Hours after a small newspaper in the Colorado Rockies published a story about the alleged violent sexual assault of a teenage girl at a police chief’s house, hundreds of copies were stolen out of nearly every newspaper rack across the county, the publishers say.
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The front-page story in the Ouray County Plaindealer, written by co-publisher Erin McIntyre, broke the news that three teenagers were arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl multiple times during a late-night party at the home of Ouray Police Chief Jeff Wood.
“Someone didn’t like this edition of the (Plaindealer,)” co-publisher Mike Wiggins wrote on X Thursday. “Guess which article. So they stole nearly every newspaper out of our racks in Ouray County. If you hoped to silence or intimidate us, you failed miserably. We’ll find out who did this. And another press run is imminent.”
Three young men were arrested on suspicion of sexual assault, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said. At the time of the assault, in May, they were 19, 18 and 17.
According to the Plaindealer, the girl told investigators she was raped at least three times after passing out at the party. She screamed and fought back while people, including Wood, were asleep in the home.
In a newsletter published Thursday night, McIntyre said that from Wednesday night to Thursday morning someone emptied all but one of the Plaindealer’s racks across the county, a 540-square-mile expanse in the mountains of southwest Colorado.
“From what we know so far, it seems this person put in four quarters and took all the papers at these racks,” McIntyre wrote. “It’s pretty clear that someone didn’t want the community to read the news this week.”
McIntyre and Wiggins arranged for another run of the weekly paper to be printed on Thursday night.
