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Still Fighting
It's been a long road for Lori Romero and Michael Welch, who continue to fight charges in Larimer County stemming from a 2003 raid and a 2004 standoff that took Michael Welch Sr.'s life.
Lori Romero’s dark eyes glanced in the rear-view mirror, looking at the state trooper’s cruiser parked on the side of Interstate 25.
She’d been driving in the left lane, the passing lane, which a new state law prohibited; that’s why she was pulled over. Still, she was suspicious.
“Realize, now, with the fear that I had of these people, and my family had of these people, I always made sure my driver’s license was clean,” she said.
By the time she was pulled over, two years of what Romero considered harassment by the authorities had already bred a deep distrust of law enforcement. This was exacerbated when the state trooper asked about Romero’s passengers—her husband, Michael Welch Jr., and his father, Michael Welch Sr. <i>Why should he care who they are?</i> Romero wondered. <i> I’m the one driving.</i>
The younger Welch gave a fake name, saying he had no identification on him. The trooper went to check out the name he received, but after a moment, returned to Romero’s car and asked Welch Jr. to lift his shirt so he could see if he had a certain tattoo.
“I hit the gas,” Romero recalled.
The Kia screamed up I-25, back to the Welch family ranch in Wellington, with the trooper in pursuit. It was after 9 a.m. Nov. 2, Election Day 2004.
The next 90 minutes would result in the shooting death of Michael Welch Sr., known by his family as “Poppa,” and Romero and Welch Jr. embarking on a life as international fugitives on the run in Canada. On Tuesday, a Canadian court ruled that the couple be sent back to the United States, where they face multiple felony charges, including first-degree assault on a peace officer. Then, on Thursday, a judge ruled they would have to stay in jail during their appeal of that decision. Given that the process could take several months, it could be a long time before Welch and Romero return to native soil.
Romero, 37, said she has sought help from every level of state government and wants to return home—but on her terms.
She said the drive to protect their Constitutional rights is part of what got Welch and Romero thrown in a Canadian prison in the first place, and what led to Welch Sr.’s death by a sniper’s bullet.
In the three years since Poppa Welch’s death, Romero said she has kept fighting for him.
She sent letters to two governors, judicial branch officials and the media, saying she has proof that a warrant for her husband’s arrest is invalid and that the Larimer County District Attorney’s Office lied on more than one occasion. She even claims to have proof that signatures of a judge and of a Larimer County prosecutor were forged. She has practically begged Ritter and other officials to look at those documents.
If only they would see, Romero said, they would believe.
•••
Sheriff Jim Alderden is quiet for a minute as he considers how to phrase what the case has meant for his office. Aside from allegations of lies and misconduct, aside from Romero's calls for FBI and other independent investigations, even aside from the fact that one of his deputies was dutifully compelled to kill a man, the case is fairly simple, he said. It boils down to a family that has consistently been on the wrong side of the law.
Romero said Welch, 33, and his father were gun collectors, and that the day of the standoff, they were defending themselves against what they viewed as persecution by the authorities.
“That’s why we have a courts system. You don’t resolve those issues by running and shooting at cops,” Alderden replied.
Undersheriff Ern Hudson also took issue with Romero’s explanation.
“There are lots of law-abiding citizens who have guns. They don’t cultivate drugs; they’re not converting (their guns) into illegal weapons. Those things are not acts that are normally committed by honest citizens,” he said.
Alderden said Romero was looking for plausible explanations for her and her husband’s behavior.
“There’s a whole pattern here of trying to avoid being held accountable for their offenses,” he said, adding that he, of all people, is a proponent of the Second Amendment right to gun ownership.
He and Eloise Campanella, the sheriff’s forthright public information officer and brassy ally, are also frustrated that media reports of Romero’s and Welch’s situation seem to take pity on the couple, but make little mention of the trauma and difficulty the shooting also placed on the sheriff’s office.
“These people live outside the law. (We) uphold the law. Without that, everything crumbles,” Campanella said.
Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a suspect four times in a 17-month period from August 2004 to January 2006, including the standoff that led to the death of Welch Sr. But before that, it had been eight years since the last officer-involved shooting—it’s not as if it’s a common occurrence, Alderden said.
