Pueblo Chief of Police Chris Noeller stated, I, for one, am sick of it and our community should be sick of it

Chief Chris Noeller’s comments at today’s press briefing:

“Thank you for being here today. I’d like to start by thanking the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office, Colorado State Patrol, the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, the 10th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, our Partners with the ATF, the FBI, and DEA and the many, many chiefs of police throughout our state who have reached out to express their support for our officers and our department. You all mean very much to me. If I missed anyone, I didn’t leave you out intentionally.

I would like to thank the outpouring of support from the citizens of Pueblo. I am blessed to serve for such an incredible community.

I want to especially thank the men and women of the Pueblo Police Department, the patrol officers and investigators, the dispatchers and civilian staff, who were working last night and who responded when we sent the call for help. The response was overwhelming, and I am humbled to work with you.

I want to talk to you about the day my officers had yesterday March 18th.

It started at 5am when four officers responded to a domestic violence call in the 3300 block of Azalea. The suspect, Esai Torres, assaulted four of our officers, dislocating the shoulder of one, and spit in our officers and medical staff’s faces. Our officers had to fight with him all the way to the hospital where he received medical treatment prior to being taken to jail, where he currently resides on no bond.

Esai Torres was arrested in January for 1st Degree Assault where he is alleged to have shot a person and was out on $2,500 dollar bond when he assaulted our officers.

A little over twelve hours later, just shortly after 7pm, our officers were looking for Billy Soto who was wanted for attempted murder in relation to a shooting at the Pueblo Village Apartments on February 3, 2025.

Billy Soto was a self-admitted MS-13 gang member who had a criminal history that spans pages. He had 14 felony arrests, most of which were plead to misdemeanors. At the time of the shooting last night, he was out on bond on not one, but three felony cases and as I stated he was wanted on attempted murder charges related to a shooting at an apartment complex on the southside of Pueblo.

Our officers were ambushed and shot by a malicious person who should have been in jail but wasn’t because of our soft on crime legislation and bonds.

He fired an estimated 80 rounds at responding officers who thankfully are in stable condition but have a long road to recovery.

Our officers ended his rampage of terror the only way they could, by shooting him. Unfortunately, he is deceased.

I’d like to just make a few statements about the environment that breeds this type of criminal behavior.

• • • When we refuse as a state to hold low-level criminals accountable, they become emboldened. Violent crime goes up and incidents like this are the result.
    • The broken windows theory of law enforcement worked in New York, it worked in Boston, it worked in LA and many other communities. Instead of holding low level offenders responsible, the State of Colorado has adopted the open windows theory where we hold no one accountable. Our victims suffer, our communities suffer, and our police officers suffer.
    • This year they continue to try to take away any tool we have available to hold criminals accountable and when we find ways around their weak policies, they try to take those options away from us as well.

I, for one, am sick of it and our community should be sick of it. The blood of my officers’ lays at the steps of our capital and the reckless and soft on crime legislation passed out of there and I am tired of the needless violence my officers and our community face because of these policies.

It is not the people in our capital who pay the price for these laws that do nothing but coddle criminals and let them loose back into our community. The individuals voting for and passing this legislation don’t suffer the consequences of their policies.

Instead, it is the people who live in towns like Pueblo, in neighborhoods like the Eastside and Bessemer here in Pueblo and in other cities around our state who suffer.

It is the economically depressed and minority communities who suffer.

It is our officers and law enforcement officials like ours who suffer the endless assaults, shootings, violence, etc. I don’t believe the majority of our citizens support this legislation.

Or do they? Over the past four years the situation for our communities has become increasingly worse. Each year criminals receive breaks while officers lose qualified immunity, are assumed to have committed misconduct solely because a body worn camera isn’t activated as specifically outlined in SB20-217, and our communities suffer under the lawlessness that is pervasive throughout our state.

If they truly cared about our officers and citizens, they would demand that criminals be accountable! Instead, they are released from jails with little or no bond when we can arrest them, serve less than half their sentences in prison or jail when they are sentenced and return to our communities to assault, shoot, and in some cases kill our officers and citizens with impunity.

I will no longer sit idly by and not shout from the mountain about this injustice to my officers!! They deserve better as does my community.

As the Chief of Police, I have a solemn duty to the men and women I work with to bring light to this situation and as a citizen of this State I have a right to demand more from our government.

I would ask our community to continue to pray for our wounded officers and their families. I’d also ask that you pray for our officers who weren’t physically wounded, but who carry the internal scars that come from facing incidents like this.

Thank you. God bless our officers, God bless the Pueblo Police Department, and God bless the City of Pueblo.”