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Crime Briefs: Man charged with kidnapping ex after chase

A 34-year-old Park City, Kansas, man led police on a high-speed chase on the back roads between Rifle and Silt after he was caught assaulting his girlfriend, according to police.

The 35-year-old woman told police that she’d met with her ex-boyfriend in Carbondale earlier that day and got into his SUV because he was being very nice.

But then he “flipped the script,” she said. He became aggressive, took her cellphone and wouldn’t let her out of the vehicle.



“(He) then drove to Rifle with (her) in the car refusing to let her out, telling her that they could just disappear together. They went south of the airport and parked and had an argument for approximately three hours. During the argument (the man) would wrap his arm around her neck,” according to an affidavit.

Then he drove her to a friend’s house where he gave the phone back so she could call her father. But he became angry when he found she had messaged another man instead, according to an affidavit.



The ex-boyfriend tried to force her out of the house and back into his SUV when the man showed up. That man later told police he saw the ex choking the woman up against a vehicle in the front yard.

He grabbed a pipe from his truck and ran at them, but the ex jumped in his vehicle and fled, according to an affidavit.

Garfield County deputies were soon in pursuit of the vehicle on County Road 277, where the man was driving up to 80 mph in a 35 mph zone. At Highway 6 he turned east toward Silt, losing the deputies for a time when he went off road.

But officers picked up the chase again on County Road 233. The SUV rolled off a dirt berm, and the man fled on foot. Deputies converged on him hiding in some bushes nearby, and he later said he was sleeping in that field, not driving.

The victim in this case already had three protection orders barring the man from contact with her.

He was arrested on 13 charges in total: second-degree kidnapping, a class 4 felony; vehicular eluding, a class 5 felony; violation of bond conditions, a class 6 felony, and 10 misdemeanors. Domestic violence will be considered for sentencing purposes.

ounce of pot, half a dozen weapons

Garfield County deputies arrested a 19-year-old New Castle man after his older brother accused him of stealing a small arsenal from his storage unit.

The stolen items included a Smith and Wesson P99, a Beretta PX4, a Mossberg Maverick 12-gauge shotgun, a Savage 7 mm Remington, a bow and a hunting knife.

While deputies were investigating the theft, Silt police aired a “be on the lookout” alert for the 19-year-old after his family reported that he’d made suicidal threats.

The teenager was staying at a Glenwood Springs motel, and police rushed to the site.

When police contacted him, he said he’d discarded a couple of the items near the Apple Tree mobile home park and given some of the other weapons to another man at the park, who eventually led them to a location up Canyon Creek where he’d stashed them.

Deputies found both the bow and one of the handguns on the ground near the trailer park. “I know that this area is a popular hangout for school-age children. It was extremely fortunate that no child found the handgun before us,” a deputy wrote in an affidavit.

However, the Smith and Wesson was still not located when the New Castle teenager was arrested. Police also found about 1.65 ounces of marijuana in individual bags with him.

He was arrested on charges of second-degree burglary, a class 4 felony; theft, a class 6 felony; possession of 1 to 6 ounces of marijuana, a level 4 drug felony. He was also charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment, both misdemeanors, and minor in possession, a petty offense.

Spitting ON DEPUTY = ASSAULT

A 43-year-old man who lives near Rifle faces a second-degree assault charge, though not for landing a kick or a punch.

Garfield County sheriff’s deputies initially went to the man’s residence after an woman said she’d received a text from him saying he had “slit his wrists and was bleeding a lot and wanted to say goodbye,” according to an affidavit.

But when deputies traced his cellphone and showed up at his residence, he said he had not hurt himself, through he’d been considering it.

He also had a Garfield County warrant related to a “harassing communication” charge, so he was still arrested.

When deputies pulled up to the jail and went to get him out of the back of the patrol vehicle, they found he was still holding his cellphone.

One deputy said he couldn’t take the phone into the jail and took it from him – at which point the man became irate, according to an affidavit.

He moved toward the deputy aggressively, saying “I’m going to find you and kill you,” among other threats as he was being taken into the jail.

Another deputy joined to assist with the combative man, and inside the jail they tried to put him in a “restraint chair,” one deputy using what he called a “jugular notch pressure point to get (him) to sit back in the restraint chair.”

In the process the man spit saliva and chewing tobacco in a couple deputies’ faces.

He was arrested on two counts of second-degree assault, a class 4 felony. The arresting deputy cited the statute that defines the charge – which includes spitting on jail personnel.


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