Anne Kelly’s commitment is to the victims of crime and to the people of the Valley. It was a promise she made when she was appointed and heard the call in Aug. 2022. It was further cemented when she was then elected into the position in Nov. 2022. A year later, her commitment to the people of the San Luis Valley has only strengthened.
But it hasn’t been without its fair share of stress and hard work.
Alamosa Citizen sat down with Kelly in her office on San Juan Avenue recently to talk about her time in the 12th Judicial District and the San Luis Valley. It had been a little over a year since we first sat down and talked about the state of Kelly’s district. A lot has happened in her short time here.
As the chief law enforcement officer in the Valley, though, she’s got plenty of reasons to travel and experience what this place has to offer. The Citizen started the interview light by asking: What’s your favorite food establishment and restaurant in the Valley?
“It has got to be Worth The Drive Bakery,” she said smiling. “I instantly become happy when I walk in there.”
Her favorite restaurant, though, is Calvillos.
We asked Kelly these questions to get a sense of how she’s getting along. With all the time it takes to clear court dockets and prosecute cases, it means a lot when people in her position are able to experience the uniquely local places. Getting a sense of the Valley takes time and takes effort, but meaningful work in the justice system can’t be accomplished on an empty stomach. There’s no shortage of good food here.
Looking back on the past year, Kelly says the work has given her a level of tension that she’s never experienced before. “I think the reason my level of anxiety and stress was so high is because I understand how important it is to materially transform the community’s perception of the DA’s office.”
For that reason, she said, “I carried that burden very seriously for the entire year and I think that the stress and anxiety was a real motivator for me to work harder and do more. The reality is, that now I can tell you, I’m in a place of relative calm.
“It was a difficult and stressful year, but the things that we’ve done have made it worth it for sure. … I think we’re in a position now of strength. I’m really, really pleased with our employees. I’m really pleased with how resilient they’ve been through an enormous amount of change. And I am so appreciative, always, of the outpouring of community support that we’ve received.”
“…our community sees the work that we are doing and sees how hard we are trying to gain back that trust.”
One day, she said, while being particularly stressed about a case, she went into a gas station and “someone walked up to me and said ‘I just want you to know that you’re doing a really, really awesome job.’” Those kinds of things have happened throughout the year, she said, and those kinds of interactions have been “so materially important to me in being able to kind of manage that stress of having that load.”
When Kelly moved here she uprooted her life in the 20th Judicial District, which mainly encompasses Boulder. Moving to the Valley can be an overstimulating and overwhelming experience for some people. The way of life here is starkly different from life on the Front Range or Western Slope. So, how is she adjusting to life in Alamosa?
“Well, I just bought a house!” She talked about her bungalow, built in 1908, that she’s currently in the process of fixing up. When she finds the very little free time that she can, she spends most of it making her bungalow into a home. This past year was not so much for recreation, she said. Besides working through a mountain of cases and also addressing new cases, she’s been staffing her office to capacity. This year she’s going to try to hit the slopes at Wolf Creek when she can and get outside more often. One of her goals for the next year is to summit Blanca Peak.
“I’m totally committed,” she said. “The thing I love the most about this Valley is still the people. The people that I’ve met are just different than the metro area. They’re kinder. They’re more generous. They’re more thoughtful when they interact with each other.”
“The beauty of this place really continues to strike me as just … just otherworldly. It’s just absolutely gorgeous here.”
She said her breath is often taken by the beauty she experiences driving to Saguache or to San Luis. Even the photos she takes are “just better pictures than I’ve taken anywhere else in Colorado.”
Besides delicious Amish baked goods, classic Mexican food, and enduring Valley beauty, what has stood out to Kelly over the past year? Before answering, she took real pause and reflected on it. The events of the past year, good and bad, flashed past her face.
“Standing with Chief Kenny Anderson at the press conference after one of his officers was shot. Being able to stand with him in that moment of just shock and grief, I was so fortunate to be able to do that. … That moment of connection with him made me feel like I belonged here.”
In addition to a backlog of cases that she inherited, events quickly unfolded in Alamosa soon after she took over. The shooting of Alamosa Police Officer Mollee Heeney and resident Ricardo Rangel happened two months into her time here and just a week before the 2022 election. Since that shooting took place, there have been three more officer-involved shootings in her district.
“I thought to myself, ‘What would have happened in that situation if it had happened a year before?’ I really got a sense of why I was here,” she said.
Kelly also took a moment later in the interview to comment on the sudden and public resignation of former APD Chief Ken Anderson. She called the loss of Alamosa’s top cop a “tragedy.”
“The qualities you need in a chief of police that really have nothing to do with skills and administration, experience in law enforcement, the most important, in my opinion, characteristic of the head of a law enforcement agency is something that you can’t train. That is a person who has the ability and, or already possesses the trust and the confidence of the community. And in exchange, has a deep love and passion for the community that he or she serves.
“You cannot advertise for that kind of characteristic or quality. You can’t train for that kind of characteristic or quality. Kenny Anderson had that unicorn quality that Alamosa was fortunate to have. To let that walk out the door is a tragedy, in my opinion.”
During her time as a prosecutor and in jobs throughout the state, Kelly has worked with perhaps hundreds of cops and law enforcement agencies. “The most important quality in a leader is respect and love from the community and mutual respect and love of the community, which Kenny Anderson had in spades.”
“It is a tragedy for the Alamosa Police Department that he’s not with them anymore.”
