PUEBLO COUNTY — You may have seen a video circulating on social media appearing to show a Pueblo County Sheriff's Deputy showing off a button that says "Blue Klux Klan" on it.
The video quickly went viral and led to numerous calls for the Pueblo County Sheriff's Deputy to be fired.
But there's more to the story.
News 5 obtained body camera video which shows the deputy was handed the derogatory button by a protester at a rally over Pueblo's Christopher Columbus statue. The 14-minute body camera video gives us the full context which shows the woman giving him the button and another woman recording the deputy holding the button, then leaving.
The video goes on to show what the social media post didn't- the deputy saying he doesn't like or agree with the pin and then he tossed it in the trash.
Here’s how it started. The deputy was standing near the protest when a woman approaches him.
“Who wants one… don’t jump in at once,” the woman said as she approached the deputies.
The woman hands deputies several buttons with anti-police phrases on them.
“You get this one,” she said.
“Why do I get that one,” the deputy replied.
Then, she begins to insult them.
“Police lives don’t matter… just kidding,” she said.
Moments later, a woman just of screen shows up equipped with a camera. It’s here where the video posted to Twitter begins.
“Can we see yours? Look at his,” the women say. “Oh… Oh I want that… Put it in your pocket for later… he’s putting his in his pocket for his fridge.”
And it’s at this point the viral video cuts off. But the body camera kept rolling.
“His is this one. His is this one right here,” said the woman who handed them the pins, while showing the “Blue Klux Klan” button to the other woman’s camera.
After some more back and forth, the woman with the camera walks away. But the woman who gave out the buttons sticks around for several more minutes.
“See I told you it was getting boring I needed to start some [expletive],” said the woman who handed them the pins.
She continues to express her dislike for both the sheriff’s office and Pueblo Police.
“So you don’t like any of the PD guys,” a Pueblo Police officer asked the woman.
“Or S.O. … they’re all pigs,” the woman replied.
As the conversation continues, the deputy who was handed the “Blue Klux Klan pin” expresses his feelings about it.
“I don’t like my pin,” he said.
“You don’t like your pin,” an officer asks him.
“No… I don’t like it at all,” the deputy replied.
The woman hangs around for another few minutes until the deputies disperse.
At that point, you can hear the deputy trying to figure out what to do with the pin.
“What do I do with this pin now,” the deputy said. “…Write a report?”
“Throw it away,” another deputy responded.
He then walks over to a trash can and tosses the pin inside.
“It’s completely out of context, it was a complete setup from the start,” Pueblo County Sheriff Kirk Taylor told News5.
He said the deputy did nothing wrong.
“I spent the better time of yesterday afternoon and again this morning answering some emails that were calling for the firing of this deputy and accusing my office of being racist because of this doctored video,” Taylor said.
But it’s not over yet. After the video started going viral, the sheriff’s office got a phone call. News5 obtained a recording of that call.
“There is a video of a few deputies that has surfaced. I am the other party in that video,” the caller said.
The caller identifies herself as the woman who handed out the pins.
Eventually, she is connected with the deputy whose body cam video recorded the encounter. She offers her own account of the video we just showed.
“The way that the female put it out there is… she asked you if you were part of the KKK,” the woman told the deputy. “And you all laughed, and at that point you showed the button.”
She tells him she didn’t mean for it to be perceived the way it was, while still letting him know her feelings about police.
“I didn’t know it was going to be used for the purpose it is being used,” she told the deputy. “I don’t like the lies that are being put out about the whole situation that took place. I don’t like the way that this female kind of threw you guys out there. I do… I hate the department I hate the police department, hate the sheriff’s department, I don’t like you guys, but I do respect those of you that I do know.”
News5 spoke to the woman who handed the deputies the pins off camera Wednesday. She reiterated what she said to the deputy in the phone call. She told us she is upset someone shared the video out of context, and wants to make sure the deputies seen in the video do not get in any trouble.
