Five sheriff’s deputies in Colorado have been reprimanded over the use of an encrypted group chat with state, local and federal employees that violated state law. One of those deputies is also being sued by the state attorney general.
The consequences follow the conclusion of an internal investigation into the involvement of the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) in the high-profile detainment of Caroline Dias-Goncalves, a 19-year-old college student, in June. It found that the members of the group chat, which was on an encrypted messaging app called Signal, utilized it to collaborate on immigration-related arrests.
Immigration officers arrested and detained Dias-Goncalves after a sheriff’s deputy pulled her over during a brief traffic stop in June. The deputy provided the members of the chat with a picture of her driver’s license, a description of her vehicle and information about which direction she was heading prior to immigration officers pulling her over and detaining her moments after.
Several MCSO deputies were in the group chat with federal employees — including those who worked for Homeland Security Investigations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Drug Enforcement Agency. The chat also included Colorado State Patrol and a few other local law enforcement agencies.