When it does happen, deputies who have also shot suspects make themselves available to their colleagues, no matter the hour, because they know what it’s like. The department grieves as a whole for the deputy, who Alderden said is a victim.
He knows from experience that one of the shooter’s first thoughts is whether the agency will back him or her. How will my spouse take it? What will happen to my kids when they hear about it?
Hudson said he doubts the public realizes how traumatic the experience is for the department.
“It has a devastating effect on everyone involved,” he said. “We are truly, truly sorry that in situations like this, that these people have taken actions that caused us to have to fire.”
That might have been going through Sgt. Michael Loberg’s mind as he watched Welch Sr. set up his assault rifle on an overturned dresser, equipped with a scope and a stabilizing bipod, before Loberg took Welch down.
Indeed, Campanella said Aaron Gropp, the deputy in Welch Sr.’s sights, believes Loberg saved his life.
“When the shot rang out, he thought he had been hit,” Campanella said.
As everyone learned a moment later, it was Poppa Welch who took the bullet.
•••
Romero pulled off the interstate, sped toward the ranch and ran headlong into the house, Poppa lagging behind with his bad hips. Michael had already run upstairs to grab his handgun. Alderden later said it appeared as though the family was prepared for a law enforcement siege on the home, having placed weapons around the house in strategic locations.
As Welch Jr. came downstairs, Romero was able to pull Poppa Welch through the front door, where he crashed into his son. The handgun went off.
“Literally I heard it, ‘zoom,’ over my head and through the glass,” she said.
To the troopers outside, it was an opening volley—a direct threat. Romero said they told law enforcement they didn’t shoot at them. Hudson and Alderden disputed that, saying no one ever said, “sorry, that was a mistake.” He said Romero’s version of what happened has changed since the incident.
But Romero insisted it wasn’t an intentional shot. All three were experienced shooters, hunting birds, voles and other prairie creatures on a regular basis.
“If we had shot at you, you would have left in a body bag,” Romero said. “I’m sorry, but that’s not what we’re about.”
After the first shot, backup law enforcement personnel began arriving; by day’s end, more than 75 sheriff’s office employees would be on scene.
The Welches and Romero put a cabinet by the door as a barricade, and Poppa Welch went to the back deck. He cursed at the troopers and deputies and told them to get off his property.
Then he raised his rifle and stabilized it on the dresser. Deputy Gropp watched through binoculars and shouted to the assembled officers that Welch Sr. was scoping them. That’s when Loberg fired his shot; it went through Welch’s neck and severed his spinal cord.
Romero’s voice halts as she recounts the story, which she has described as the realization of her family's worst nightmare.
“The point of going back to the ranch wasn’t to have this big armed standoff with the police. We were scared to death,” Romero said.
She knows law enforcement points to the cache of weapons in the house to draw an opposite conclusion.
“But what do you expect to find in a hunter’s house?” she said.
Alderden said guns aside, the simple act of fleeing a state trooper was not only a crime, but a danger to others on the road and in the community.
“How many innocent lives are endangered by that action? How many lives were they willing to jeopardize, or take, to avoid the consequences of this lawfully issued arrest warrant?” he said.
She’d been driving in the left lane, the passing lane, which a new state law prohibited; that’s why she was pulled over. Still, she was suspicious.
“Realize, now, with the fear that I had of these people, and my family had of these people, I always made sure my driver’s license was clean,” she said.
By the time she was pulled over, two years of what Romero considered harassment by the authorities had already bred a deep distrust of law enforcement. This was exacerbated when the state trooper asked about Romero’s passengers—her husband, Michael Welch Jr., and his father, Michael Welch Sr. <i>Why should he care who they are?</i> Romero wondered. <i> I’m the one driving.</i>
The younger Welch gave a fake name, saying he had no identification on him. The trooper went to check out the name he received, but after a moment, returned to Romero’s car and asked Welch Jr. to lift his shirt so he could see if he had a certain tattoo.
“I hit the gas,” Romero recalled.
