PUEBLO — Kala Beauvais has been serving as the new 10th Judicial District Attorney (DA) for Pueblo County for a little over a month now. Her swearing in ceremony took place in January.
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While Beauvais took on a new role, she is not new to the DA’s office as she has been working there for 12 years. She started as an intern and has worked her way up through the ranks, serving as a prosecutor for many years.
“I'm still in court. I still have a handful of cases. I kept the homicide cases that were assigned to me, and then I still back up my attorneys if there's coverage needed in different divisions,” said Beauvais.
Beauvais said she is aware that theft and vandalism is affecting many shops and stores in Pueblo. News5 has covered several incidents of businesses being robbed, including copper wire and AC units being destroyed and windows shot out and smashed at store fronts.
WATCH: Pueblo police investigating several incidents of people stealing copper
“They are back out on the street so quickly and committing the same crime,” said Beauvais.
WATCH: Pueblo business owners say they are fed up with the repeat vandalism happening downtown
She said individuals who steal and vandalize businesses again and again are known as repeat offenders. Beauvais said they are among the top priorities, along with violent offenders at the DA’s office.
“How long can a small business stay in business when you have repeat vandalism like this and money coming out of your pocket that's going to ultimately affect our entire community,” said Beauvais.
WATCH: Windows at Pueblo business shot out and shattered for the third time this month
She said repeat offenders will be charged with the maximum sentencing for committing crimes like theft and vandalism.
“Getting the maximum is still not going to completely satisfy everybody here, but that's what we have to work with,” said Beauvais.
She said one of the biggest reasons why Pueblo is seeing an issue of repeat offenders is because of sentencing.
“So, the laws are made up at the legislature up in Denver, and then we're saddled with whatever comes out of there,” said Beauvais.
The DA’s office follows Colorado State law. Beauvais said people who commit misdemeanors often times do not have long jail sentences.
“We can take a case and get the max penalty on something, but when that max penalty is four months cut in half by good time and earned time in jail, people are back out in our community that have just committed some pretty bad crimes that affect everybody,” said Beauvais.
She said jail time sentencing was impacted a few months ago when changes were made to misdemeanor charges.
“For example, we used to have three levels of misdemeanors and M1, two and three. There's now only two of them. We have M1 and M2,” said Beauvais.
The maximum penalty for a class 2 misdemeanor used to be a year in jail, but it was shortened to 120 days. For a class 1 misdemeanor, the maximum sentence was two years of jail time, again it was shortened to 364 days in jail, according to Beauvais.
“They're repeatedly violating the laws. They're repeatedly vandalizing our community, and so we're going to use jail in that sort of realm to at least keep the community safe for that period of time while they're in custody, but you're not going to have a rehabilitation or any sort of real fix if they're back out on the street in two months,” said Beauvais. “Especially if they're an addict, they may return exactly to what they left two months prior. So, when you have no teeth in the sentencing, those repeat offenders are back out on the streets. Sometimes they do the same thing that they were doing before they went in,” said Beauvais.
Therefore, her office will seek the maximum sentencing for people committing crimes like vandalism and theft, but her hands are tied to state law and its misdemeanor sentencing rules.
“It doesn't really satisfy a lot of people, and I totally get that, but that's where our hands are tied. That's what the law is, and that's what we have to work with,” said Beauvais.
The DA’s office is working with Pueblo law enforcement to try to convict individuals in these vandalism crimes, but many of these cases do not have a suspect yet.
“The ones that are here, we're going to take very seriously and... fight for our community and for what's... right for the community members and business owners that are having to spend 1000s of dollars out of their pockets to replace windows repeatedly, or with the repeat theft, you know, that then affects us as community members when... prices are going so high on things because they're victims of theft repeatedly, and they have to make up for it somewhere, right? That all comes back to the rest of us as community members eventually,” said Beauvais.
Beauvais said while she might not be able to adjust sentencing, she can testify at the state level during legislation regarding bills being introduced. On Wednesday, Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham, Pueblo’s police chief and Beauvais testified at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver against HB 11-47.
Beauvais said Pueblo has a municipal court that the DA's Office is not involved in, rather it is run by the city attorney's office and the city prosecutor. The DA’s office runs county court. She said some of the municipal courts penalties are different than at the county level.
“With this new bill… it's trying to make the penalties for municipal court match County Court, which takes away the teeth that we have to... actually punish and sentence these people that are repeatedly stealing from our merchants, that are repeatedly breaking windows downtown, that are repeatedly wreaking havoc within our community. And maybe it's not a violent offense, but again, it's the stuff that's impacting everybody in our community every day,” said Beauvais.
She said this bill could have a detrimental effect on Pueblo as a whole, so she decided to speak out against it.
“If this bill were to pass, then we would have, likely, an influx of cases that come to my office to prosecute, because the Municipal Court wouldn't have much of an incentive to take those cases. If they're going to have the same penalty as we have, we obviously have more prosecutors than the city attorney does, but that would then have a huge impact on my office,” said Beauvais.
Going forward, Beauvais would like to increase education and communication with law enforcement and the community.
“You see, the DA (is) getting blamed for things that are happening in court. We have our role that we play, but not everything is our fault,” said Beauvais.
She said her office does not make the laws, but instead enforces them.
“The cases come to us after law enforcement does their investigation, and then, so the education and training is huge, because a lot of times things aren't as they appear, or there's certainly reasons why we do things with cases,” said Beauvais.
She said there is a lot of good work her team does behind the scenes that the public does not know about. Her hope is to share some parts of their process with the community to better inform them of the work the DA’s office does. She has already started a social media page for the DA’s office and is also updating the website in order to be more transparent.
“There's always going to be pieces and questions that we can't answer because there are either gag orders or open investigations, but being able to talk more with the community or provide information so that they realize that this DA('s) Office is working for our community. We are fighting for the victims every day, and we are doing what the community has hired me and these other prosecutors to do,” said Beauvais.
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