“ Kenny Anderson had that unicorn quality that Alamosa was fortunate to have. To let that walk out the door is a tragedy, in my opinion.”
The last time The Citizen sat down with Kelly for an interview like this was Sept. 2022, just prior to the election. There were a few points of discussion that emerged again in this interview, such as the creation of a drug task force, a crisis of trust in the DA’s office, an alarming lack of prosecution for domestic violence cases, and a backlog of 300 or so cases.
The creation of the drug task force is still on the agenda, she said, but it’s not “in the near term.”
“I want to be able to get more training in place for law enforcement,” she said. It’s a conversation that can be addressed more at the end of 2024, she said, because she’s working with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to learn more about their practices and approaches to drug crime.
What’s even more challenging, she said, is to come into a place and say “OK guys look, here’s this thing that you’ve been doing for 20 years and I’m going to come and do this very different thing.’”
“I just want to make sure that some solid foundations are in place first.”
On the other side of that, she noted an effort from law enforcement agencies around the Valley to commit more time and effort to narcotic investigations, something that requires resources most law enforcement offices didn’t have before. She attributes that to her office’s commitment to prosecuting more drug cases. But she also reaffirmed her statement to committing more low-level drug offenders to diversion programs and spending real law enforcement time and resources on actual suppliers and dealers.
“We’ve diverted more people this year and we keep increasing the amount of people we put through diversion. We’re increasing the amount of people we refer to drug treatment court. That is a very, very large and important line between the people that are providing this poison to our community and the people that are falling victim to this poison.”
In order to be able to distinguish that, she said, through law enforcement and confidential informants, they are able to have a good read on our community to understand who “falls into which category and go after the people who fall into the category of providing the poison.”
“We have an obligation as a district attorney’s office to hold violent offenders accountable…”
Kelly, when she landed in the 12th Judicial District, noticed the “alarming theme” of a lack of prosecution for domestic violence cases. She said that things are improving, but the mere fact that domestic violence cases were being dismissed prior to her taking office was and still is alarming. The effects of it, she said, are still being seen.
But prosecuting domestic violence cases and domestic abusers remains a passion of hers. “When you’re dealing with coercive, controlling, violent offenders in relationships they are particularly dangerous,” she said.
She also said that there are so many ways domestic violence shows itself, and that the violence “never gets better, it always increases in frequency and severity.”
“It is very easy to just dismiss cases when victims say ‘I want the case dismissed.’” She said that had been happening for too long. “We have an obligation as a district attorney’s office to hold violent offenders accountable, especially violent offenders who have used other mechanisms of coercion and control, because they are the most dangerous offenders.”
“So what we’ve done is, first of all, if a deputy in my office is going to dismiss a domestic violence case they need to come and talk to me about that first.” A conversation about nuance will be had and how they can continue with a case even if a victim wants the case dismissed. If a victim is wary, she said there are ways a case can continue forward to conviction even with a recanted victim statement.
What’s exciting for her office, she said, is that an investigator who will specialize in investigating sexual assault and domestic violence cases will join the staff on Monday, Dec. 4.
During her time in the 20th Judicial District, Kelly created a domestic violence task force and she’s using tools and themes from that task force here in the Valley. “Victims are much more willing to take in information that will make them safe and also provide us with information that will lead us to a determination of how dangerous this offender is, early on.”
With the help of this new investigator, earlier intervention may increase victims’ willingness to seek outside help and willingness to provide her office with what she calls “the real story.” The real story, she said, can help her determine what is actually happening in that relationship and if there is an increased “fatality risk” in that relationship.
She’s also looking at pathways to use expert testimony to help explain to juries why a victim might not want to tell their story.
“In the next year or two, I think we’re going to see some bigger sentences on these offenders, holding them accountable more often. Hopefully, the result of that will be to change perceptions about what intimate partner violence means and how dangerous it actually is.”
Kelly inherited a backlog of more than 300 cases. In last year’s interview, she said that it would take close to a year to work through those cases. So where are they with that backlog?
“We are done,” she said with a big smile. “That was a huge challenge for us.” Scrambling to get lawyers in her office was her main priority, and she is proud to say that through a systematic effort “we have gone through all our cases and are up-to-date.”
Unfortunately, however, the statute of limitations eliminated many of the cases. By law, those cases cannot be pursued, which Kelly said is frustrating. But “it’s good not to have to look backwards anymore.”
“The beauty of this place really continues to strike me as just … just otherworldly. It’s just absolutely gorgeous here.”
Now, Kelly’s office is fully staffed with lawyers and every docket in the six-county district is covered. “Our lawyers have manageable caseloads.”
The Citizen asked Kelly about accomplishments in her office that she is proud of. First, she noted that her office administrator Megan Bagwell was recognized at the Colorado District Attorney’s Council and awarded office administrator of the year. The appropriation of a sustainable budget for her office is something she is happy about. Her office has more lawyers staffed than “we ever had in the history of the DA’s Office.” More trials have been completed than the past several years, she said, and more diversion cases have been seen in court. Also, she is working on creating a competency court to help people with severe and debilitating mental health issues.
In her appointment speech last year, Kelly had said that because of the actions taken, or lack of action, by Alonzo Payne’s office, the Valley had “endured a crisis of trust.” She hopes that perception is changing. “What I’m hearing is that it is changing. One of the more concrete responses I can give is that the perception that law enforcement has of our office has absolutely, fundamentally changed.
“I am very, very hopeful,” she said, “that our community sees the work that we are doing and sees how hard we are trying to gain back that trust.”
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