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