Veteran unlawfully arrested by the Sheriff’s Office has 14 charges dropped by District Attorney: Former publisher of Sangre de Cristo Sentinel charged with misdemeanor for his actions

As the Tribune reported last year, evidence from a scene on June 14, 2025 outside the former office of the Sangre de Cristo Sentinel newspaper showed a group of armed protesters bringing a Jeep driven by local veteran Brett Tuthill to a standstill on the highway. As the jeep came to a stop, former Sentinel’s Vice-President, Fred Hernandez, attempted a physical confrontation with Tuthill, yelling threats and opening the passenger side of the jeep.

According to a court Motion to Suppress filed by Tuthill’s attorney, Tim Lindstrom, on January 30, the Custer County Sheriff’s Office had no probable cause to arrest Tuthill and asked the court to suppress the warrantless arrest and all the evidence gained by the Sheriff’s department from that unlawful arrest.

According to Tuthill’s statement and video evidence from the scene, “While (Tuthill) stopped at an intersection proximate to the demonstrators, one of those demonstrators present, Mr. Frederico Hernandez, approached Mr. Tuthill’s vehicle and attempted to initiate a physical confrontation, opening his passenger side door without consent or good cause. Reasonably in fear for his safety and life, Mr. Tuthill racked the slide of a lawfully possessed firearm, a Glock 23, open carried in his vehicle. Mr. Tuthill did not point the weapon at anyone present at the demonstration, nor out the window. Mr. Tuthill putting the weapon in battery, without aiming or discharging the weapon, was proportionate and sufficient to discourage Mr. Hernandez from further contact, as he immediately closed the door and walked away with no escalation from either party.”

After Tuthill drove away County Coroner Brad Baltzly, who was part of the armed group on the highway, used his handheld county radio to alert Custer County deputies of Tuthill’s direction of travel. However, this key radio call was never provided to Tuthill as part of evidence discovery, and it was the only evidence that four Custer County Sheriff’s Deputies had to work off of when they arrested Tuthill with guns drawn. They never had probable cause to stop, arrest, and search Tuthill’s car.

As Tuthill’s motion states, “Given that probable cause sufficient to stop and arrest Mr. Tuthill was never established, the stop and arrest were unlawful.”

Further, evidence from witnesses showed clearly that Tuthill never pulled a gun on the crowd when Hernandez opened his Jeep door. Further, evidence shows several people stating in the moment that Hernandez did open the door but “shouldn’t have done that.” Yet despite the overwhelming evidence that Tuthill had acted in self-defense and had not pointed his gun at the crowd, Deputy Lane Abercrombie submitted a probable cause arrest affidavit completely omitting that Hernandez had tried to enter Tuthill’s Jeep (Deputy Abercrombie is no longer employed as a law enforcement officer and states he is furthering his education).

Tuthill was held in jail for three days and suffered a fall and a cut in jail that required transport to a regional hospital for treatment.

The Sangre de Cristo Sentinel printed a multiple-page article after the event, falsely claiming that Tuthill had repeatedly driven by the crowd, brandishing a firearm, and was trying to target a woman in the crowd. The article completely omitted that it was Hernandez who tried to start a physical confrontation with Tuthill on the highway.

In April, a hearing on the Motion to Suppress was scheduled, but after the District Attorney, Jeff Lindsey, reviewed the motion and the evidence, he decided to drop all charges, including four felony menacing and 10 harassment charges, against Tuthill. He also charged Hernandez with a vehicular tampering misdemeanor.

A deal was reached under which Tuthill pled guilty to one petty count of disrupting a lawful gathering, with a six-month deferred sentence. Hernandez accepted a deal under which he is required to donate $120 to a non-profit to have the charge against him dismissed.

The Custer County Sheriff’s Office released a strongly worded press release at the time of the arrest, “Custer County deputies arrest gunman wearing body armor at Flag Day Rally.” Public outrage spilled out of this post across the community and the state when news stations picked up the story from the post, as people falsely claimed that Tuthill was a radical leftist who had been hired by liberals to threaten conservatives in the Wet Mountain Valley.

Local residents who had taken part in an earlier “No Kings” march were ridiculed and blamed in the comment section of the Sheriff’s Facebook post, with false claims that they were all hired agitators bringing gunmen into the county. The Sheriff’s Office has turned off comments on the post since that time.

While Tuthill’s obvious innocence from the false claims made against him has been finalized by the court, the damage to Tuthill has cost him: from the nearly $20,000 in attorney’s fees to defend against the wrongful arrest, to the public smearing of his reputation by the Sheriff’s Office’s biased Facebook press release, and the further lies published about him by the former Sangre de Cristo Sentinel newspaper.

Tuthill’s experience shows how costly the criminal justice system can be for an innocent person when law enforcement does not actively check the facts of a case before submitting the case to the District Attorney for charges.

– Jordan Hedberg