Kiowa County last week reached a $9.5 million settlement with the family of Zach Gifford, the unarmed local handyman the county’s undersheriff and a rookie deputy killed with three shots to the back in 2020.
Zach Gifford was killed by Kiowa County sheriff’s officials on April 9, 2020.
“They took everything from us when they killed Zach and we would do anything to get him back. But what we asked for, at least in the civil case, we will be getting, and that’s probably as close to closure as we will come.”For their part, the county’s elected commissioners have stayed silent about the April 9, 2020, homicide that rattled their quiet community, shook public confidence in local law enforcement and prompted the popular county sheriff to resign.
Deputy Quinten Stump arrived shortly after, and while patting Gifford down, found a small baggie with white powdery substance — later determined to be methamphetamine residue — in his pocket. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation found that Gifford did not display a weapon or threaten the officers or anyone else at the time of his killing.For reasons Fifteenth Judicial District Attorney Josh Vogel has not explained, he has not prosecuted Weisenhorn, who shot Gifford first. Then-Sheriff Casey Sheridan fired Weisenhorn a year later after local reporter Priscilla Waggoner and the Colorado News Collaborativeand longstanding problems in the sheriff’s department.
Sheridan resigned from his elected sheriff position last spring and has been replaced temporarily by Frazee. The interim sheriff told the Colorado News Collaborative pm Monday that he has “intentionally made sure not to look into” Gifford’s killing until “the legal matters are over.”
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