The Kia screamed up I-25, back to the Welch family ranch in Wellington, with the trooper in pursuit. It was after 9 a.m. Nov. 2, Election Day 2004.
The next 90 minutes would result in the shooting death of Michael Welch Sr., known by his family as “Poppa,” and Romero and Welch Jr. embarking on a life as international fugitives on the run in Canada. On Tuesday, a Canadian court ruled that the couple be sent back to the United States, where they face multiple felony charges, including first-degree assault on a peace officer. Then, on Thursday, a judge ruled they would have to stay in jail during their appeal of that decision. Given that the process could take several months, it could be a long time before Welch and Romero return to native soil.
Romero, 37, said she has sought help from every level of state government and wants to return home—but on her terms.
She said the drive to protect their Constitutional rights is part of what got Welch and Romero thrown in a Canadian prison in the first place, and what led to Welch Sr.’s death by a sniper’s bullet.
In the three years since Poppa Welch’s death, Romero said she has kept fighting for him.
She sent letters to two governors, judicial branch officials and the media, saying she has proof that a warrant for her husband’s arrest is invalid and that the Larimer County District Attorney’s Office lied on more than one occasion. She even claims to have proof that signatures of a judge and of a Larimer County prosecutor were forged. She has practically begged Ritter and other officials to look at those documents.
If only they would see, Romero said, they would believe.
•••
Sheriff Jim Alderden is quiet for a minute as he considers how to phrase what the case has meant for his office. Aside from allegations of lies and misconduct, aside from Romero's calls for FBI and other independent investigations, even aside from the fact that one of his deputies was dutifully compelled to kill a man, the case is fairly simple, he said. It boils down to a family that has consistently been on the wrong side of the law.
Romero said Welch, 33, and his father were gun collectors, and that the day of the standoff, they were defending themselves against what they viewed as persecution by the authorities.
“That’s why we have a courts system. You don’t resolve those issues by running and shooting at cops,” Alderden replied.
Undersheriff Ern Hudson also took issue with Romero’s explanation.
“There are lots of law-abiding citizens who have guns. They don’t cultivate drugs; they’re not converting (their guns) into illegal weapons. Those things are not acts that are normally committed by honest citizens,” he said.
Alderden said Romero was looking for plausible explanations for her and her husband’s behavior.
“There’s a whole pattern here of trying to avoid being held accountable for their offenses,” he said, adding that he, of all people, is a proponent of the Second Amendment right to gun ownership.
He and Eloise Campanella, the sheriff’s forthright public information officer and brassy ally, are also frustrated that media reports of Romero’s and Welch’s situation seem to take pity on the couple, but make little mention of the trauma and difficulty the shooting also placed on the sheriff’s office.
“These people live outside the law. (We) uphold the law. Without that, everything crumbles,” Campanella said.
Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a suspect four times in a 17-month period from August 2004 to January 2006, including the standoff that led to the death of Welch Sr. But before that, it had been eight years since the last officer-involved shooting—it’s not as if it’s a common occurrence, Alderden said.
When it does happen, deputies who have also shot suspects make themselves available to their colleagues, no matter the hour, because they know what it’s like. The department grieves as a whole for the deputy, who Alderden said is a victim.
He knows from experience that one of the shooter’s first thoughts is whether the agency will back him or her. How will my spouse take it? What will happen to my kids when they hear about it?
Hudson said he doubts the public realizes how traumatic the experience is for the department.
“It has a devastating effect on everyone involved,” he said. “We are truly, truly sorry that in situations like this, that these people have taken actions that caused us to have to fire.”
That might have been going through Sgt. Michael Loberg’s mind as he watched Welch Sr. set up his assault rifle on an overturned dresser, equipped with a scope and a stabilizing bipod, before Loberg took Welch down.
Indeed, Campanella said Aaron Gropp, the deputy in Welch Sr.’s sights, believes Loberg saved his life.
“When the shot rang out, he thought he had been hit,” Campanella said.
As everyone learned a moment later, it was Poppa Welch who took the bullet.
