The Staffords’ cabin in the hills of rural Park County, long the respite of denver’s circle of relatives, has become the scene of a violent confrontation that, according to an organization of academics from the Community College of Aurora, made them worry about their pre-this-year lives.
Malarie Stafford-Mustacchio chose the quiet location near Bailey for a film school project. Packing cameras and other gadgets for the weekend, the 19-year-old and 4 other students set off for the cabin on March 18.
Once Malarie arrived at the cabin, she saw her friends straining to get out of the sloping, snowy gravel road near the cabin. Kate Wilhelm invited through her friend, another CCA student, who took them to the cabin that day. Force agreed to speak to the Sentinel on condition of anonymity, citing security considerations.
Both were the last to join the group. Like the other students, they struggled to cross the snowy road, and before they knew it, they got trapped.
Kate and her friend then froze a guy, whom MPs have known since then as Jon Spencer, who was coming in his car. An attorney representing Jon said the 28-year-old needed to comment on the March 18 incident.
“It seemed that he had fallen from the sky, honestly,” the driving force said. “I came up with one of our team members, so I rolled down the window. “
Jon immediately began asking them what they were doing there, claiming he owned the road and asking who they knew who lived nearby, the two women told The Sentinel.
“He likes, ‘You have to go. You don’t belong,'” Kate said. She and her friend noticed that Jon felt he had been drinking and had trouble speaking.
Soon, Jon hurled insults at the group. In particular, he pointed the finger at the driving force behind the abuse. But unlike the other students, some of whom had also found themselves stuck on the same stretch of road earlier, the driving force is black. .
“He gets in the car, he comes up to the window and calls her an idiot, Black b—-h and says, ‘That’s why you can’t drive,'” Malarie said.
“He would call us c—-s and b——-s, and he would say we were worthless,” the driving force said. “He said, ‘You’re an idiot, Black b — h. ‘ . . . He insinuated that because I had dark skin, I was incompetent. “
One of the scholars captured part of the confrontation on video with his cell phone – in the video, the guy known as Jon argues with the driver, telling him “you’re black and you’re stupid. “
As more and more members of Malarie’s organization piled up around the car, they said they tried to tell Jon that the vehicle was stuck and they were trying to get off the road.
One of the students, who is the director of his film project, at one point shook Hands with Jon, which seemed to calm the situation. But soon, the 3 said Jon started yelling at them again, telling them that the road belonged to the county personal and they had to leave.
The driving force said she turned to Kate to tell her that Jon was bothering her. He then said Jon tried to run his hand through the car window and grab it.
The scenario escalated temporarily. The director who shook Jon’s hand stood between the two and told him not to touch her. The 3 women said Jon grabbed the director, suffocated him and beat him before throwing him to the ground.
They said that while Jon was beating and strangling the student on the snowy road, screaming that he was going to kill them, other members of the organization tried to keep him away. Kate called 911.
“They asked if we were safe and I said, ‘No, he’s hitting my friend,'” Kate said.
“I was just looking to get my hands off my throat,” the driving force said. “He said, ‘I’m going to kill you, guys. ‘ Array. . . It was as if their goal was to kill us. “
At the time, another guy, who academics said was Jon’s neighbor, came over with what looked like an AR-15 rifle. Malarie yelled at the others that the guy had a gun. Some of them ran down the road.
“My friend literally about to die before my eyes, and I just terrified,” the driving force said.
“I still have to figure out what happened so far,” Kate said. “My brain wasn’t working at the time. “
But the moment the guy got back into his vehicle and put his rifle away. At that time, the director received most of Jon. Malarie said the guy who had the gun had returned to the stranded Jeep driven by Kate’s friend. The 3 women said she made threatening comments about harming the principal before addressing Jon and helping him hit the student.
“It’s so terrifying,” the driving force said. I didn’t need to accumulate his anger anymore, but I also didn’t need to see my friend die in front of me. “
“IArray didn’t know what to do,” Kate said.
As Malarie struggled to keep the director’s men away, he was able to sneak away and run down the street, away from the car. Kate said her face at the time was “very, very bloody,” and Malarie said the director had a huge swelling in his head.
Once the driving force released his car, backing up on the gravel road, he joined the other academics in the cabin to wait for the agents.
Jon was arrested the next day on two counts of third-degree assault and five counts of harassment, all misdemeanors. He has since posted $1,000 bail and was released from prison.
