Editor’s note: This is the second story in a series about Taralyn Romero’s property rights battle in Kittredge, Colorado. Read part 1 here.

Social media can distort truth, warp reality, and pit neighbors against each other. It can even turn a woman living in a house next to a park into a “wicked witch.”

The first confrontation that blew up online seemed innocuous in Taralyn Romero’s memory. A grandmother and two young children were in her backyard. The kids, armed with small shovels, were digging holes in the creek bank as if it were a beach, she said.

Romero said she walked over and asked the woman if the kids could go dig in the playground where there was a sandbox. Romero said she made the request in a normal tone, but the woman seemed startled, like she hadn’t expected anyone to come talk to her.

But on social media, Romero saw a rant from the woman’s daughter. In this telling, Romero was a nasty woman who had screamed at the grandmother and terrified the children.

“In people’s minds, they said … ‘This is the type of family that we don’t want in our community and in our neighborhood,’” Romero told Fox News Digital. “And once they got convinced of that false narrative, they felt emboldened and almost heroic for threatening us.”

BRENTWOOD BLIGHT: HOW A SUPREME COURT CASE ALLOWED GOVERNMENTS TO SEIZE PROPERTY ON BEHALF OF DEVELOPERS

Romero’s battle with her community and, ultimately, her local government, began in early 2021 when she bought a house in the woods about half an hour outside Denver, Colorado. Her backyard included a steep hill and, below, a creek ran through the edge of the property with a community park on the other side.

Locals had played in the creek for decades, but Romero said a survey of the property showed the land on either side of the water belonged to her.

When that rope went up, people lost their damn minds … It catapulted this situation into a whole other stratosphere.

— Taralyn Romero

County officials said they didn’t know who owned the land because the creek had likely changed course since the original property lines were drawn. They asked community members to access the creek from a different park about a mile east of Kittredge instead while both sides hashed out the issue.

Many people ignored the request.

After about a year of dealing with the trash and damage left behind by visitors, not to mention worrying about potential legal liability if anyone got hurt, Romero said she’d had enough. She hung a thin blue rope across her property line, blocking access to the creek, and posted “no trespassing” signs on the trees.

“When that rope went up, people lost their damn minds,” she said. “It catapulted this situation into a whole other stratosphere.”

Romero said people started conspiring online in Facebook and Nextdoor groups, collectively agreeing to ignore the rope and “openly trespass.” They believed the land was public property or, even if it wasn’t, it should be because the community had enjoyed it for so long.

Romero took numerous videos of people disregarding the signs and sauntering up to the water’s edge, even waving at her as they did so.

“Hi. You guys are trespassing,” she can be heard calling out in one video.

“Yes, I know,” a woman responds. “Thanks for being an awesome neighbor.” She flashes a thumbs up.

Romero felt like she was portrayed “as a villain … someone who didn’t want to watch children have fun.” 

“They called me a rich White woman from California — or they told me to go back to Mexico,” the native Coloradan recalled.

‘NO POLITICS’ SCHOOL THAT FACED BATTLE TO OPEN IN BLUE STATE BOASTS HIGH TEST SCORES

Taralyn Romero and her partner filmed numerous exchanges they had with people they say openly trespassed on their property.  (Courtesy Taralyn Romero)

Screenshots shared with Fox News Digital show some of the posts. In one, a purported member of the Save Kittredge Park committee wrote an alternate version of Martin Niemoller’s famous critique of Nazism, and those who said nothing in the face of evil.

“First they came for the city dwellers, And I did not speak out because I was not a city dweller,” the woman wrote in part. “Then they came for the locals, and I did not support them.”

Michael Eymer, Romero’s partner, was aghast.

“You are comparing us to Nazis,” Eymer wrote in the comments under the post, adding that, as someone with Jewish lineage, he found this “deeply offensive.”

It didn’t take long for the “social media bullying” to cross over to “real life danger,” Romero said.

