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Crime BriefsTransient man stalks young girls

Ryan Summerlin
rsummerlin@postindependent.com

Glenwood Springs police arrested a 23-year-old transient man Tuesday after multiple reports that he was following and leering at young girls around town.

On the afternoon of Sept. 21, Glenwood Springs police responded when two scared 11-year-old girls reported that a man was following them.

They told police that a man was following them around the 7-Eleven in West Glenwood, “looking them up and down, making them feel very uncomfortable,” according to an affidavit.



After the two girls left the convenience store, they noticed the man was still following them. They ran to a gym and called 911.

One of the girls reported that this is not the first time this man had followed her and made her feel uncomfortable, according to police. She had on multiple occasions told him to stop following her, she told officers.



This was also not the first time the police had been called about the suspect following young girls. Only a couple days before this incident Glenwood Springs police stopped him for following a group of middle school volleyball girls. Likewise, in that incident, the girls reported that he was looking them up and down.

On Sept. 27, police got another call about the man, again following one of the 11-year-old girls, this time at the Grand Avenue Wendy’s. She reported that he kept looking at her and making suggestive gestures, according to an affidavit.

He came up to her and said that “she was going to be his wife someday,” she told police.

The day before he had also followed her to school, she told police. “(She) stated that she was very scared and was afraid to walk anywhere,” according to a police report.

A female employee at Wendy’s also told police that the young man wouldn’t stop leering at her chest.

After days of multiple warnings from police, he was arrested Tuesday on charges of stalking, a class 5 felony, and misdemeanor harassment.

Sexual assault at sleepover

Rifle police responded to a sexual assault at a Rifle residence Sept. 18.

There had been a party at the residence, and a man who lived there told police that his brother had sexually assaulted a guest of his. After they had been drinking most of the night, the group went to sleep after midnight.

A 24-year-old woman who was sleeping over awoke in the night to the 22-year-old man sexually assaulting her.

The brothers got into a fight afterwards, injuring the 22-year-old’s arm. The suspect made no statement to police and was checked out at the hospital.

He was arrested on a charge of sexual assault, a class 4 felony.

Glenwood man arrested in Silt theft

Silt police arrested a 53-year-old Glenwood Springs man after reports he had stolen items from a vehicle Sunday. A woman on Silver Spur had seen a man rifling through her neighbor’s Nissan SUV.

Police found a man matching the description in front of Mama Costa’s Pizzeria. “(He) ducked into the Dusty Wagon car wash and was changing clothes when I contacted him,” an officer wrote.

The 53-year-old smelled of alcohol, according to police.

The man indicated a toolbox left in front of the pizzeria, which officers confiscated for evidence. The woman said she’d seen him taking the toolbox from the vehicle.

He was arrested on charges of first-degree criminal trespass, a class 5 felony, and misdemeanor theft from a vehicle.

Oklahoma man arrested in out-of-state vehicle theft

A woman in Tulsa, Okla., reported to Glenwood Springs police that her ex stole her vehicle, a 2009 Kia Rio, which she was tracking via GPS to Sunset Ridge.

Police found the vehicle parked at Ponderosa Lodge and Cabins. At the nearby cabin a 26-year-old man from Langley, Okla., answered and said the vehicle was his.

He was placed under arrest and then told officers that a friend of his (also identified as the woman’s ex) had given him the vehicle in Oklahoma. The 26-year-old also had a felony warrant from Oklahoma.

He was arrested on charges of theft, a class 6 felony.


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