Black News · Sep 5, 2026Freedom Acres Ranch: The Black Farming Family Colorado Won’t Protect

KEMETIC MINDS
American Freedmen & Black America | September 5, 2026

Key Takeaways

• Who: Courtney “CW” Mallery and Nicole Mallery, a Black, veteran-owned ranching family in Yoder, Colorado.
• What: Years of alleged harassment — vandalism, dead livestock, guns pointed at them, false arrests later dropped — escalated to a drive-by shooting at the ranch in April 2026.
• The sheriff’s office: El Paso County’s sheriff’s office denies wrongdoing and calls the Mallerys’ claims “misinformation.” Charges filed against the Mallerys were dismissed.
• The response: A GoFundMe organized on their behalf has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from tens of thousands of donors, and Color of Change is demanding an independent investigation of the sheriff’s office.

Courtney “CW” Mallery and his wife Nicole did what generations of Black farmers before them were violently blocked from doing: they bought land in Yoder, Colorado, and built Freedom Acres Ranch, a veteran-owned operation certified through the Homegrown by Heroes program, selling grass-fed beef and keeping its gates open to visitors and volunteers during regular business hours^[1].

They say almost none of it has come without a fight — not from the land, but from their own neighbors and the sheriff’s deputies who are supposed to protect them.

Photo by billow926 via Pexels — representative image, not Freedom Acres Ranch itself

Five Years of Escalation

El Paso County, where Yoder sits, is home to roughly 744,000 people — about 6% of them Black. The Mallerys’ town of Yoder has around 1,300 residents and is overwhelmingly white^[2]. Since buying their ranch in 2020, the couple says they have documented doxxing, surveillance, property vandalism, and livestock found dead on their land. They were also criminally charged — felony stalking, petty theft, and meter tampering — charges that were later dismissed^[3].

“We are no longer speaking about harassment…we are speaking about survival.”
— the Mallerys, per Capital B News

Over roughly two years, the sheriff’s office says it investigated 19 complaints tied to the ranch and responded to more than 170 service calls^[2]. The Mallerys argue that volume of contact reflects a pattern of being targeted, not protected.

“The sheriff’s has been weaponized against us for a long time.”
— the Mallerys, per Capital B News

The April Shooting

The harassment reached a new point in April 2026, when shots were fired at the ranch overnight, leaving bullet holes in a vehicle and a shattered garage window^[4]. No one was physically injured. No shooter has been publicly identified.

“Shots were fired at our ranch. We are alive, but something inside us has been shaken in a way that cannot be put back easily.”
— the Mallerys, per REVOLT

The couple placed the blame squarely on local law enforcement’s response to years of prior complaints, not just the shooting itself.

“This falls squarely on the shoulders of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office and their refusal to protect us.”
— the Mallerys, per REVOLT

What the Sheriff’s Office Says

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office disputes the Mallerys’ characterization of its deputies. In a statement to Capital B News, the office said the situation has caused “unnecessary tension between our community and our neighbors” and described the Mallerys’ claims about its deputies as misinformation^[2]. The office has not, in that on-the-record statement, addressed the specific allegation that a named deputy was involved in harassment — a petition organized by Color of Change calls for that deputy’s removal and cites more than 12,600 signatures backing it, per Capital B’s reporting^[2].

Legislating for Protection

Rather than wait on the sheriff’s office, the Mallerys have been working directly with Colorado lawmakers on legislation aimed at protecting farmers and ranchers from exactly the kind of theft and harassment they describe experiencing. Reporting on their efforts, Black Enterprise quoted CW Mallery pushing back on the idea that documenting what’s happening to Black farmers is somehow the problem.

“We ain’t doing nothing illegal here. We’re trying to feed America.”
— CW Mallery, per Black Enterprise

The couple has said they are considering running for local office themselves rather than continuing to rely on officials they say have failed them^[3].

The Community’s Answer

Outside of Colorado, the response has been a wave of direct financial support. A GoFundMe campaign organized on the Mallerys’ behalf — titled bluntly, “Deputy Leading Assault to Steal Black Farm Land” — has drawn tens of thousands of individual donations, with funds earmarked for jam-resistant security systems, fencing, and legal fees^[6].

The campaign page and the couple’s own commitment to staying put both point to the same conclusion the Mallerys keep repeating publicly:

“We got the future behind us, so packing up and running is not an option.”
— the Mallerys, per Capital B News

References

1. Freedom Acres Ranch. Official site — mission, programs and visitor numbers. freedomacresranch.com ↩
2. Capital B News. (2026, April 9). Black Colorado Ranchers Refuse to Leave Their Land. capitalbnews.org ↩a ↩b ↩c ↩d
3. Black Enterprise. (2026, February 12). Siege On The Soil: Black Farmers Forced To Legislate Their Survival Against ‘Old Guard’ Harassment In Colorado. blackenterprise.com ↩a ↩b
4. REVOLT. (2026, April). Black farmers report drive-by shooting at Freedom Acres Ranch. revolt.tv ↩
5. Color Of Change. Stop the Terror Against Black Farmers in Colorado — Investigate El Paso County Sheriff Now. colorofchange.org ↩
6. GoFundMe. Deputy Leading Assault to Steal Black Farm Land, organized by Geneva B. on behalf of Nicole and Courtney Mallery. gofundme.com ↩

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