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Sheriff's Office focus: stop crime
Jim Alderden


The Larimer County Sheriff's Office has come under criticism by community activists for arresting illegal aliens. While we aggressively pursue criminal illegal immigrants, some outrageous and unsubstantiated claims have been made. The public has a right to know what steps the Sheriff's Office has taken to address the problems associated with criminal illegal immigrants.

Fuerza Latina has had organizational meetings to "fight the attack of the sheriff." They have distributed e-mails titled "Larimer County sheriff on rampage" and claimed that we are "arresting witnesses and victims of crimes" who "have not violated any criminal law statutes." Examples were cited, which if true, would be a concern. I have requested the names of the individuals allegedly arrested so we could research the claims and take corrective actions. However, these requests have been met with silence, which causes me to question the accuracy of the claims.

Letters to the editor have also made allegations of "racial profiling" and using "excuses like burned-out license plate lights to stop brown-skinned people." Others have described such stops as "frivolous" and a waste of taxpayers' dollars. They argue that we should concentrate on "real crime" and spend "less time worrying about people's immigration status and more time looking for people who engage in serious crimes."

The Larimer County Sheriff's Office does not engage in racial profiling. I would challenge any of the readers to follow a vehicle on a dark county road or U.S. Highway 287 at night and identify the race of the driver. Neither do we arrest offenders based on their color or immigration status. Anyone driving drunk or without a valid license can expect to be arrested. Stopping defective vehicles is a legitimate law enforcement tool. Usually, such stops result in a verbal warning and the gratitude of the driver who wasn't aware of the defect. However, many of these stops uncover drivers who are wanted on criminal warrants or are driving under suspension. These drivers do pose a risk to public safety.

Fuerza Latina has also objected to a pilot program that went into effect on May 22 of this year. Since that time, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE), has been coming into the jail five days a week and conducting interviews with all foreign-born inmates to determine their immigration status. Prior to that time, it did little good to notify ICE of suspected illegal detainees. ICE had only removed three illegal immigrants from our jail between Jan. 1 to May 21, 2006. Since then, ICE has removed 47 criminal illegal immigrants from our jail, and six more have been transferred to other jails. Currently, we have 34 inmates with ICE holds on them.

The inmates with ICE holds are not the innocent undocumented workers the activists would have you believe. Many of them have half a dozen serious local charges. Analyzing only the most serious offense on each detainee, we found 16 with misdemeanor offenses and 18 with felonies. The misdemeanor offenses are further broken down as:

DUI: 6; DUS/DUR: 1; escape: 1; child abuse: 2; harassment: 3; assault-domestic violence: 3.

The felonies are: identity theft: 2; criminal impersonation: 1; drugs/narcotics: 6; forgery: 1; menacing with a weapon: 2; burglary: 1; intro of contraband: 1; theft: 2; sexual assault: 1; sex assault of child: 1.

The illegal immigrants we are incarcerating are criminals who pose a threat to the safety of our citizens. The Sheriff's Office will continue to aggressively pursue these offenders and assure their removal from our community.

Jim Alderden is the sheriff of Larimer County