‘Tony’ mysteriously disappears after downtown Glenwood car chase
Downtown Glenwood Springs was the scene of a dramatic car chase early Saturday morning, May 18.
A Glenwood Springs police officer was on patrol shortly after midnight when he saw a dark gray Kia Optima pass by, which he recognized from previous misdemeanor and felony warrants, according to court documents.
The car failed to stop at an intersection near the 700 block of 10th Street, so the cop pursued the vehicle. The Kia made several turns, without a turn signal, and failed to stop at several intersections. The Kia made a quick right turn onto Bennett Avenue and accelerated “quickly to a high rate of speed, despite the narrow width of the street with parked cars on both sides of the street,” the officer wrote.
The officer estimated the speed was more than 40 miles per hour on the residential street.
At one point, the Kia’s undercarriage scraped against the roadway, causing sparks to fly. Turning south onto Blake Avenue, the Kia sped through several intersections, “hitting several uneven places in the roadway which sent the vehicle airborne for short periods of time,” the officer said.
Another officer attempted to intercept the car near Alpine Bank, but the Kia nearly collided with the other patrol vehicle, which had sirens and lights flashing. The Kia went north on Grand Avenue, passing several pedestrians who were crossing the street.
Eventually, cops were able to trap the vehicle at Seventh Street and Palmer Avenue.
The 45-year-old woman in the driver’s seat said a man named “Tony” was the real driver, and the cops had left before any of the four officers in pursuit could see him.
The man in the passenger seat identified the woman as the driver, and told cops he had been concerned for his safety.
A young child was in the back seat of the vehicle in a car seat for the entire trip, according to the affidavit.
The woman was clear of warrants, but her driver’s license had been revoked as a habitual traffic offender.
She stated that she had taken cocaine several days earlier, and that she used methamphetamine from time to time.
At the police station, the officer said the woman struggled to keep her arms and legs still, and “continually licked the inside of her mouth and grinded her teeth during the interview,” according to the affidavit.
She passed roadside sobriety tests, and consented to a breath test and a blood draw.
Machete fight in Carbondale
A fight between two homeless men near Carbondale put one in the hospital and the other in jail.
A Garfield County sheriff’s deputy arrived at a scene where Carbondale officers were assisting an alleged stabbing victim around 9:30 p.m. Monday on the Highway 133 bridge near the Highway 82 intersection.
One of the men standing on the bridge when the deputy arrived said he had been involved in the incident, and the deputy noticed his hands were “covered in blood.”
The suspect, 32, told the deputy he had gone to the alleged victim’s camp “to confront him about being a ‘drug user,’” according to court documents.
The suspect said the other man had gotten aggressive and pulled a machete, hit him in the head with a metal object, and held a camp chair to his throat. The suspect said he took out a pocket knife and stabbed the other man twice to escape.
Officers searched the camp where the fight occurred, and found a machete “lying on the ground, near a pool of blood and a bloody sandal.”
The deputy also found a small folding knife in a sheath, with no blood on it.
The doctor who examined the man who got stabbed had asked what happened. The alleged victim told the doctor that the suspect had come to his campsite, yelling, and began shaking the tent. The suspect attacked with the machete, and the alleged victim tried to fight him off with a camp chair.
Deputies arrested the suspect on charges of first-degree assault because of the inconsistent stories, the wounds and the fact that the machete was the only weapon with blood on it.
Driver fails to stop after cop sees him run over a dog
A Carbondale police officer was conducting a traffic stop on Main Street near Eighth Sunday evening when he saw a dog run away from its owner and get hit by a car.
The medium-sized white dog was off its leash, and the owner was attempting to catch it, the officer observed, according to an affidavit.
“I heard the woman yell and then I heard a thud,” the officer wrote.
The driver, 30, looked toward the road and saw the sedan hit the dog. “The dog was under the front bumper and rolled multiple times before the driver of the car slowed down,” the officer wrote.
“The dog was able to get back on its feet and ran west,” the officer said.
The driver of the car made eye contact with the officer, and had his window down. The cop yelled for him to stop twice, and the driver slowed down, but never stopped.
Another officer pursued the driver, who passed a van and swerved to make the van brake hard. Then the driver sped to about 50 miles an hour, according to the cop’s estimation.
The driver stopped on Morrison Street and tried to flee on foot through the front yards of several houses. He tried to jump a fence but couldn’t, and turned to try to doge the cop but was grabbed and wrestled to the ground, according to the affidavit.
The cop ran the suspects name through dispatch, and found he had a revoked license and three outstanding warrants, as well as a restraining order that he allegedly violated.
The officer asked why he didn’t stop after he hit the dog. “He told me he didn’t hear me,” the office wrote. The suspect also told the officer he ran because he was scared.
