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Suspect tells deputy to beware of revenge

Ryan Summerlin
rsummerlin@postindependent.com

The Garfield County Sheriff’s Office reported that, while being arrested, a 39-year-old man threatened a deputy and his family with violent revenge through his gang connections.

Just past midnight on Aug. 5, multiple 911 calls came into dispatch about a reckless driver on Interstate 70 near Silt.

Callers said a black SUV was weaving all the way from the right shoulder across both lanes into the left shoulder and back. The SUV was reported as traveling about 90 to 95 mph, and stopping on the shoulder. One caller said the SUV had nearly hit his truck.



Deputies found the SUV pulled over on the shoulder with its lights off, the driver lying in the backseat. When he finally agreed to come out of the vehicle, it took him about 30 seconds to figure out how to open the door, a deputy wrote in his arrest report.

In the patrol car he said he was “a nobody, but the Mexican Mafia like me, so you better watch your ass …” and “I hope you don’t have a family because they’re gonna kill you,” the deputy wrote.

He told the deputy that he was driving from Denver to California in a rental car, and he had pulled over because he was tired.



Asked to provide his driver’s license, he handed over a Denver County Jail inmate ID. According to the deputy, he smelled of alcohol, his eyes were extremely bloodshot and watery and he swayed while he stood. However, the man claimed to be three months sober. He failed a roadside sobriety test and refused to take a breath test.

The 39-year-old grew upset as the deputy began arresting him. He was yelling that his lawyer would “have [my] ass,” wrote the deputy. And the man continually cursed at the deputy. He also asked the deputy if he knew about the “Latin Kings.” He yelled that the deputy “better watch your ass,” according to an arrest report.

In the patrol car he said he was “a nobody, but the Mexican Mafia like me, so you better watch your ass …” and “I hope you don’t have a family because they’re gonna kill you,” the deputy wrote.

He said to the deputy “I hope you don’t have kids because they torture kids,” and “I hope you like duct tape because they’re gonna get you and your family.”

The man was arrested on felony attempt to influence a public servant, as well as misdemeanors reckless driving, driving under restraint and driving under the influence.

25-year-old accused of giving pot to teenagers

A 25-year-old man wound up with a felony charge after police found him with well more than the legal amount of marijuana and two teens in an odorous car.

Glenwood Springs police responded to reports of a suspicious vehicle parked on private property on the 3100 block of Blake Avenue the evening of Aug. 27.

Officers found three males in a black Ford sedan that smelled of marijuana.

The driver was 25, with 17- and 16-year-old passengers. Officers also saw a marijuana container in one teenager’s lap. At first the driver denied having smoked marijuana with the teens, but he eventually admitted that he gave them the pot, according to an affidavit.

The two juveniles told officers that they had smoked marijuana earlier in the night. Inventorying the vehicle before impound, officers found numerous prescription bottles containing marijuana in the car, as well as several marijuana pipes and bongs.

In the trunk, numerous large bags of marijuana were hidden under a spare tire, according to police. Officers also found numerous bags of marijuana in a five-gallon bucket.

Altogether, officers found nearly 12 ounces of pot in the car.

The 25-year-old was arrested on two counts of felony contributing to the delinquency of a minor and a drug misdemeanor of possession of 6 to 12 ounces of marijuana.

Fake ID lands minor with felony

A woman at Turtle’s Glenwood Liquors called police saying that a man had tried to climb over the counter Sunday night. At the scene, officers spoke to a 20-year-old man who said the liquor store employee had taken his ID.

The employee said that the young man tried to use an ID that she immediately recognized as fraudulent. Officers confirmed the ID to be a forgery and noticed that parts of the ID did not match as they ran it through dispatch.

He was arrested on felony charges of forgery and criminal impersonation.

Pantless VAN SHAKER

An 18-year-old woman was sleeping in the back of her van early Tuesday when a man got in the vehicle. She was parked on Blake Avenue north of Wal-Mart.

The young woman was sleeping when she heard the driver’s side door open and someone rummaging through her center console. She reached up and slapped the man in the face. He then got out and rode away on the bike, and he was identified as a 19-year-old man, according to an affidavit.

Then about 20 minutes later, she felt her van shaking, and she looked up to see the 19-year-old man “doing something” at the front of the van. She yelled at him that she was calling the police, and as he walked away, she saw that he “was completely naked from the waist down.”

While officers were looking for the 19-year-old, a man approached them saying that there was a man hiding under his SUV. Officers found the 19-year-old with pants on, though they noticed his pants were muddy.

He was arrested on charges of felony trespassing and misdemeanor indecent exposure.

Boyfriend arrested

A 39-year-old man was arrested in a domestic incident Aug. 19 after county deputies say he broke three different restraining orders when he had been drinking and got into a fight with his girlfriend.

The woman called police saying that he had been drinking all day, which his restraining orders bar him from doing, and that he grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground, according to an affidavit.

When he saw police pull up to the residence, he turned around and walked off to another housing unit that did not belong to him, according to deputies. His neighbor, who was cooking dinner at the time, found the man standing in the living room. He appeared highly intoxicated and she worried because she had children at the house.

He was arrested on charges of felony first-degree trespass and misdemeanors harassment and violation of a protection order.


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