Academics and some members of his family circle wondered why the charges against Jon didn’t translate into an improvement in hate crime, rather than the racist language he used when he docked the driving force. They also asked why it took an entire day to arrest Jon and why the guy with the gun hadn’t been charged at all.
Park County Sheriff Tom McGraw said Tuesday that a judge’s order barred him from discussing the main points of the case, but when asked how much time passed between the March 18 incident and Jon’s arrest, he replied, “I definitely have an opinion on it. “
The sheriff said his decision would depend on the legal expertise of the 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office regarding hate crime charges. the media.
In a now-deleted Facebook post, the sheriff’s office showed the fundamental facts of the case and said that “the district attorney’s office has reviewed all the statements of everyone involved and has refused to register a hate crime complaint at this time, nor will they. “rate the neighbor for his or her involvement in the incident (because you believe you are protecting your neighbor).
“These academics were only going to a friend’s space for a meeting and when they got stuck, they unfortunately ran into a user who was absolutely irrelevant and were warned,” the post says. “This singles incident does not deserve to harm the citizens of Park County. , nor the sheriff’s office staff, as most of our citizens would have gladly helped them get their cars up and running. “
In a March 19 phone call with Malarie and members of his family circle, part of which was recorded through the circle of relatives, a guy who knew himself as the sheriff apologized to the circle of relatives and said he would review the conduct of the MPs. and why no one was arrested. March 18.
The sheriff later said the MPs in question had been recycled or sanctioned for their conduct on the 18th. The names of the members were available.
Once officers arrived on the scene, Malarie and Kate said the organization ordered them to leave the cabin with their hands up. After persuading the officers that they were unarmed, they returned to the cabin and treated the director’s injuries.
The women said the director had a giant swelling in his head and Kate said he looked disoriented. When one of the officers asked if he needed medical attention, the director said he didn’t know and, according to Malarie and Kate, the officer radioed that the director had refused to receive help. doctor.
The principal told the assistant that he was not refusing to receive help. According to Kate, the assistant told the director to “make up his mind,” and when he, despite everything, said he was looking for help, Malarie and Kate said the assistant had announced on the radio that the director had replaced his mind.
Malarie’s mother, Becky, came from Aurora after her daughter called while the incident was still going on. The three said the MPs made jokes while interacting with the students and did not take their statements at the time. They said MPs asked if students can only make official statements the next day, as they did not have the mandatory documents with them at the time.
“It looked like I was being trained at the time, like I’ve never experienced anything like it before,” Kate said of the officer who sought medical assistance via radio. “They just didn’t take it seriously. “
“The police just indifferent, like it’s not a big deal,” Becky said.
Malarie and Kate said police advised the students to stay in the cabin that night. Malarie, his mom and the power force also said police told them they didn’t need to arrest Jon that night because they were afraid of causing a domestic violence incident between Jon and his wife, and that they also didn’t stop the other neighbor. .
“They said they didn’t need to start anything in the dark when there were only the two women,” Malarie said. His mother said the MPs “seemed to be scared, and that’s why they didn’t do anything. “
Instead of staying in the cabin, the organization left and Malarie and her mother took the director to the hospital, where medical staff said he may have suffered a concussion. The manager’s car left in the cabin.
The next day, Malarie and her mother were part of an organization that returned to the cabin to retrieve the car and photographic equipment. They were accompanied by the sheriff’s deputy, who met with them at Loaf ‘N Jug in Bailey. They said the aide warned them not to take more than 30 minutes to retrieve the car and other forgotten parts.
In the cabin, they said they also spoke on the phone with the sheriff, who promised that Jon’s fees would come with an improvement in hate crimes. Jon had not yet been arrested at the time.
“We were amazed,” said Malarie. Me stayed, and our friend stayed, and we’re white, and [Jon] didn’t tell us anything. “
“I don’t want other people to be locked up for life, but I don’t know how I feel,” the driver later said. “I just don’t understand what the protocol should look like. “
Reports of violent and prejudiced crime are not the first to rock rural Bailey. Last year, the FBI announced it was investigating the murder of 17-year-old Maggie Long, a daughter of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants, as a hate crime.
Long was killed at his home in Bailey in 2017 after police said several assailants broke into his home, stole guns and other property, tied up the teenager and set her on fire.
