 the measure by which property taxes are set \u2014 by 43 percent since 2010, Yuma County commissioner Robin Wiley said.<\/p>\n<p>Oil and gas once accounted for more than 50 percent of assessed valuation. Today it accounts for 7 percent, Wiley said.<\/p>\n<p>Agricultural commodity prices, a major driver of the county\u2019s economy, have also plunged. \u201cWhen your commodities are down, farmers are less likely to buy equipment or have funds to spend, so it affects your economy,\u201d county administrator Kara Hoover said.<\/p>\n<p>Sheriff\u2019s departments in sprawling rural counties across Colorado face difficulty when incidents occur that require multiple officers to respond, said Chris Johnson, executive director of the\u00a0County Sheriffs of Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSmall agencies could use more funding, but if it isn\u2019t there, it isn\u2019t there,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cYou rely on assistance from other offices and you do the best you can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The amount of Day\u2019s budget earmarked for overtime is never sufficient to pay the number of hours deputies put in, he said. \u201cLast year, for example, our overtime was overspent by around 300 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is always a portion of each year when at least one position is vacant, he added. \u201cThe savings from those vacancies have always been necessary to cover the overtime that is in excess of my OT budget.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Potential hires for patrol deputy often walk away from a job offer when they hear that the starting pay is $33,180 per year, Day said.<\/p>\n<p>In Yuma, the county\u2019s largest town, starting police officers get $44,000 per year, Police Chief Jon Lynch said.<\/p>\n<p>At one time, when the wife of one of Day\u2019s deputies was out of work, the couple and their three children had to receive food stamps.<\/p>\n<p>Almost 6,000 of Yuma County\u2019s 10,000 or so residents live in the towns of Wray and Yuma. The rest are spread across an expanse of farmland.<\/p>\n<p>Possession and sale of methamphetamine and cocaine, as well as robberies and burglaries, account for most of the felonies committed in the county.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMeth and cocaine is pretty out of control out here,\u201d Thomson said.<\/p>\n<p>Domestic violence calls, among the most dangerous faced by law enforcement, are frequently handled by one deputy. Nationally, more than 20 percent of the 132 officers killed on duty\u00a0between 2010 to 2014 were responding\u00a0to a domestic dispute, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.<\/p>\n<p>Thomson said hundreds of swine were stolen from a hog farm over a period of time last year \u2014 a crime that hasn\u2019t been solved. Thieves frequently plunder copper and other metal from sprinkler systems used to irrigate crops.<\/p>\n<p>The legalization of pot has stripped patrol officers of a tactical advantage that frequently led to busts for theft or more dangerous illegal drugs, Undersheriff Wills said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe used to be able to search a vehicle if we smelled marijuana,\u201d he said. \u201cNow we say \u2018do you have anything illegal?\u2019 They say, \u2018No, just marijuana.\u2019 We used to be able to use that to find other things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>County residents often\u00a0complain about marijuana grows scattered throughout the county, where legalization is unpopular and there are no dispensaries or retail shops.<\/p>\n<p>Grows near the Nebraska state line roused suspicion that some portion of the weed could be shipped to illegal drug dealers across the state line through Nebraska, or Kansas, Wills said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut it\u2019s awfully hard for us to interdict these guys without surveillance, and we don\u2019t have the manpower,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Regulations governing marijuana \u2014 which is not taxed by Yuma County and adds nothing to its bottom line \u2014 make it difficult to determine if many of the grows in the county are legal, or if the pot is headed for the gray\u00a0market.<\/p>\n<p>The law allows residents 21\u00a0and older to\u00a0grow six plants, with three of those being mature at any given time. But caregivers who grow for medical marijuana patients can have as\u00a0many as 99 plants for each patient who has received an \u201cextended plant count\u201d from a doctor recommending the extra plants based on medical circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>The closest dispensary to Wray, the Yuma County seat, is more than an hour away in Morgan County. \u201cThere are no commercial operations allowed in Yuma,\u201d Day said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoctors say because you are so far away from commercial facilities you need to be allowed to grow bigger numbers of plants,\u201d he explained<\/p>\n<p>Day was one of six Colorado sheriffs who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2015\/03\/05\/sheriffs-suing-colorado-over-legal-marijuana\/31158\/\">sued Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2015 claiming the state\u2019s pot law forced them to break federal law<\/a>. The case was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/01\/17\/colorado-marijuana-lawsuit-nebraska-oklahoma-federal-appeals-court\/71497\/\">consolidated with others<\/a> and is being considered by the 10th U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Yuma County deputies responded to a complaint about a grow at a mobile home and found three residents with medical licenses who had extended plant counts.<\/p>\n<p>One of them was a caretaker for three other patients who also were allowed large numbers of plants. They were entitled to have more than 600 plants on the property.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not qualified to determine how much marijuana someone needs, but the law doesn\u2019t help us out in determining how much,\u201d Day said.<\/p>\n<p>A few blocks from the sheriff\u2019s office in Wray, three greenhouses belonging to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/extras.denverpost.com\/game-of-pain\/\">CW Hemp front the street<\/a>. The industrial hemp plants inside are a type of cannabis low in THC, the chemical that gives pot smokers a high, but high in non-psychotropic cannabinoid cannabidiol, which is used to treat seizures.<\/p>\n<p>The greenhouses have been there since March 2014. \u201cI still get reports that there is a bunch of illegal weed being grown,\u201d Day said.<\/p>\n<p>Those complaining\u00a0wonder \u201chow can the sheriff miss it, it\u2019s right beside the highway,\u201d Day said.<\/p>\n<p>The county has far more pressing drug problems than marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>Last October, while investigating a shooting, sheriff\u2019s deputies found $320,000 worth of methamphetamine, several ounces of cocaine, as well as other illegal drugs and firearms in a residence.<\/p>\n<p>Product from home-brew meth labs that once dotted the county has largely disappeared, replaced by crystal flowing across the U.S. border with Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>Rumors often bubble up from the Latino community of drug-cartel associates coming to the county to visit family, or flee the gangster environment, Day said.<\/p>\n<p>The visits send a chill through the Latino community, where cartels\u2019 reputation for violence is well-known, and some residents have\u00a0family members<b> <\/b>or friends in Mexico who have been brutalized by cartel members.<\/p>\n<p>Day doubts that the visitors are coming to engage in violence or pump drugs into the area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf they were coming here to do those things, we would find evidence,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not to say that when they come, they don\u2019t bring a load of dope with them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Responding to a family dispute that erupted in gunfire was just another day in the life of the budget-strapped Yuma County Sheriff&#8217;s department, which has few officers, a vast area to patrol, and criminal acts that run the gamut from hog theft to methamphetamine distribution. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7012,201,6811,7013,7014,7015,7016,6813,77,6814,56,9,1882,5019,7017,7018,1,3,61,1736,7019],"tags":[7020,2779,6816,7021,7022,7023,7024,6818,2655,6819,2636,4450,5022,7025,7026,7027],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7296"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}