NAACP says new video of the Yoder ranchers and El Paso County Sheriff’s Office still doesn’t tell the whole story

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office released more body cam footage of their interactions with the Yoder ranching couple, but so far the only video available is from cases where Courtney and Nicole Mallery are the alleged suspects.

Since 2021, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office has investigated more than 170 calls regarding the Mallery’s. But the ranchers claim their neighbors and law enforcement are racially attacking them.

During a press conference in February, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said the racist claims were false and showed, through body cam footage and photos, its first interaction with the Mallerys in 2021.

One video, filmed by a process server trying to deliver legal documents to the Mallerys, shows Nicole chasing him off her land with a gun. In the footage, there is a subtle sound as the process server is running away. The Sheriff's Office claims the sound is a gunshot.

About four days later, the El Paso County SWAT unit executed a search and arrest warrant at the ranch. While Nicole was in custody, the video shows her kicking and biting an officer. In the body cam footage, she claims her arm was broken during the altercation. The sheriff's office said she denied medical attention at the scene but was later taken to the hospital.

The Rocky Mountain National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Mallery’s lawyers said the press conference only showed a sliver of the whole story and asked for the sheriff’s office to release more documents and video.

This week, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office did just that. It is in the process of releasing 96 videos and more than 38 hours of footage and case reports. But Portia Prescott, the president of the Rocky Mountain NAACP, said it’s still not enough.

“All the additional things that they've released is just trying to cover up the fact that they are an incompetent sheriff's department, which they clearly are,” Prescott said.

The only body cam footage available, as of this story, is for case reports where the Mallerys are alleged suspects. However, there are still reports for the cases where body cam footage hasn’t been uploaded yet.

Prescott said what’s been released is an unfair depiction of Nicole.

“We as Black women across America always get stigmatized as angry Black women because our voices are never heard,” Prescott said. “It’s not like we can be docile about the things that we need — our protection or our safety.”

Nearly two-thirds of the case reports and body cam footage released by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office were incidents reported by Nicole Mallery. Most of these cases were about trespassing.

One instance in August 2021, a father and son stopped on a public road outside of the Mallery’s property to look at a snake, according to police reports. The Mallerys pulled up in their truck and told the two to get off of their land while calling 911. Nicole then pulled a gun from the back of the truck and loaded it in the passenger seat. The father and son left the area.

March of 2022 is when most of the reports began to center on a dispute between the Mallerys and a neighbor. Both called law enforcement at least 40 times, stating the other was violating a protection order.

The most recent case released by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office is from Jan. 9. Body cam video shows at least five sheep lying on the ground. The Mallery’s neighbor, Teresa Clark, claims they were poisoned by the couple.

Prescott said the sheriff’s office is “incompetent” for listening to the claims of Clark.

“(The Mallery’s) should not have to invest thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars into lawyers to defend themselves against five felony charges because of one human being,” Prescott said. “The only thing you are going to get, no matter how much footage they drop, is it came from one human being.”

Prescott went on to say this situation would be different if it was two black neighbors.

“Let's just talk about this being two black neighbors,” she said. “This would not be national news. The police would have shut it down a long time ago. They would have not taken this much interest in it and they would have not chosen sides.”

The NAACP called on the sheriff to drop all charges against the Mallerys and to start a community outreach position so a dispute like this doesn’t happen again.

El Paso County Sheriff Joe Roybal declined to comment about the new videos.

To view the released case reports and videos, click here.

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