Carbondale Police Department clarifies information during community meeting about weekend sexual assault
Glenwood Springs Post Independent
Carbondale Police Department held a community meeting on Monday after a sexual assault was reported on Saturday night.
During the community meeting at the Old Thompson Barn in Carbondale, Police Chief Kirk Wilson said they would give as much information as they could about the suspect, listing the description as a male in his 30s, wearing a black hoodie.
Any other information about the suspect, Wilson said, is false, and he asked the public to please stop spreading rumors about the race of the suspect, as they have no information whether to confirm or deny anything else about them.
“This is not a political thing,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of people making it political online … when people are posting this misinformation, there is a human being that went through a horrific, traumatic event, that is reading everything, that everyone in this community, and agitators outside the community, are posting.”
He also dispelled misinformation about whether there was a kidnapping involved.
“This was not a 48-hour incident,” he said. “The time frame is roughly 30 minutes to an hour, give or take, based on her (the victim’s) recollection.”
Wilson stated that they are looking for that person under the charge of sexual assault, and he clarified that more charges will be tacked on to this person’s arrest afterward.
Some people in the crowd asked why law enforcement didn’t come to the neighbors of the victim to tell them about what had happened for their own security.
“We have two officers working at any given time,” Wilson said. “We had a person transported to a medical facility; an officer had to go with. That allowed one officer to remain and collect evidence at the location before that evidence was lost. Our first and primary responsibility is to preserve the scene, so that we can hopefully end up with a successful prosecution in the future.”
He said that additional officers came in to assist with gathering evidence, but that the department has a total of 18 people and 15 sworn officers.
Another question asked was about why more information couldn’t be shared about the incident.
“As a practice, the police department does not share with the public information about sexual assault,” Wilson said. “That’s to protect several things: Number one, is the victim. There is a victim … if we post all information about the case, just so people feel better about what’s going on, if someone comes in and says they’re the person that did this, and they’re not, that makes it very difficult for us.”
Some in the crowd were curious about whether the police had the DNA of the suspect.
“We can collect DNA evidence. Unless that person is in CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) as a DNA hit, as in they have DNA in the system, even the DNA evidence we collected that night will be inconclusive as far as identifying a person,” said Lt. William (Bill) Kirkland. “We did collect DNA evidence; it’s being sent to a lab to be tested, but unless that person the DNA belongs to is in the system, … it doesn’t just create a person and tell us who that is.”
Still, others wanted to know how they knew this sexual assault wasn’t an isolated incident and how the police were going to protect them.
“Do we know it’s an ongoing threat? No,” Kirkland said. “We don’t have any way to say that it isn’t, and we don’t have a way to say that it is.”
He said he’d love to put a police officer with everyone in the room to help people feel safe, but it wasn’t practical, and they can’t.
“The safety of the community is a shared responsibility,” he said. “We need to keep each other safe. The police department can’t do it for everyone … do we think it would behoove people to lock their doors and windows? Yes.”
Kirkland said he understood that it’s Carbondale: People don’t feel that’s something they want to do, but that maybe it’s time things change as the community changes.
Wilson said that adults can carry pepper spray, meaning anyone 18 and older, however minors might not be able to, especially on school campuses.
“It’s not that we don’t want to give you information. The information we’re giving you is the information we have,” said Kirkland. “People that are victims of a crime, especially a crime like this, are going through a very traumatic experience. It may take time for her to recall that information.”
He stated that they spoke to the victim after arriving on scene to get this information and are remaining in contact with her.
“The information we have is what she was able to give us in that moment,” he said.
The police department will have updates for the public on the town of Carbondale website and people can sign up for alerts at carbondalegov.org.
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