Two Democrats vying to flip Colorado's only swing district, Manny Rutinel and Shannon Bird, cosponsored legislation that local law enforcement officials say forced them to drop charges against "a very dangerous person" accused of attempted murder, setting him free into the community.
Debisa Ephraim, also known as Ephraim Debisa, was arrested on charges including attempted second-degree murder and assault in April 2025, after videos surfaced showing him knocking out men on two separate occasions. One victim bashed his head on a brick wall on the way down, while the other's head hit the street. Ephraim pounced over both victims and continued beating their faces while they were out cold.
***WCSO PRESS RELEASE***
Weld County Sheriff warning; inmate due to be released is a potential danger to the community
[Weld County] Content Warning the videos in this press release may be disturbing to some viewers as they depict acts of violence. Both video clips were edited… pic.twitter.com/zPNtluY9WB
— Weld County Sheriff (@WeldSheriff) September 8, 2025
One victim suffered severe brain injuries and "never fully recovered," Weld County sheriff Steve Reams told the Washington Free Beacon. He described Ephraim as "a very dangerous person" and called the attacks "unprovoked."
Ephraim had already committed nine serious-level crimes before the April attacks, according to Reams. In January 2025, Ephraim, who was reportedly prohibited from possessing firearms, was accused of walking into a house party, pressing a pistol against someone's ribcage, and saying, "Don't do something you will regret. Don't lose your life over this," a local NBC affiliate reported. He was also arrested in 2022 following a high-speed chase that exceeded 110 mph.
But some five months after his April arrest, Ephraim was walking free thanks to a 2024 law that Rutinel and Bird cosponsored as state representatives, according to officials in Weld County, a portion of which is included in the congressional district that the Democrats are trying to win. (Bird resigned from the legislature in December to focus on her bid for the Eighth Congressional District.)
The law, HB24-1034, was intended to help defendants receive mental health care if they were deemed incompetent to stand trial. But it also orders charges to be dropped if it is determined that a defendant is unlikely to gain competency in the foreseeable future—regardless of if the defendant seeks care.
That turned out to be the case with Ephraim. The Weld County District Attorney's Office dropped the charges, forcing Reams to release him from county jail.
"The state legislature and the Governor have continued to weaken the criminal justice system by handcuffing law enforcement, prosecutors and judges for the sake of criminals," Reams said in a statement at the time. The law "has created a crisis where very dangerous individuals are being released to the street to reoffend over and over, this is the latest example."
"I pray this individual doesn't hurt another innocent victim but the public deserves to know of his past violent actions so they can protect themselves accordingly," Reams added. "God help this State."
Ephraim was behind bars again roughly two weeks later after wielding a gun in an apartment complex on the University of Northern Colorado's campus.
After the deluge of bad press that followed Ephraim's September release, the legislature in May passed a law, also cosponsored by Rutinel, that adds guardrails to HB24-1034. While it's "a big step in the right direction," Reams told the Free Beacon, it "should have been considered in 1034" and is still "not the perfect fix."
Rutinel and Bird are opponents in a tight primary race, the winner of which will have to contend with their support for the law in the general election against incumbent Rep. Gabe Evans (R.). Evans, a former police officer, squarely blamed Democrats for Ephraim's release and other issues with Colorado's criminal justice system.
U.S. News & World Report ranked Colorado second among America's most dangerous states in 2025, with a violent crime rate of 474 per 100,000.
Neither Rutinel nor Bird responded to requests for comment.
Reams said he's "very concerned" with Rutinel and Bird's congressional bid given that they and HB24-1034’s other supporters ignored warnings from district attorneys, sheriffs, and chiefs of police that the bill had what he called "a lot of dangers." If the law is "repeated at a federal level, the ramifications don't just affect Colorado, they affect a much bigger swath of the country, if not all the country," Reams said.
"It became glaringly apparent that there was this desire to treat people with competency issues or mental health concerns as if they were agnostic of the law," he told the Free Beacon. "Irrelevant of whatever their crimes might be, if they had some lack of understanding of the law, the fix through this bill was just going to be to say 'oh well, we'll give them a free pass.'"
Ephraim's case represents other problems with the law as well. Reams said Ephraim was able to "persuade" his mental health evaluator following an assessment that wasn't "very engaging." But in jail, Reams observed that Ephraim appeared competent as he interacted with his fellow inmates in the county jail.
"It was clearly apparent, from my opinion, that he was gaming the system," Reams said. He pointed out that Ephraim's mental health evaluators following his September arrest—and significant news coverage of his release earlier that month—determined that his competency was "restorable."
Ephraim wasn't the only instance of a violent offender escaping punishment thanks to the law Rutinel and Bird cosponsored. Reams pointed to Solomon Galligan, a registered sex offender who was accused of trying to abduct an 11-year-old boy from a playground in nearby Aurora.
Galligan was found incompetent to stand trial, and charges against him were dropped in July. The Arapahoe County District Attorney's Office said he would be committed to a mental health facility, but state officials told CBS Colorado they were limited in how long they could keep him committed.
