A closet, a camera and a setup: Tina Peters assaulted in prison then thrown into solitary

By A.L. Goodwin | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

On the evening of January 18, just after 9:00 p.m., Tina Peters was assaulted inside the La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo, Colorado—not in a yard or a common area, but in a narrow janitor’s closet, out of view of surveillance cameras.

Peters had been filling a portable swamp cooler, a task other inmates routinely refuse to do, even as the prison overheats in the dead of winter due to a failing HVAC system. To access the water tank, she pulled the unit into the cramped closet, positioning her head and upper body between the door and the cooler—leaving her physically pinned in a space barely wider than the machine itself.

As Peters maneuvered the unit, another inmate approached in an agitated state. The woman, a 29-year-old serving a six-year sentence for violently stabbing her fiancé three times in the back with a steak knife and stabbing her brother in the hand when he attempted to intervene, began yelling repeatedly, “You disrespected me.”

(Attacker’s Police Report from 2020)

Peters attempted to de-escalate. She tried to calm the woman saying it was “not a big deal” and offered to move the cooler if she needed access to the closet. The woman did not de-escalate. 

She was assigned to clean the bathroom and had no legitimate reason to be there. Instead, the confrontation escalated quickly—and deliberately.

When the surveillance footage from the common room camera is reviewed in slow motion, it shows the woman lunging into the closet and striking Peters while she was still partially trapped. Peters raised her arm defensively, absorbing a blow to her elbow that later left visible bruising.

Peters pushed the woman out of the closet and into the common area, restraining her arm to stop further blows. As Peters pushed the attacker backward into the common area which is under camera surveillance, the woman smiled and taunted her:

“You know you’re on camera right now.”

The message was unmistakable: what happened in the closet would not be seen—only what happened afterward would.

Peters disengaged, ended the confrontation, and returned to her cell.

Moments later, guards arrived—not to assess injuries or separate the individuals—but to shackle Peters in handcuffs and leg restraints. She was told she was being charged with assault and placed into what the Department of Corrections avoids calling “solitary confinement,” but which functions as exactly that.

Renaming isolation does not change its effects.

Peters is now housed alone, with no other inmates in her unit. She is confined to her cell approximately 22 hours per day and allowed out for only two. She has been denied access to her tablet, her only reliable means of communicating with family and friends. Prison officials told her she will remain in this status for up to 30 days while an “investigation” is conducted.

While Peters was shackled, isolated, and cut off from communication, the violent inmate who initiated the attack was returned to the general population without consequence.

The Prison’s Response

When asked about the incident, the Colorado Department of Corrections issued a written statement minimizing both the assault and Peters’ confinement.

“The Department can confirm that inmate Tina Peters (DOC #203512) was involved in an incident with another inmate at the La Vista Correctional Facility on January 18, 2026, in which no one was injured,” the statement reads. “As is the Department’s practice and policy, it promptly conducted an administrative investigation that included reviewing a surveillance recording.”

The Department further stated that “the inmate is not in solitary confinement,” asserting that Peters was merely “moved to a different housing area,” and adding that “La Vista Correctional Facility does not utilize solitary confinement.”

According to the Department, conducting an investigation and moving incarcerated individuals to different housing areas is “a standard safety and security procedure” pending the investigation’s outcome. Officials also attached surveillance footage from the common-area camera as part of their response.

That footage does not capture the assault itself, which occurred inside a janitor’s closet outside the camera’s view.

The Department’s characterization stands in stark contrast to Peters’ actual conditions of confinement. 

Peters is housed alone, with no other inmates in her unit, confined approximately 22 hours per day, denied access to her tablet and outside communication, and told she will remain there for up to 30 days. 

Whatever the Department chooses to call it, the effect is isolation.

Peters has filed a formal complaint seeking assault charges against her attacker. 

Yet she is the one being punished—isolated, silenced, and treated as a disciplinary problem rather than a victim.

This incident did not occur in a vacuum. It occurred in a system that has repeatedly failed—and arguably targeted—Tina Peters.

Peters has been denied placement in the prison’s incentive unit, a safer housing area reserved for inmates with sustained good behavior, six separate times. 

Officials claimed she was disqualified due to four disciplinary “write-ups.” But the Department of Corrections later confirmed in writing that Peters has no write-ups in her official record. 

Despite that verification, she has continued to be denied access. The false entry appears to have been inserted into her Offender Record to keep her in general population alongside violent offenders.

Had Peters been housed in a minimum-security facility—something Colorado provides for men but not for women—this assault likely would not have occurred. 

Colorado operates four minimum-security prisons for male inmates. There are none for women, raising serious questions about unequal treatment and inmate safety.

The timing alone raises questions that demand answers.

The assault occurred just days after oral arguments in the Colorado Court of Appeals, where judges openly questioned whether Peters’ sentence was extreme, whether her First Amendment rights were violated, and whether due process failures infected her prosecution. 

Shortly thereafter, Governor Jared Polis publicly acknowledged that he is considering commuting Peters’ sentence, stating that the punishment may have been excessive.

Against that backdrop, the sudden emergence of a prison “assault” narrative—one that portrays Peters as violent and disruptive—cannot be ignored. 

As noted on Truth Matters with Apollo, generating a disciplinary incident at this precise moment serves a clear purpose: to recast Tina Peters not as a nonviolent political prisoner, but as a problem inmate.

The facts tell a different story.

Tina Peters was assaulted in a confined space, out of view of cameras, by a known violent offender. She defended herself, disengaged, and was immediately punished—while her attacker walked free within the prison walls.

That is not justice.

That is retaliation.

The events discussed here occur against the backdrop of unresolved questions in the Mesa County election case. For additional context, readers may review this recent commentary examining sworn court admissions by former Dominion executive Eric Coomer.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.