The Park County Sheriff’s Office has also been criticized for its handling of the Long case: The circle of relatives and friends of the slain teen told Colorado Public Radio earlier this year that the office asked them not to speak to the media or in public for a week. after the fire and did not publicly disclose suspicious information for several weeks, by which time the suspects could have fled.
No arrests have been announced in connection with the murder, though attention to Long’s death as an imaginable hate crime has been accompanied by more resources, as well as the involvement of the FBI and state police.
McGraw said he thought the two cases “had nothing to do with each other. “Dick Elsner, chairman of the Park County Board of Commissioners, said the two cases also did not indicate a broader trend of prejudice in bailey’s unincorporated community.
“My feeling is that those are remote incidents,” he said. “I would hate to think that we have those disorders in our branch or in the network itself. Is it racist? But I don’t think it’s bigger than anywhere else in Colorado.
“This kind of thing has no position here,” he added.
Data released by the U. S. Department of JusticeThe number of hate crimes in Colorado by race, ethnicity or ancestry increased from 78 in 2018 to 184 in 2020. The total number of hate crimes increased from 123 to 283.
The Park County Sheriff’s Office reported a hate crime to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in 2021: an asset damage case involving bias against blacks. The workplace had reported in the past one hate crime in 2020, two in 2019 and none in 2018.
Debbie Stafford, a former Colorado House speaker who is also Malarie’s grandmother and owner of the Bailey cabin, is primarily responsible for charging the March 18 incident as a hate crime.
Debbie said she passed information about the case to the FBI and an agent tasked with reviewing it. Vikki Migoya, director of public affairs for the FBI’s Denver Field Office, said the firm cannot verify or deny its involvement in the case.
While Debbie said citizens in the Harris Park community were very concerned about what happened, some criticized her on social media after she posted an article about it through Westword in a local Facebook group.
Debbie said she believes Jon and the other resident are newer to the area. Although he said his relations with his neighbors had been “cordial,” after the incident involving his granddaughter, he added, “I think they think they own everything around them. “”
“My kids are afraid to come and cut me off,” she said. To think he’s angry with one of my grandchildren. . . If you pick us up here. . . It’s pretty scary. “
Jon Spencer and his attorney, Kylie Whitaker, practically made the impression in the courtroom of Park County Court Judge Brian Green for a pretrial meeting on April 26. Advocating for advertising restrictions ahead of a possible trial, Whitaker criticized the sheriff’s office for its Facebook on the case, which was later dropped.
“He’s wrong about some of the facts of the case, and I’m not exaggerating,” Whitaker said. disseminate this or the article to others, Array . . I wonder if my consumer can even get a fair trial right now in Park County.
He also criticized an earlier article about the case published through Westword, saying it was “very derogatory. “After 11th Judicial District District Attorney Linda Stanley said she agreed that a possible trial would be “fair to all parties,” Green ordered lawyers to restrict the sharing of data about the case with the media and the public.
He also ordered Jon to have no contact with the five scholars and to possess firearms, alcohol, or illegal drugs. When asked if he had understood the order, Jon replied, “Yes, sir. “
At the same time, academics and their supporters held a demonstration in front of the Fairplay courthouse. Debbie was there with a handful of supporters.
They returned to Loaf ‘N Jug at Bailey on May 1, where Debbie said about two dozen more people joined together to hold the posters and show them to students. He said the reception was quite positive, with many other people honking and waving.
Jon’s next hearing date is May 24. As the wheels of justice have begun to turn, academics and their families say they are still waiting for Jon’s neighbor to be charged in connection with the incident and for an improvement in bias-motivated crimes to be included. . among the fees opposed to Jon.
Malarie, Kate and the driving force said they were still dealing with the violent encounter they said had made them worry about their lives and those of their friends.
“I go back to betting in my head, like, ‘Maybe if we had done that, it wouldn’t have happened,'” Kate said. “We’re slowly starting to realize that we couldn’t have done anything different. “
As for the driver, who was the target of racist language used on March 18, she said she has been feeling anxious behind the wheel since March because Jon knows her vehicle. She also struggled with emotions of anger and vulnerability after not being able to avoid the two men attacking her friend.
“It’s as if, every day, I relive it. Today is the day my friend is beaten,” he said. They were looking to kill my friend. I sought to help, but I didn’t need to harm anyone.
“I’m just looking to move on, but it’s like I’m continuing. “