“Sad woman you are what goes around comes around, is it worth having your house burned down or even worse cause that’s what’s gonna happen if you piss the wrong person off,” a message sent through a GoFundMe page Romero eventually started for her legal fees reads in part. “I hope for your sake you lose that land.”

People flipped off Romero and Eymer from down by the creek. “Suck my d—,” a man yelled when Eymer told him to stay off their property. A woman twice mooned a surveillance camera near the street by Romero’s house.

SUPREME COURT DECIDES CASE OF CALIFORNIA MAN CHARGED $23,000 BY COUNTY TO BUILD ON HIS OWN LAND

Crowds gathered at Bear Creek all summer long, Romero said, and many people ignored signs requesting that people not dig or otherwise damage the property. (Courtesy Taralyn Romero)

Romero still felt like facts could overpower feelings. But when she tried to share the survey showing the property lines, she says she got blocked from community groups, or people suggested she may have bribed the surveyor. Friends who tried to advocate for Romero and her family were similarly blocked, she said.

As the gossip swirled online, one community member dubbed Romero the wicked witch, then changed her own profile picture to one depicting Glinda the Good Witch from the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz.” 

Shut out of the online community groups, Romero turned to TikTok and created her own persona in August 2022: The “Wicked Witch of the West.”

“If someone like that comes to my property, cusses me out, flips me off, trespasses, and is just a general bully, if she is the good witch, I guess I am the wicked witch, right?” Romero said. “Because I am the opposite of her.”

One of her first videos, which has since amassed more than 4.5 million views, shows crowds of families playing in Bear Creek. A disgruntled Romero, with her raven hair, red lipstick and black felt hat, is superimposed over the scene.

“POV: they tell you it’s not a big deal and you shouldn’t have bought property next to a park if you don’t want the Public in your backyard,” reads an onscreen caption.

Romero said she wanted a place to express herself using humor. Her first posts mocked the women she said accused her of “stealing” the land. Seemingly overnight, she gained 15,000 followers. Then 100,000.

If she is the good witch, I guess I am the wicked witch, right? Because I am the opposite of her.

— Taralyn Romero

“What started out as a forum for artistic expression, to literally just cope with what had happened, quickly became a platform for sharing my side of the story,” she said.

She shared “endless videos of us being cut out and harassed and antagonized.” And now, instead of being kicked off platforms, she had a sympathetic audience, outraged at peoples’ lack of respect for private property.

“It changed how I started to use social media in order to basically pull a reverse uno on what was a very traumatic and prolonged and unnecessary situation over my property,” she said.

Taralyn Romero says she roped off the portion of her property on the north side of Bear Creek after repeated requests that visitors respect the land went ignored. Community members who previously enjoyed access to the creek were outraged. (Fox News Digital)

And it proved to be a valuable platform for venting about her newest enemy. Because just three weeks before Romero posted her first TikTok video, the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners had sued her for access to the land.

“They were going after anything and everything that they possibly could in order to take my property from me,” she said.

This is the second story in a series about Taralyn Romero’s property rights battle in Kittredge, Colorado. Read the final installment on Tuesday.

The San Francisco Giants have had some of the best players in Major League Baseball history wear their colors. That’s why the past few years have been as disappointing as ever.

The Giants are a winning organization with a rich history. Any campaign that doesn’t end in a World Series will be viewed as a failure, and rightfully so.

Buster Posey is among the legends who have worn a San Francisco jersey. He’s now the president of baseball operations, an exciting hire a few months ago.

Posey is expected to play a big part in the Giants turning this thing around, and there aren’t many better than him to do just that.

Among the others includes Madison Bumgarner, a left-handed pitcher who was as good as it gets during his time with San Francisco.

Posey spoke on The Athletic’s “Starkville” podcast on Monday, hinting that Bumgarner might join the coaching staff.

