Nearly all the copies of a small-town Colorado newspaper were stolen from newspaper racks on the same day the Ouray County Plaindealer published an article about charges being filed over rapes alleged to have occurred at an underage drinking party at the police chief's house while the chief was asleep, the owner and publisher said Friday. Mike Wiggins vowed to get to the bottom of it, the AP reports, posting Thursday on X: "If you hoped to silence or intimidate us, you failed miserably. We'll find out who did this. And another press run is imminent."
The newspaper posted the story on social media and removed its website paywall so people could read about the felony sexual assault charges filed against three men, including a relative of the police chief, after a May 2023 party in Ouray where drugs and alcohol were used, according to court records. The suspects were ages 17, 18, and 19 at the time, and the person who reported the rapes was 17, records said. By Thursday evening, someone had returned a garbage bag full of newspapers to the Plaindealer, and supporters had donated about $2,000 to the paper, something Wiggins called "extremely heartening and humbling."
Police identified a suspect who will be cited for the theft, the Ouray County Sheriff's Office said in a statement posted on social media Friday. "The suspect is not a member or relative of local law enforcement and not associated with the defendants in the recent reported sexual assault," the statement said, adding that the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is investigating the sexual assault. About 250 newspapers filled the racks Friday morning in Ouray County, a mountainous area in southwestern Colorado, per the AP. The Plaindealer is delivered to racks late Wednesday. The thief missed a rack at a coffee shop, so about 200 papers were stolen, said Wiggins.
(More
Colorado stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
