Pitkin County sheriff’s deputies closed a county road for more than an hour Friday afternoon while negotiating with a Denver man pulled over on Highway 82 for speeding who refused to cooperate with them, an official said.
Richard Carpenter, 56, of Denver, eventually surrendered peacefully and was arrested and charged with drunken driving and violating a protection order, said Alex Burchetta, chief deputy of operations for the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office.
Carpenter was pulled over in the area of Wildcat Way about 2:30 p.m. by a deputy who clocked him driving 83 mph in a 55 mph zone, he said.
The Sheriff’s Office sent out a “Pitkin Alert” at 2:46 p.m. notifying community members that Wildcat Way would be closed for the foreseeable future while deputies dealt with the situation. Carpenter was not armed or acting violently, though he refused to comply with verbal commands from deputies, Burchetta said.
“We have the luxury of time in these situations,” he said. “We don’t have to use force in situations like this to make someone comply.”
Wildcat Way, located just east of the Pitkin County landfill, reopened to traffic at 4:05 p.m.