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Crime Briefs: Mom arrested on child abuse and meth charges

A single-wide mobile home went up in flames Sunday evening in the Three Mile mobile home park. The home was being remodeled and was unoccupied, so no one was injured, said Glenwood Springs Fire Chief Gary Tillotson. Investigators suspect that a temporary heater was to blame.
RYAN |

A severely underweight Glenwood Springs newborn was taken into protective custody Jan. 3 after his mother was charged with negligent child abuse and unlawful use of a controlled substance.

Police received complaints that the 22-year-old mother was being neglectful around her 2-month-old child — that the child smelled of urine and feces and wasn’t being looked after.

At the home, officers found numerous piles of feces, bird feed, feathers and, in one spot, what appeared to be vomit on the floor.



They found trash strewn throughout the room where the mother and baby stayed, including on the bare mattress where they slept and in the bins with the baby’s clothes, according to an affidavit.

The young mother was fidgety and unable to stand still during questioning, with slurred and jittery speech, according to an arrest affidavit.



The reporting Glenwood Springs officer wrote that he suspected her of being under the influence of methamphetamine based on his experience with users.

Officers took the child to Valley View Hospital for an evaluation, and medical staff found that he was in about the fifth percentile in weight, meaning that about 95 percent of normal 2-month-old boys weighed more than him, according to the affidavit.

With dirt between the baby’s toes and under his fingernails, “the medical staff stated that he appeared to be in a disheveled state and very hungry,” the officer wrote.

The child was placed in the custody of Department of Human Services by court order, and the mother was charged.

HOW DID I GET HERE?

Rifle police arrested a 19-year-old Silt man at gunpoint Wednesday after finding him in a stolen vehicle.

A Rifle resident discovered his SUV, a 2005 Nissan Pathfinder, was missing early in the morning after he left it running to warm up.

An officer spotted the SUV later that afternoon parked about 1,000 feet off road on County Road 224 in the Fravert Reservoir area.

Moving toward the vehicle, the officer saw movement inside and realized he was caught in the open without cover, so he ordered the man out of the vehicle at gunpoint.

Upon arrest, the teen told police that he remembered neither stealing the car nor how he wound up inside.

The Silt man was arrested on a charge of second-degree aggravated motor vehicle theft, a Class 6 Felony.

OUT OF, BACK INTO HOT WATER

A night at the Iron Mountain Hot Springs ended with a St. Charles, Illinois, woman in Garfield County jail after she slugged a Glenwood Springs officer in the face, according to her arrest affidavit.

Police first got a call from the hot springs the evening of Dec. 23 that an intoxicated man was attempting to drive away. He’d been seen getting into a black SUV with a suitcase still on top, and earlier he was spotted fighting with a woman, according to police.

While he was still in the parking lot, Glenwood Springs officers arrested the man for driving under the influence. But the 40-year-old St. Charles woman in the passenger seat refused to get out of the vehicle as police were trying to tow it.

After several attempts to talk her out of the way, two officers moved to arrest her for obstruction, but she punched one in the face, police said.

She was then arrested for obstruction of a police officer and aggravated second-degree assault on a police officer.


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