•••
Romero pulled off the interstate, sped toward the ranch and ran headlong into the house, Poppa lagging behind with his bad hips. Michael had already run upstairs to grab his handgun. Alderden later said it appeared as though the family was prepared for a law enforcement siege on the home, having placed weapons around the house in strategic locations.
As Welch Jr. came downstairs, Romero was able to pull Poppa Welch through the front door, where he crashed into his son. The handgun went off.
“Literally I heard it, ‘zoom,’ over my head and through the glass,” she said.
To the troopers outside, it was an opening volley—a direct threat. Romero said they told law enforcement they didn’t shoot at them. Hudson and Alderden disputed that, saying no one ever said, “sorry, that was a mistake.” He said Romero’s version of what happened has changed since the incident.
But Romero insisted it wasn’t an intentional shot. All three were experienced shooters, hunting birds, voles and other prairie creatures on a regular basis.
“If we had shot at you, you would have left in a body bag,” Romero said. “I’m sorry, but that’s not what we’re about.”
After the first shot, backup law enforcement personnel began arriving; by day’s end, more than 75 sheriff’s office employees would be on scene.
The Welches and Romero put a cabinet by the door as a barricade, and Poppa Welch went to the back deck. He cursed at the troopers and deputies and told them to get off his property.
Then he raised his rifle and stabilized it on the dresser. Deputy Gropp watched through binoculars and shouted to the assembled officers that Welch Sr. was scoping them. That’s when Loberg fired his shot; it went through Welch’s neck and severed his spinal cord.
Romero’s voice halts as she recounts the story, which she has described as the realization of her family's worst nightmare.
“The point of going back to the ranch wasn’t to have this big armed standoff with the police. We were scared to death,” Romero said.
She knows law enforcement points to the cache of weapons in the house to draw an opposite conclusion.
“But what do you expect to find in a hunter’s house?” she said.
Alderden said guns aside, the simple act of fleeing a state trooper was not only a crime, but a danger to others on the road and in the community.
“How many innocent lives are endangered by that action? How many lives were they willing to jeopardize, or take, to avoid the consequences of this lawfully issued arrest warrant?” he said.
The latter comment would raise Romero’s hackles.
She said the original allegations are baseless, and the road that took her and her husband this far was paved with ill intentions.
The drug cultivation and illegal weapons Hudson noted are the basis for the allegations against Welch and Romero, which have grown steadily and relentlessly.
It started in 2002, when Michael Welch was arrested for driving while ability impaired and possession of marijuana paraphernalia. The petty offense was under Colorado Revised Statute 18-18-406, Romero said. Somehow, when the Colorado Bureau of Investigation submitted Welch’s fingerprint card, someone entered a typo that read statute 18-18-405—a felony for distribution and manufacturing of dangerous drugs.
The Welches and Romero didn’t know of the error until July 2003, when the Larimer County Drug Task Force executed a no-knock search warrant at Michael Welch Sr.’s Wellington ranch. During that search, the task force found marijuana plants and illegally modified weapons, and later arrested Welch Jr. from where he was living with Romero. His parents were never charged.
But Welch Jr. was, and it was after his bond was set at $350,000—because of a nonexistent prior felony—that Romero and Welch realized the clerical error. Romero said law enforcement unfairly hunted the couple ever since.
That no-knock warrant is the subject of controversy because Welch Sr.’s widow, Yolanda Welch, and Romero believe signatures authorizing it were forged. It took three months for Romero and Welch to get a copy of the document, and they believe it was a composite and forgery.
They hired two experts, including Barbara Downer, a document examiner and handwriting expert from Oxford, Kan., to review the no-knock search warrant the Larimer County Drug Task Force obtained to search the Welch ranch in 2003.
Downer, a former crime scene investigator with the Wichita, Kan., police department, examined three samples she knew to be Deputy District Attorney Greg Lammons’ signature, and compared them with the one Romero and Welch contested. In a two-page letter to Yolanda Welch, she said she believed the signature was not authentic.
“It was pictorially like it, but it wasn’t exactly like it; I didn’t feel like it was his real signature,” she said in an interview last week. “Just because it looks similar doesn’t mean it’s genuine. If you are trying to simulate someone else’s signature, it’s going to look similar.”
