Thornton resident Linda Hurley can still describe the traumatic memory as if it happened yesterday.
“I was scared. I was absolutely scared,” said Linda Hurley. “And what was running through my mind is, ‘He is killing her,'” she said.
It was on July 18, 2023, when Hurley and her daughter Erica Smith were walking out of a Walmart in Thornton when Hurley says an off-duty Adams County Sheriff’s Office deputy got into an altercation with them.
Smith, who has autism and bipolar disorder, also had her baby daughter with her at the time of the incident.
“These guys just kind of stops in front of us, so I go around him,” said Hurley, “[My daughter] almost hits him and she says something to him [like] ‘It’s stupid to stop in the walkway,’ and as she’s coming out the set of doors, he screams at us, ‘I’m a cop turn around and face me.’ So, she did.”
A video released last year shows the first part of the incident, where Hurley alleges deputy Ezekiel Spotts tried to grab Erica, and Erica responded by slapping him a few times. Spotts, then, appears to punch her and get closer.