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Crime Briefs: Another drugged high-speed chase through Rifle

Ryan Summerlin
rsummerlin@postindependent.com

An 18-year-old male led Rifle police on a high-speed chase through town and wound up in the emergency room after he was finally detained and complained of having “done too many drugs,” according to police.

A Garfield County corporal attempted to help a car that was driving too slow and backing up traffic on U.S. 6 near Rifle the evening of Oct. 28.

But when the corporal pulled up behind the vehicle and flipped on his lights, the driver, a 19-year-old man, jumped out and the passenger took the wheel. Officers immediately focused on arresting the driver, and the green Subaru was quickly gone, according to an affidavit.



Rifle police picked up pursuit of the vehicle on U.S. 6 in Rifle, where the car proceeded to speed through town up to 70 mph in 25 mph zones. The car blew through numerous stop signs and nearly struck other vehicles.

The car crashed in a ditch near Colorado 13 and 26th Street. At the crash site a K9 later hit on what was found to be 13.98 grams of methamphetamine.



An 18-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl fled but were quickly tracked down.

On the 18-year-old, officers found numerous plastic baggies and a wad of cash rolled in a $100 bill, totaling $644. Authorities later found .33 grams of methamphetamine on him.

Sweating profusely, “(he) said he wanted to be seen by medical personnel because he had done too many drugs. He said his heart was beating 100 times a minutes,” a deputy wrote in the affidavit.

The 17-year-old girl was dry heaving and said she might have hit her head in the crash and might have a concussion.

Both the 18-year-old and the 17-year-old were taken to the Grand River Hospital emergency room.

At the hospital they found four baggies in her shoes, two of which contained a total of .6 grams of methamphetamine.

The 17-year-old said she had just gotten out of rehab a week before. She said she hadn’t wanted to take any drugs and that “he made me eat them.” She said the 18-year-old made her eat the contents of the other two baggies.

The 18-year-old was arrested on charges of possession with intent to distribute, a level 3 drug felony; possession, a level 4 drug felony; contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a class 4 felony; and vehicular eluding, a class 5 felony. His misdemeanor arresting charges included obstructing a peace officer, reckless driving and driving without a license.

The 19-year-old man was arrested on charges of possession, driving without a license, eluding a police officer and impeding normal traffic.

As a juvenile, the 17-year-old girl’s case file is not public information.

Accused candy thief targets car

After stealing nearly $90 worth of candy and merchandise from the Rifle Wal-Mart on Oct. 27, a 27-year-old man tried to make off with a car, too, police said.

Rifle police responded to reports of a man trespassing in someone’s vehicle. A customer had come out of the store to find his car door open and a man rummaging through it.

When the man saw the owner of the vehicle, he panicked and said he thought it was a friend’s car, the owner told police. The owner of the vehicle punched the man in the face and put him in a headlock, according to an affidavit.

The 27-year-old suspect admitted he had been in the car but again said he thought it was a friend’s car, according to a police report.

In the car were also candy bars, beef jerky, a bottle of water and a Halloween mask that didn’t belong to the car owner.

The vehicle owner believed the 27-year-old was trying to start the car with a pry bar he found in the driver’s side floorboard. The ignition was loose, he told police.

The man was arrested on charges of second-degree burglary, a class 4 felony, along with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing and misdemeanor theft.

Felony follows months of stalking

Glenwood Springs police arrested a 34-year-old man Monday after they say he spent months stalking his ex.

The woman had called police on him before, but officers were unable to locate him at the time. This began when she moved out of his residence in January after a short stint of staying with him.

He would call her from blocked phone numbers and try to contact her with fake Facebook accounts after she’d blocked his account, she said. She changed her phone number twice to try to end his calling.

She moved because he would come peer through her windows. She got a new car after he wouldn’t stop putting notes on her vehicle.

Though she wouldn’t tell him where she was going, often he would show up at Wal-Mart or City Market when she was shopping, she told police. She suspected that he was tracking her through a cell phone he’d gifted her.

At one point he came after hours to the plaza building where she works and forced his way into her office and only left when she started to call police, according to an affidavit. He had not been violent or threatened her, but she was fearful that these incidents were escalating, she told police.

He was arrested on a class 5 felony charge of stalking, which is defined as domestic violence by statute.

Hi-tech TV smashed

Garfield County deputies were dispatched to a domestic violence incident on Holly Way near Parachute early the morning of Oct. 29 after a man a man reported that his fiancé smashed the TV while she was intoxicated.

The couple were fighting over money, the man having recently been laid off, and while he was gone visiting a friend in Rifle, she smashed his $3,200, curved, high-definition smart TV, he said.

She told police that they got into a fight about “his attentiveness to the relationship.”

She said he was “a ‘deadbeat’ that played ‘World of Warcraft’ and ‘Call of Duty’ all day,” according to an affidavit.

The woman also said that he had pushed the TV over himself, but scrutiny of the smashed screen led an officer to conclude that the television’s damages were caused by something being thrown at it.

She also texted him earlier in the night, saying that something had happened to the TV. She ended this text with, “whoopsie.”

She was arrested on charges of criminal mischief, a class 6 felony. Domestic violence could be used as a sentence enhancer.


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