Mail.comBOULDER, Colo. (AP) — In a stately neighborhood of Boulder, a city known as the Berkeley of the Rocky Mountains, a bull elk named “Big Boy” had become a treasured fixture.
When Mapleton residents learned a police officer killed the regal animal last year as it grazed beneath a crabapple tree, they led marches, wrote songs, held prayer vigils and hatched plans for a permanent memorial.
Now jurors must decide whether to convict the former officer on felony charges that could send him to prison. Among the questions they must answer: Did the elk deserve to die, and was there a cover-up?
Sam Carter was charged with attempting to influence a public official, forgery and tampering with evidence after he shot the elk while on duty on a snowy New Year’s Day 2013. Prosecutors say Carter, fascinated with the elk, stalked it for days and sought to mount its head on a wall as a trophy. They said he shut off the GPS in his squad car when he shot the animal, and failed to radio dispatchers his location. Prosecutors said Carter later forged a tag to pass off the dead animal as road kill.
But his attorney, Marc Colin, said the elk had become dangerously domesticated and aggressive, frightening local dogs. The trial opened with debate over whether the elk’s prior “bad conduct” could be used as evidence, and whether jurors familiar with Big Boy could be impartial.
“Sam Carter is not guilty of anything but trying to protect citizens of Boulder from a nuisance elk,” Colin said, as some in the packed courtroom shook their heads. Prosecutors flashed a photo of the elk looking peaceful in a yard, and later showed another picture of a uniformed Carter hovering over the animal’s carcass, grabbing its antlers and smiling.
Prosecutors say Carter called another officer, Brent Curnow, to come cart away the body in his pickup truck, and together they butchered the animal for its meat. Curnow pleaded guilty last year to tampering with evidence and other charges and is expected to testify against Carter.
The officers swapped text messages about “hunting” for “wapiti,” the Shawnee word for elk. The exchanges culminated with a stark message from Carter to Curnow well before Carter’s shift began: “He’s gonna die.”
Nestled against the foothills and home to a Buddhist university, Boulder is known for its love of the outdoors. Its residents routinely rank among the country’s most fit. For many, the trial has reopened old wounds. Witnesses who testified on behalf of the elk said the sight of the hulking animal was a highlight on countless hikes and jogs.
“Maybe we’re strange, but the philosophy up here is live and let live,” pet supply store owner Mary Lee Withers told The Associated Press in an interview. “That elk never did anything.” Withers would encounter the elk on walks with her St. Bernard. Her neighbors sometimes found it sleeping in their yards. She is helping raise money for a memorial bench, which she said will be cut from sandstone and have porcelain inlays bearing the elk’s likeness.
The case also inspired a Boulder man’s tribute song, “Reason to Kill (Ballad of Big Boy).” Its visceral lyrics include: “Gunned down for nothing, But his sovereign space, Wrong time, wrong place.” “He was not a pet, but he was a fixture of Mapleton,” Withers said. “He had been there for years.”
My Fellow Americans:
Aside from the simple fact this cop should be put in jail,.. like most cops,… let me get this straight:
Our country has a thousand illegal bases in over 186 different countries,… and these people said nothing!,….
We have drones killing innocent men, women and children all over the world, especially in the Mid-East,…. and these people said nothing!,…..
We have an “Intelligence Agency” (the CIA) running the largest heroin and cocaine drug and distribution network in human history,…. and these people saind nothing!,….
We have a wholly illegal and criminal foreign alien trying to convince America that he is our president everyday,…. and these people said nothing!,….
We have a wholly treasonous criminal cartel trying to pass itself off as our Fed Gov’t everyday,… and these people said nothing!,….
The US Gov’t has been completely infiltrated, subverted and overthrown,… and these people said nothing!,….
The wealth of this entire nation has been stolen by this Enemy-Force-In-Occupation,…. and these people said nothing!,…..
The militarized police of this country now murder Americans daily, without consequence,…. and these people said nothing!,…..
We are on the verge of NOT just WW3, but Thermo-nuclear War in the Ukraine,… all at the doing of the pyscho’s in Washington taking their orders from the Rothchild Banking System,… and these people said nothing!,….
But they got up and, “led marches, wrote songs, held prayer vigils and hatched plans for a permanent memorial.”,… FOR A FK’N MOOSE!
Question: Was I knocked out and in a coma for a century or two?,.. or was I abducted by aliens and transported thru time or something like that?
Answer: I must have have been, because this is NOT the country I grew up in,.. in fact,… it does not even sound like the earth I knew.
A FK’N MOOSE PEOPLE!!!!,.. these a**holes in Boulder Colorado will do all these things for a fk’n moose!,.. but NOTHING for their own Country, Rights,.. or even their own lives!!
PLEASE STOP THE PLANET!,.. I”D LIKE TO GET OFF THIS RIDE RIGHT NOW!
JD – US Marines – These fk’n bags of puke need to move to China,… where they can live with their communism,.. and their fk’n statue of a moose!
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well said JD.
I agree bigger problems in the country the cop should be taken to task for this,he broke the law,would like to see cops who break the law prosecuted on a more regular basis for the innocent people they kill.
His defence attorney has said it all. For out in the real world something our police know nothing about. You do a job well done you can brag about it on your own. But F it up and it is time to explain it to the Boss on Sh@tRagAmonRow and hope he is dumb enough to belive the words you say. So now Boss Jury must decide if they are to belive the words that he said. That he covered up the job that he did he has said he did! And explained it to the Boss Jury on Sh@tRagAmonRow.
No comment.
JD said it all.
For the cops… shooting two legged creatures was getting kind of boring.
I love animals and would always protect them when possible. Would hunt for food when necessary, but I know this trigger happy son b*tch just could’nt wait to shoot this beautiful peaceful animal! I know because that is what he wants to do to you also!!