“He’s been fun to talk to over these last couple of months because he’s surprised me that he wants to have some sort of involvement,” Posey said. “I kinda figured, once he was done, that he would want to — that we would kinda never hear from him again. He would disappear and, I don’t know, go be in the woods somewhere. I’m extremely excited about him being able to just share some of his experience with some of our young pitchers.”

For a Giants team that could use all the help it could get on the mound, adding the fierce competitor would be the perfect addition.

Bumgarner understands what it takes to pitch in big moments in front of the incredible San Francisco fan base. He and Posey lived it, as they were integral parts of the franchise’s three World Series titles in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

However, while Posey hinted at the possibility, he added that there isn’t anything set in stone yet.

“Look, I don’t have anything set in stone with him yet, and I don’t want to jump to anything with him,” Posey said. “I’m just happy that it seems like there’s a willingness for him to want to give back because he’s just a wealth of knowledge. And talk about a mentality, I mean, I never played with a pitcher that had the mentality like he did.”

As the former catcher said, it’s a good step in the right direction that Bumgarner at least has some willingness to help out.

Whether that happens remains to be seen, but he’d be an excellent addition to the coaching staff, even if it’s in a small capacity.

During the last month of the season, there was an argument to be had that the Seattle Mariners offense was one of the most improved in baseball.

For most of the season, the lineup struggled with strikeouts, inconsistency and injury. There wasn’t a set lineup until August.

The offense ended up leading the league in strikeouts (1,625), but improved after hitting coach Edgar Martinez and Dan Wilson was hired on Aug. 22.

Seattle ranked within the top 10 of the league in several offensive statistics after Martinez and Wilson took the reins. But it was reported that Martinez wouldn’t be back with the team in a full-time capacity in 2025, leaving the team looking for its fourth hitting coach in two seasons.

The Mariners found Martinez’s replacement in the form of decade-long Atlanta Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer. Seitzer will be reporting to Martinez. The latter will oversee the hitting program as Senior Director of Hitting Strategy. He’ll travel with the team in a limited capacity, per reports.

Seitzer went on the Foul Territory podcast on Tuesday to talk about his new role and what his approach will be with Seattle.

“I’m in the beginning stages of digging in on these guys. But just going off what Edgar’s told me and (the) front office when we’ve had conversations through the interview process and after I got the job, some of the things they were saying is just Edgar got them in the middle of the field and using the off-gap. Getting back on the fastball, there was a lot of sitting on pitches, taking percentage of counts, or percentage of pitches in certain counts, and then kind of selling out to that. … Edgar just got them hunting the fastball, staying in the middle of the field the other way and just (being) aggressive. And for me, that’s my No. 1 M.O.. You got to have hitters that are aggressive. But the more you have a plan of where you’re hunting that fastball and trying to stay in the middle of the field — it helps with timing, helps with recognition, helps repeat that good swing path to stay inside the ball more consistently.”

Martinez was praised by players like JP Crawford and Julio Rodriguez for his simplified approach at the plate. Martinez will have a say in how the hitting program is constructed throughout the season. But based on Seitzer’s comments, it seems like his philosophy falls in line with Martinez’s.

Seitzer coached two National League MVPs in Freddie Freeman (2020) and Ronald Acuna (2023) and his offenses averaged a ninth-place finish in batting average in his decade in Atlanta.

If that success translates to the Pacific Northwest, then the Mariners’ offense will be much more effective in 2025.

MLB INSIDER FLOATS POSSIBLE INFIELD FITS FOR THE MARINERS: The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal discussed possible moves that would net the Seattle Mariners high-tier infielders. CLICK HERE

MARINERS OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCE 2025 COACHING STAFF: The Seattle Mariners confirmed reports that a long-time and well-accomplished Atlanta Braves hitting coach will be joining the coaching staff for 2025. CLICK HERE

POPULAR BASEBALL SITE PROJECTS BOUNCE BACK 2025 FOR JULIO RODRIGUEZ: The Seattle Mariners face of the franchise could be in for a bounce-back 2025 per FanGraphs’ ZiPS projections.CLICK HERE

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