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Garfield County Crime Briefs: Long Island iced tea, meth and counterfeit Benjamins

‘ONE DRINK’ LEADS TO FIFTH SUSPECTED DUI

Just over a week after a woman was arrested on her fourth suspected DUI, Garfield County Sheriff’s deputies stopped her  again around 8:30 p.m. Jan. 12, as she was driving one car-length from another vehicle on Interstate 70.

The Sheriff’s officer stopped the car and told the woman he saw her weaving down the interstate near New Castle, according to an arrest affidavit. The woman’s eyes appeared red and glassy, according to the affidavit, and she said she didn’t have a license because she had been charged with a fourth DUI a week prior.

The woman told the officer she had not had anything to drink that day. After the officer checked the woman’s out-of-state identification card, he returned to say he could smell alcohol on the woman’s breath.

She then said she had consumed “one drink” four hours earlier. Asked what that drink was, the woman said she had a Long Island iced tea; typically made with multiple shots of various alcohols.

The woman declined to take a breath test, and the officer administered roadside maneuver tests, which she could not complete without stumbling, according to the affidavit.

The woman refused to take a blood alcohol test when she was taken into custody. Another Sheriff’s officer found an empty vodka bottle in the back seat.

The woman told one officer that “she knows she is an alcoholic, but she is able to control it,” according to the affidavit.

MAN CAUGHT WITH FORGED $100 BILL

The Parachute Police Department got a tip Wednesday that a suspect wanted in Mesa County was traveling through town.

A Sheriff’s deputy followed the car and confirmed four active felony warrants for the man, who was known to be violent in his attempts to escape law enforcement, according to court documents.

Sheriff’s deputies stopped the car near DeBeque, with assistance from Mesa County Sheriff’s deputies, and arrested the man without incident.

While he was being arrested, he asked the police officer to give his wallet to the passenger. The police officer searched the wallet for contraband, and found a $100 bill that seemed counterfeit to the touch.

The officer later noted that many security features were missing from the bill. One of the suspect’s warrants was for possession of counterfeit checks or currency, the affidavit said.

CHASE ENDS UNDER A BOAT WITH METH

A day-long search for a man wanted on a contempt of court warrant ended when officers dragged him by his feet from under a boat.

According to an affidavit, the chase began Wednesday afternoon when Garfield County Sheriff’s officers found the man in the passenger seat of a car that had its engine running, but was parked pointed the wrong direction along Garfield County Road 221 in Rifle.

When the sheriff informed the man he was under arrest, the man took off running and disappeared into a trailer park. One officer tried to climb the fence and follow, but injured his knee in the process.

The following afternoon, Sheriff’s officers spotted the suspect around an address he was known to frequent, and he fled again. Rifle Police officers and K-9 units assisted in chasing the man.

As they chased him through an apartment complex and Rifle neighborhoods south of I-70, a woman said a man “had just asked her to use her bathroom and then tried to stay in the house once she let him in.” He ran out shortly after, according to the affidavit.

The officers saw him run onto a property on County Road 320 and finally spotted his feet sticking out from underneath a boat that was in a shed at the back of the property.

The man would not respond to commands, so an investigator took hold of his feet and pulled him out. As he was dragged from his hiding spot, a glass pipe fell out of his pocket, and deputies found bags of methamphetamine where he had been lying, the officer’s affidavit stated.

The suspect faces felony charges of drug possession, misdemeanor trespass and resisting arrest.

tphippen@postindependent.com


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