Pueblo police warning criminals they’re not welcome

PUEBLO, Colo. (KKTV) – Pueblo Police Chief Chris Noeller is saying enough is enough when it comes to certain crimes, like illegal gambling facilities in the city. This comes after Pueblo City Council passed an ordinance banning gambling machines.

Last week the police department confiscated over 60 gambling machines and thousands of dollars from several gambling operations throughout the city. On top of the illegal machines, Chief Chris Noeller says serious crimes also happened in these areas as a result of the gambling facilities.

“Homicide was a crime that had occurred at, at least one of them… there was an overdose involved at one of the facilities, a lot of property crime, some aggravated assault, robberies.

“Those kinds of things you know some major crime is what we’re dealing with at these at these locations.”

In addition to their investigative efforts, Chief Noeller also says the public reporting unusual behavior and activity helped them with making these busts.

“A lot of complaints regarding the crime that was going on because it was impacting not only the residents, but also businesses in the area.

“The amount of traffic that was going in and out of these locations and the type of activity that those people were engaged in, you know, whether that’s drinking outside, you know, use of drugs.

“All kinds of different things that were going on, so it was just a conglomeration of incidents at each of these locations that really drew our attention to them.”

Now, Chief Noeller is telling 11 News they want to make it clear people who commit these types of crimes are not welcome in the city.

“I just hope that people now are on notice that we’re not going to allow this kind of illegal activity here in the city of Pueblo and we’d appreciate it if you would just take your stuff and go, so it will save us some time and effort.

“But if you decide not to, we’ll be coming after you next.

“This isn’t just gambling, it’s gambling that’s attracting people that are killing people, that are shooting people up, that are doing all kinds of other violent crime and other low level quality-of-life crime issues for the people that live and work in those areas.

“And so addressing those is not something little it’s a big deal.”

During our discussion, Chief Noeller also took the time to tell 11 News he’s appreciative of his great officers who handle these situations.

“The men and women who executed these warrants at these facilities spent hours at each one loading those machines up, because we seized all of the machines that were involved, loading them up, taking them to our storage location, unloading those things, making sure we’re processing properly and all that stuff.

“It takes an immense amount of time and coordination to make all that happen.”

Copyright 2024 KKTV. All rights reserved.