Document analysts prefer to examine original documents, she said, and the strength of her opinion might vary slightly if she saw the original. But she’s never changed her opinion upon looking at the original after a copy, she said.
Alderden said a court of law would have to be the final arbiter of whether the documents were genuine, but he called it “ludicrous” to assume otherwise.
“That sort of thing just does not happen in Larimer County. I think the judge would know if his signature was put on an arrest warrant,” he said.
Another document examiner, Marcel Matley of San Francisco, drew the same conclusion and said the affidavit was a composite document. Matley became known in 2004 after authenticating documents for a CBS report that called into question President Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service; that report has since been discredited.
After the 2003 raid that the affidavit in question allowed, Welch was initially charged in Larimer County, but the District Attorney’s office dismissed charges so they could be re-filed in federal court. Meanwhile, in February 2004 the sheriff’s office corrected Welch Jr.’s criminal record to reflect the petty offense for marijuana possession, not distribution.
In March 2004, after a week-long federal trial, the chief witness for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Blaine Johnson, admitted he lied on the stand. Johnson’s testimony that he saw several illegal weapons and marijuana plants at the Welch ranch provided the basis for the no-knock warrant, and the case was dismissed with prejudice after it was discovered that he lied.
The case was far from over, however—just a month later, a new affidavit for Welch’s arrest was notarized, seeking a $10,000 personal recognizance bond for him. The Welches filed an intent to sue various county agencies, including the sheriff’s office, for violations of their rights. After seeking help from attorneys in Wyoming and the FBI, Welch appeared on the sheriff’s Most Wanted list in the <i> Coloradoan. </i>
Throughout September, Yolanda Welch appealed to the governor’s office; attorney general; U.S. Department of Justice; and other agencies asking for help.
“It’s incredible how much a family can scream out corruption, and scream out for help, and every single person in a position of authority can just turn a blind eye and point the finger to somebody else,” Romero said.
On Nov. 2, 2004, they were still hoping someone would answer their pleas.
•••
Romero and Welch were able to peacefully surrender an hour or so after Poppa Welch fell. They were charged with several felonies, including attempted assault on a peace officer, menacing, vehicular eluding and others. Welch also faces weapons and drug charges still stemming from the raid more than four years ago.
As the two prepared for trial in the fall of 2005, Romero grew increasingly frustrated with her attorneys’ plan to make Poppa Welch out to be crazy and their refusal to listen to Romero and Welch Jr. The court-appointed public defenders said they wouldn’t go after the police—Romero said they wouldn’t soil their dinner table, in a manner of speaking.
“I tell you, what really influenced us to leave was that no matter how hard we tried to get it through our lawyer’s heads of why we did what we did, they were constantly telling us, ‘No, we can’t go that route, we can’t say that, we can’t attack the cops,’” she said.
In December 2005, Romero and Welch decided to flee. Maybe another country would see it differently, they thought. Maybe they could fight the charges, the sheriff’s office and the DA’s office on even ground.
Romero again pointed her car to the North and hit the gas. They ended up in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia.
Since the couple missed a court date in January 2006, Larimer County Assistant District Attorney Cliff Riedel has been trying to get them back.
He sent a certification of the case for prosecution in September 2006, outlining the evidence against Romero and Welch that would justify their extradition.
Romero accused Riedel of filling it with lies. They include descriptions of testimony she believes at least one witness will not give, and a description of gun silencers among the evidence collected when, in fact, they are lawn mower parts.
But Riedel also described guns with serial numbers removed; semiautomatic guns modified for automatic fire as machine guns; and state troopers and sheriff’s deputies who would say they saw Romero, Welch Jr. and Welch Sr. aim scoped rifles at them.
Linda Jensen, a spokeswoman for the DA’s office, said neither Riedel nor Lammons could comment about the case because it is ongoing.
•••
Three years gone, it’s hard to imagine what ran through Romero’s mind as she raced her car up Interstate 25 to the Welch ranch. The distance in time and space has started to blur some details, and allow for a kind of reckoning.
