Ex-boyfriend allegedly steals woman’s car
Glenwood Springs police arrested a 23-year-old man Jan. 29 for allegedly stealing a former girlfriend’s car.
On Jan. 3, the woman reported that her ex-boyfriend, who had moved back to the Front Range, had returned to Glenwood Springs on Dec. 23 for a court appearance, and asked to borrow her car, according to an arrest warrant dated Jan. 7.
The two had broken up the day before, but the woman allowed him to borrow the car only to drive to court and back.
The man didn’t return the car that day, and the woman told police that she asked her ex-boyfriend for several days to bring the car back.
The suspect claimed his phone was having issues and then stopped responding.
Denver Police had run the car on Dec. 28, the warrant states.
The man “has committed numerous crimes over the years to include harassment, theft, domestic violence, fraud and criminal impersonation,” the police officer wrote in the warrant.
In addition to the motor vehicle theft charge, a class 5 felony, the man also faces charges of failing to appear in court.
Garage fight
A 37-year-old Rifle man was arrested Saturday for allegedly assaulting his 73-year-old father.
The father told police his son was intoxicated and using a blowtorch in the garage, according to arrest documents.
The elder man said his son at first refused to turn off the torch but then complied and threw it. The man went to pick it up, and his son punched him in the chest, according to the probable cause statement.
The man told police the punch hurt, but he did not want medical care.
The suspect’s mother came in to see the pair on the ground struggling, and told police that she was worried her husband, who just had a stroke, would hit his head.
The suspect was arrested without incident, and faces charges of third-degree assault, a class 1 misdemeanor, and crimes against at-risk persons, a class 6 felony.
Footprints in the snow lead to alleged driver of wrecked stolen car
A Colorado State Patrol trooper followed footprints in the snow leading away from a crashed pickup truck on Interstate 70 near Hanging Lake around midnight Sunday.
The crash involved only one vehicle, but a truck driver told the trooper he nearly collided with the truck heading westbound around one of the corners, according to a probable cause statement.
The black pickup collided with the barrier, and was blocking the left lane, the trooper wrote.
About 40 feet from the concrete barrier and behind some brush, the trooper found a sleeping bag with someone inside.
Two troopers approached the sleeping bag, shouted commands, and the man got out of the bag and came back to the road.
The man, 32, told the trooper that he was tired because he had been walking from Maryland, heading to Utah, and was trying to get some sleep.
The trooper asked the man to be honest, and the man said he was a passenger in the crashed truck.
The man from the sleeping bag denied being the driver of the crashed car. He told the trooper he was the passenger, but “appeared to be confused as to the spelling” of the unknown driver’s name, the trooper wrote in the probable cause statement.
The man was taken to Valley View Hospital, then to the Garfield County Jail around 4:40 a.m.
While at the jail, the trooper got a call that the owner of the truck had reported it stolen from where it was parked in Boulder, locked with the keys in the ashtray.
The suspect faces charges of aggravated motor vehicle theft, a class 3 felony, and several misdemeanors for careless driving and failing to report an accident.
