Immunity Denied.
The Case Moves Forward.
In September 2023, Tanner Sholes was walking through Craig, Colorado. Officers received a report of a man carrying a rifle. Over ninety minutes, Sholes never threatened anyone with the weapon. He raised his hands. He was walking away — not running.
Then Undersheriff Nate Businger accelerated a department SUV — equipped with large metal push bars — toward Sholes at an estimated 20 to 30 miles per hour. Sholes was thrown into the air and landed in a ditch. The weapon was a BB gun. Officers transported Sholes to jail despite his cries of pain. His injuries went untreated.
Documented injuries: complete ACL rupture, complex tears of both the lateral and medial meniscus, Grade 1 MCL injury, rotator cuff tendinopathy, partial bicep tendon tear.
Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak ruled April 7, 2025 that the situation did not justify the use of deadly force. Excessive force claims under federal and state law were allowed to proceed. The officers appealed on qualified immunity grounds. On June 25, 2026, the Tenth Circuit dismissed that appeal as moot. The case is moving to discovery.
"Over the course of approximately one and one half hours, Plaintiff never threatened anybody with the weapon. He did not stop as ordered, but he did raise his hands. He was walking away as opposed to running."Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak · April 7, 2025
▽ Case Record · Sholes v. City of Craig ▽
The Craig Curse
The Yampa Valley was Ute territory. The White River Ute people lived, hunted, and governed themselves across the land that is now Moffat County for generations before the first settler arrived. In 1879, their forced removal from the entire Yampa and White River valley began. They were marched to Utah. Their land was opened to settlement. Their presence was erased from the official record.
What the Ludlow Massacre was to the coal camps of southern Colorado — institutional violence, followed by erasure, followed by silence — the dispossession of the Ute was to this valley. The pattern is the same. Power acts. Power conceals. Power holds.
The Craig Curse is not superstition. It is memory. It is the land holding what the record will not. And it is the reason the same institutional reflex keeps expressing itself here, generation after generation: sealed trusts in back rooms, officers ramming citizens, public comment restricted to 90 seconds, records requests deflected with forms, budgets shifted in the dark.
The curse is not on Craig. The curse is on what Craig's institutions keep choosing to do.
▽ The Gazette Is Looking ▽
Moffat County is a community of roughly 13,000 people. In a place this size, every unexplained death is known. Every unresolved case is carried by someone — a family, a neighbor, a friend who stopped getting answers. The Gazette is opening a file on a series of deaths and disappearances in Moffat County that have not been publicly resolved. We are not naming names yet. We are listening. We are building the record. When the evidence is solid, we will publish.
If you have information about an unresolved death or disappearance in Moffat County, contact the Gazette. Every source is protected.
gazette.ticonderoga.online/submit.htmlWater: What Happened After the Meeting
Issue 002 reported that a sealed trust reconvened — not at the Elks Lodge as planned, but in a private room above a Craig storefront. Three of seven beneficiary entities had been unsealed. Ticon Recon was watching the door.
The remaining four entities are still sealed. The trust has not publicly disclosed its beneficiaries, its assets, or its purpose. The Gazette's CORA request to the City of Craig targets civil case records that may illuminate the trust's relationship to ongoing litigation.
Water rights in northwest Colorado are not abstract. They are the ground beneath every other fight in this valley. When a sealed trust reconvenes in a back room, the question is always: what are they deciding about the water, and who was not invited?
The Dangerous Dog Registry: What Is Moffat County Hiding?
Resolution No. 2024-30 established a Dangerous Dog Registry in Moffat County. The Gazette has filed a CORA request for every registered animal, every incident report, and every enforcement action since the resolution passed. The Sheriff's Office redirected to a portal. The Gazette cited statute. The clock is running.
History Museum
3.5 Miles East · Free Admission
Donations Welcome
(970) 824-6346
Blacksmith Shop · Historic Collections
Junior the Bull Elk
As Seen on History Channel
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Data Hubs Go Live:
The Minting Layer
Ticonderoga Systems Holdings is activating octal storage minting across three geographic hub nodes. Craig, Hayden, and Walsenburg each function as independent minting points within the BEANS network.
Under the TEAKWOOD Protocol, every data event written to a hub node generates a cryptographic hash — a permanent, unalterable record of when the data was created, what it contained, and which node produced it. The Gazette's CORA filings were the first civic records entered into this system.
▽ Hub Network · Status ▽
Serving Moffat County & Regional Facilities