Alderden and Hudson wondered what might have come to pass had she not hit the gas pedal that morning, and had Michael Welch Jr. surrendered to the state trooper.
“When you think about the way an honest citizen would handle this—they get stopped by the trooper, and all they have to do is do what the trooper says,” Hudson said. “All they have to do is go into court and let it play out ... that’s what 99 percent of the people in the community do. You take care of it.”
Romero, in turn, wondered what might have happened had she and her in-laws not felt so threatened by Larimer County law enforcement, or if her attorneys didn’t try to place the blame on Poppa Welch. She and Welch might not be in Canada now, fighting extradition back to their home country.
“Somebody has to hold them accountable,” she said of the Larimer authorities. “My father-in-law basically gave his life for that Constitution.”
It’s reasonable to wonder whether Romero thought that would be possible as she looked in her rear-view mirror that morning.
In more ways than one, she has been looking in that rear-view mirror for the past three years.
She said the original allegations are baseless, and the road that took her and her husband this far was paved with ill intentions.
The drug cultivation and illegal weapons Hudson noted are the basis for the allegations against Welch and Romero, which have grown steadily and relentlessly.
It started in 2002, when Michael Welch was arrested for driving while ability impaired and possession of marijuana paraphernalia. The petty offense was under Colorado Revised Statute 18-18-406, Romero said. Somehow, when the Colorado Bureau of Investigation submitted Welch’s fingerprint card, someone entered a typo that read statute 18-18-405—a felony for distribution and manufacturing of dangerous drugs.
The Welches and Romero didn’t know of the error until July 2003, when the Larimer County Drug Task Force executed a no-knock search warrant at Michael Welch Sr.’s Wellington ranch. During that search, the task force found marijuana plants and illegally modified weapons, and later arrested Welch Jr. from where he was living with Romero. His parents were never charged.
But Welch Jr. was, and it was after his bond was set at $350,000—because of a nonexistent prior felony—that Romero and Welch realized the clerical error. Romero said law enforcement unfairly hunted the couple ever since.
That no-knock warrant is the subject of controversy because Welch Sr.’s widow, Yolanda Welch, and Romero believe signatures authorizing it were forged. It took three months for Romero and Welch to get a copy of the document, and they believe it was a composite and forgery.
They hired two experts, including Barbara Downer, a document examiner and handwriting expert from Oxford, Kan., to review the no-knock search warrant the Larimer County Drug Task Force obtained to search the Welch ranch in 2003.
Downer, a former crime scene investigator with the Wichita, Kan., police department, examined three samples she knew to be Deputy District Attorney Greg Lammons’ signature, and compared them with the one Romero and Welch contested. In a two-page letter to Yolanda Welch, she said she believed the signature was not authentic.
“It was pictorially like it, but it wasn’t exactly like it; I didn’t feel like it was his real signature,” she said in an interview last week. “Just because it looks similar doesn’t mean it’s genuine. If you are trying to simulate someone else’s signature, it’s going to look similar.”
Document analysts prefer to examine original documents, she said, and the strength of her opinion might vary slightly if she saw the original. But she’s never changed her opinion upon looking at the original after a copy, she said.
Alderden said a court of law would have to be the final arbiter of whether the documents were genuine, but he called it “ludicrous” to assume otherwise.
“That sort of thing just does not happen in Larimer County. I think the judge would know if his signature was put on an arrest warrant,” he said.
Another document examiner, Marcel Matley of San Francisco, drew the same conclusion and said the affidavit was a composite document. Matley became known in 2004 after authenticating documents for a CBS report that called into question President Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service; that report has since been discredited.
After the 2003 raid that the affidavit in question allowed, Welch was initially charged in Larimer County, but the District Attorney’s office dismissed charges so they could be re-filed in federal court. Meanwhile, in February 2004 the sheriff’s office corrected Welch Jr.’s criminal record to reflect the petty offense for marijuana possession, not distribution.
In March 2004, after a week-long federal trial, the chief witness for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Blaine Johnson, admitted he lied on the stand. Johnson’s testimony that he saw several illegal weapons and marijuana plants at the Welch ranch provided the basis for the no-knock warrant, and the case was dismissed with prejudice after it was discovered that he lied.
