TLDR: If you have a complaint with Chaffee County law enforcement, call the number below and ask to speak to a supervisor. Make sure you mention the abusive cop by name. They are required to file all complaints against officers and review the information:
(719) 539 2596
Hello, Eric here. Some of you know me as an organizer for the Weirdo Swarm in Colorado. I go by fischersfamousmedia on Instagram.
Night 3 of FoV, I was stopped and harassed by a police officer named J Camp. He noticed I had a balloon in my hand and assumed I was consuming drugs. After he barrated me to come over, he was upset that the balloon he saw was now empty. He yelled at me and asked what was in the balloon - to which I replied, "nothing". he did not like that answer and yelled at me to step over to another area. I was surrounded by about 5-8 police officers as J Camp used his phone to try to look up charges to cite me with. I watched him fumble around a search bar on his phone as he tried to drum up charges.
After some more verbal harassment and escalating tones, he charged me with Toxic Vapors Abusing - which was completely bogus, as they have no way to prove what was in the balloon at the time. This experience completely ruined my night and scared the hell out of me. I had never been verbally harassed by a police officer in my life before. It was completely traumatizing and messed up.
Fast forward to yesterday, which was my court date, located 3 hours away from my home. I had to take off work and drive a grueling 6 hours total (in the pouring rain) to get there and back to deal with this charge. To my surprise, all the other names in the courtroom got called but me. Apparently, the judge did not have my case on file. When I presented my citation, they informed me that MY CHARGE HAD BEEN DROPPED OVER A WEEK AGO BY THE DA. This information would have been great to know before I drove all the way into the mountains and had to take a day off work. I was a mix of relieved and upset at the outcome. After getting dismissed, I went to the Sheriff's office to file my complaint in person.
The competence of the Chaffee County court system and law enforcement is severely lacking. I am still waiting for the mail notification that my case was dropped and I plan on filing another complaint with the Court for not informing me between when my case was dropped and my court date.
They cannot get away with this, and we must keep the pressure on. The Sheriff's plan to rob the festival-goers backfired tremendously. Every charge I have seen was either dropped or reduced to a very minimal fine. The Sheriff's actions are clogging the Chaffee County courts, and now the administrations have to deal with a rising mountain of complaints against officers.
Here is where my call to action resides. If you believe that you have a legitimate complaint to file against the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office, please call the number in this post and ask to speak to a supervisor. All complaints are filed and the sitting commander MUST REVIEW THE BODY CAM FOOTAGE. The time and bandwidth spent on these complaint reviews is a very small morsel of justice for the pain and harassment this Sheriff's office put upon our community. Do not send fraudulent complaints.
If FoV III is going to be at Meadow Creek, we need to continue fighting for justice if we are to expect any change. Be loud, be mad, make your voices heard. File complaints and follow up if they do not get back to you. Be the driving force to illustrate to the Sheriff's Office that what they did was wrong, and now they have to deal with the consequences.
Image is one Bob took of me literally right before officer J Camp began harassing me.
Love you guys