The sun was shining, and the band was tight. I was on harmonica, jamming “Folsom Prison Blues” at Denver’s Civic Center Park — a tradition I’ve taken up at the annual Pro-Police Rally Colorado, sitting in with the band and speaking for Law Enforcement Appreciation Days.

We barely made it into the second song. Hardly a verse or two in, far-left extremists and communist agitators swarmed the amphitheater from all sides — banging pots and pans, blaring sirens, wielding bubble machines with wild abandon.

Then, as police stood by under orders to “stand down,” violence erupted. The music died. Speakers were silenced. Fights broke out. Instruments were smashed. Rallygoers scattered.

In past years, some protesters might show up to obstruct. But never like this. Never full-on pandemonium.

Lead organizer Ron MacLachlan, who financed and insured the events, took a longboard to the forehead — blood streaming down his face.

“You will never accomplish anything by violently shutting somebody else down,” MacLachlan told me. “This is bullying. It’s extreme, childish, and it’s very dangerous.”

The next year, the crowd shrank. And again the year after. Safety concerns and intimidation took their toll. By 2024, the City of Denver made holding the rally virtually impossible — demanding cost-prohibitive double-fencing, insurance and more. Even if a protester broke a statue in frustration, MacLachlan would be on the hook. The event was cancelled.

“The people who riot don’t have to pay anything,” MacLachlan said. “It costs nothing to torch the village. It costs everything if you want to say, hey guys, thank you.”

MacLachlan — who’s held rights to Civic Center Park on the third Sunday in July since 2015 — hoped to bring back the event this year. But in a powder keg climate reminiscent of 2020, he cancelled — permanently — and is reimagining it elsewhere in 2026.

“It’s gotten to the point where, if you want to support your men and women of law enforcement, you’re demonized, even by Denver itself,” MacLachlan observed. “What’s the point of being there if you can’t get the cops to enjoy themselves because they’re too busy suiting up to referee a riot? And all you’re trying to do is say thanks guys, you’re doing a hell of a job.”

Meanwhile, fringe right-wing conspiracy theorists have spent years harassing and threatening Colorado election officials — fueled by theories that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

On Thursday, 71-year-old conspiracist William Wayne Bryant was formally charged with two arson counts and one count of using an explosive or incendiary device — all felonies — after allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail-like device into the voting machine room of the Archuleta County Clerk’s office.

No one was injured, but the fire damaged the office and destroyed the election equipment. The small county of 12,000 registered voters reportedly lacks insurance against political violence.

Bryant’s alleged attack appears politically motivated. In 2022, he ran for Archuletta County Sheriff, demanding commissioners ditch Dominion voting machines and count ballots by hand. After he lost, Bryant claimed the election was stolen.

According to the AP, he’d cited the debunked film “2,000 Mules” as a basis for abandoning Dominion equipment. The film’s creators, including conservative Salem Media, have since retracted and apologized for it.

Let’s be real: Words have power. There’s a reason you don’t yell fire in a crowded theater. If reckless, threatening rhetoric isn’t checked, people can get hurt.

Look at Mesa County. Tina Peters, its now-former clerk, was sentenced in October to nine years behind bars for orchestrating a breach of her own elections office in 2021 — ostensibly to prove the stolen-election myth.

She claimed she was “preserving” election records that would be deleted during routine Dominion software updates — even though those logs aren’t legally considered election records. Moreover, the “evidence” she released in three so-called reports was debunked, even by Mesa’s Republican DA, Dan Rubinstein.

Yet Peters’ narratives have led some stolen-election evangelists, like Bryant, down the rabbit hole.

During Peters’ sentencing, Colorado County Clerks Association executive director Matt Crane testified that her actions unleashed “death threats and general threats” against election workers — including Weld County Clerk Carly Koppes, a Republican, who received threats on her life and unborn child.

Honestly, it’s almost surprising that this kind of violence hasn’t happened more often. But is more on the way?

“I hear things out of the courtroom, where he had his first court appearance recently, that there were people in the gallery saying, ‘It’s about time something like this happened, we need more of this to happen,’” Crane said on national television Sunday.

“It’s a very scary environment for election officials,” he lamented.

Let’s be clear: No matter what you believe about elections or the police — and whether it’s the chaos I experienced in 2020 or throwing Molotov cocktails in 2024 — there is no place for political violence, threats or intimidation. And it starts with our leaders setting the example.

“Our politicians don’t walk on water,” MacLachlan said. “They should be accountable for what they incite. You have a responsibility to be the adult in the room. It sure would be nice if they started acting like it.”

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.