![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/TDP-L-LAS-ANIMAS-218.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTwo Las Animas County sheriff’s deputies who shocked a handcuffed man with a Taser as he tried to watch a traffic stop were fired in late August after an independent investigation found they had no legal basis to detain the man, used excessive force and wrote false reports, according to a report made public Monday.<\/p>\n
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The 69-page internal affairs report also recommends local authorities pursue a criminal investigation into the actions of Lt. Henry Trujillo and Deputy Mikhail Noel during the November 2022 incident.<\/p>\n
The two deputies shocked Kenneth Espinoza with Tasers even though he had committed no crime, was unarmed and, at one point, handcuffed, body-worn camera footage shows.<\/p>\n
Both men were fired Aug. 25, Las Animas County sheriff’s Lt. Phil Martin confirmed Monday. Third Judicial District Attorney Henry Solano said Monday his office is reviewing the case to determine whether the deputies should face criminal charges.<\/p>\n
“We have received the report, and the matter is under investigation,” he said.<\/p>\n
Las Animas County Sheriff Derek Navarette asked the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office to conduct an internal affairs investigation into the incident months after it happened, inviting the independent investigation only after Espinoza publicly released body-worn camera footage of the incident and announced a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office.<\/p>\n
Espinoza’s attorney, Kevin Mehr, made the Pueblo County sheriff’s internal affairs report public Monday, a few days after Espinoza received a copy.<\/p>\n
“This is the first correct step that Las Animas has taken here,” Mehr said of the firings. “It shouldn\u2019t have taken this long. The unfortunate reality of this is that my client had to sue them to make this happen…They didn’t do anything about it until they were sued.”<\/p>\n
Undersheriff Reynaldo Santistevan initially approved the deputies’ use of force in the incident without reviewing the body-worn camera footage, he wrote in an Aug. 10 letter to Navarette in which he recommended the pair be fired.<\/p>\n
“I simply went off the reports and verbal comments made to me by Lt. Trujillo and Dep. Noel,” he wrote. “In hindsight, I now see this was wrong and should have reviewed all documents and watched all body camera videos before approving this use of force.”<\/p>\n
Weeks after signing off on the use of force, Santistevan did watch the body-worn camera footage at the urging of a colleague, he wrote, and immediately realized the deputies made “many errors.” However, he did not launch an internal affairs investigation because of a pending criminal case against Espinoza.<\/p>\n
“This was the second mistake on my part during this matter,” he wrote in the letter. All charges against Espinoza were later dropped.<\/p>\n
Mehr said the initial failure to thoroughly investigate the deputies’ actions is troubling.<\/p>\n
“There are probably a hundred more uses of force that they need to re-review,” Mehr said. “Who knows what else is out there, what else got rubber-stamped?”<\/p>\n
Trujillo and Noel could not be reached for comment Monday. An attorney representing the men in the lawsuit did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The Nov. 29 incident began when Noel pulled over Espinoza’s son for following Noel’s patrol vehicle too closely. Espinoza had been driving behind his son because they were headed to the same destination. When his son was pulled over, Espinoza also stopped. He pulled over several feet behind the deputy who was making the traffic stop and watched from a distance.<\/p>\n
When Trujillo arrived on the scene, however, he ordered Espinoza to leave. Espinoza explained that his son had been pulled over and refused to leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t need to do anything, I\u2019m on a public street,\u201d Espinoza said, body camera footage of the incident shows.<\/p>\n