Two Democrats competing to flip Colorado's only swing House seat cosponsored a 2024 state law that forced prosecutors to release a man accused of attempted murder, who was arrested again fifteen days later with a gun on a college campus.
The Weld County Sheriff's Office called him "a very dangerous person." A 2024 Colorado law cosponsored by both Democrats now fighting for the state's most competitive congressional seat forced prosecutors to drop attempted-murder charges against him anyway, and within two weeks of his release he was arrested again, this time on a university campus with a firearm.
Manny Rutinel and Shannon Bird are the two leading candidates in the June 2026 primary for Colorado's 8th Congressional District, the state's only competitive House seat. The winner faces Republican incumbent Rep. Gabe Evans in November, in a race national Democrats have targeted as a top pickup opportunity. Both served in the Colorado state House before launching their congressional campaigns, and both put their names on House Bill 24-1034 when it passed the Colorado General Assembly in 2024.
HB24-1034 was designed to reform how courts handle defendants deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. The stated goal was connecting defendants to mental health treatment. But the law also requires courts to dismiss charges entirely when a defendant is found unlikely to ever regain competency, regardless of whether the defendant actually pursues care, according to the Washington Free Beacon and confirmed by CBS News Colorado. Law enforcement officials said they warned about the bill's dangers before it passed.
The consequences came into focus with the case of Debisa Ephraim, also identified in some records as Ephraim Debisa. Weld County authorities arrested Ephraim in April 2025 on charges including attempted second-degree murder after videos surfaced showing him knocking men unconscious and continuing to beat them while they lay on the ground, CBS Colorado reported. After a court determined in July 2025 that his competency could not be restored, the Weld County District Attorney's Office had no legal path but to dismiss all charges, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The Weld County Sheriff publicly warned residents that a very dangerous person had been set free into the community.
Ephraim was free for roughly two weeks. On September 23, 2025, Greeley police arrested him again, this time for allegedly bringing a long gun into a dormitory at the University of Northern Colorado, according to 9News and CBS Colorado. A judge set his bond at $1 million. Ephraim told CBS Colorado he was "not dangerous." The Weld County Sheriff renewed public calls for the law to be changed.
Rep. Evans, a former police officer, was unsparing. Along with Reps. Lauren Boebert and Jeff Crank, Evans sent a letter to Gov. Jared Polis demanding a special legislative session to address what they called a statewide crime crisis, according to Evans's congressional office. When Polis publicly expressed shock over the Ephraim case, Evans pointed out that it was Polis who had signed HB24-1034 into law in the first place.
The legislature did eventually respond. Polis signed SB26-149, a bipartisan overhaul of the competency system, on May 21, 2026, according to 9News and KRDO. The new law requires defendants found incompetent and unrestorable who pose a serious public safety risk to be placed in supervised treatment rather than released outright, and it directs roughly $30 million toward expanding inpatient and outpatient capacity, the governor's office said. Rutinel's campaign noted he cosponsored the revised law, framing it as a course correction.
A Record That Follows Them Into November
The fix did not dissolve the political liability. Evans holds a significant fundraising advantage over both Democratic candidates heading into the fall, Axios Denver reported, and his campaign has made the two Democrats' shared record on HB24-1034 a central line of attack. For a district that requires a Democrat to run well with suburban voters who rank public safety near the top of their concerns, the Ephraim case gives Evans a ready argument that co-sponsoring a later corrective bill does not fully answer.
Whichever Democrat wins the primary will carry that record into November. Evans, a freshman who flipped the seat in 2024, will not let either opponent forget it. Whether voters weigh the original bill against the subsequent fix, or simply absorb the image of a violent suspect freed and re-arrested within two weeks, could decide the most closely watched House race in Colorado this fall.
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