The case was far from over, however—just a month later, a new affidavit for Welch’s arrest was notarized, seeking a $10,000 personal recognizance bond for him. The Welches filed an intent to sue various county agencies, including the sheriff’s office, for violations of their rights. After seeking help from attorneys in Wyoming and the FBI, Welch appeared on the sheriff’s Most Wanted list in the <i> Coloradoan. </i>
Throughout September, Yolanda Welch appealed to the governor’s office; attorney general; U.S. Department of Justice; and other agencies asking for help.
“It’s incredible how much a family can scream out corruption, and scream out for help, and every single person in a position of authority can just turn a blind eye and point the finger to somebody else,” Romero said.
On Nov. 2, 2004, they were still hoping someone would answer their pleas.
•••
Romero and Welch were able to peacefully surrender an hour or so after Poppa Welch fell. They were charged with several felonies, including attempted assault on a peace officer, menacing, vehicular eluding and others. Welch also faces weapons and drug charges still stemming from the raid more than four years ago.
As the two prepared for trial in the fall of 2005, Romero grew increasingly frustrated with her attorneys’ plan to make Poppa Welch out to be crazy and their refusal to listen to Romero and Welch Jr. The court-appointed public defenders said they wouldn’t go after the police—Romero said they wouldn’t soil their dinner table, in a manner of speaking.
“I tell you, what really influenced us to leave was that no matter how hard we tried to get it through our lawyer’s heads of why we did what we did, they were constantly telling us, ‘No, we can’t go that route, we can’t say that, we can’t attack the cops,’” she said.
In December 2005, Romero and Welch decided to flee. Maybe another country would see it differently, they thought. Maybe they could fight the charges, the sheriff’s office and the DA’s office on even ground.
Romero again pointed her car to the North and hit the gas. They ended up in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia.
Since the couple missed a court date in January 2006, Larimer County Assistant District Attorney Cliff Riedel has been trying to get them back.
He sent a certification of the case for prosecution in September 2006, outlining the evidence against Romero and Welch that would justify their extradition.
Romero accused Riedel of filling it with lies. They include descriptions of testimony she believes at least one witness will not give, and a description of gun silencers among the evidence collected when, in fact, they are lawn mower parts.
But Riedel also described guns with serial numbers removed; semiautomatic guns modified for automatic fire as machine guns; and state troopers and sheriff’s deputies who would say they saw Romero, Welch Jr. and Welch Sr. aim scoped rifles at them.
Linda Jensen, a spokeswoman for the DA’s office, said neither Riedel nor Lammons could comment about the case because it is ongoing.
•••
Three years gone, it’s hard to imagine what ran through Romero’s mind as she raced her car up Interstate 25 to the Welch ranch. The distance in time and space has started to blur some details, and allow for a kind of reckoning.
Alderden and Hudson wondered what might have come to pass had she not hit the gas pedal that morning, and had Michael Welch Jr. surrendered to the state trooper.
“When you think about the way an honest citizen would handle this—they get stopped by the trooper, and all they have to do is do what the trooper says,” Hudson said. “All they have to do is go into court and let it play out ... that’s what 99 percent of the people in the community do. You take care of it.”
Romero, in turn, wondered what might have happened had she and her in-laws not felt so threatened by Larimer County law enforcement, or if her attorneys didn’t try to place the blame on Poppa Welch. She and Welch might not be in Canada now, fighting extradition back to their home country.
“Somebody has to hold them accountable,” she said of the Larimer authorities. “My father-in-law basically gave his life for that Constitution.”
It’s reasonable to wonder whether Romero thought that would be possible as she looked in her rear-view mirror that morning.
In more ways than one, she has been looking in that rear-view mirror for the past three years.
Two Sides
“There’s a whole pattern here of trying to avoid being held accountable for their offenses.”—Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden.
“The point of going back to the ranch wasn’t to have this big armed standoff with the police. We were scared to death.” — Lori Romero, whose father-in-law was killed in that standoff. |
