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High Country Crime: Attempted burglary at Garfield fairgrounds leaves suspect trapped in air vent

An attempted burglary left a man trapped in an air vent at the Garfield County Fairgrounds on Wednesday, July 12.
Special to the Daily |

An attempted burglary left a man caught in a trap of his own making Wednesday morning, July 12.

The 27-year-old Rifle resident tried to break into the Garfield County Fairgrounds, authorities said.

Officers found him at the scene minutes into what they said was his second burglary within an hour, unable to escape after trapping himself in an air vent.



Fairgrounds manager Debra Adams called the incident a “complete mystery” because there is “not a thing out there for him to steal.”

At 12:57 a.m. Wednesday, Rifle Chief of Police Tommy Klein received an alarm call from Go-Fer Foods on Fifth and Railroad Avenue. Officers found the side window broken and cash taken from the register.



About an hour later, at 1:41 a.m., the department received a call about banging and screaming coming from the fairgrounds. The officers left Go-Fer for the fairgrounds only to find their burglar waiting for them there.

After climbing onto the roof of the indoor arena to investigate the screaming and banging coming from the building, officers noticed the lid had been broken off one of the air ducts.

They looked down to find the man wedged in the vent.

The fire department had to be called to help pull him out.

Colorado River Fire Rescue public information officer Maria Piña said that fire crews responded with one engine and ambulance and lowered a rope from the roof to pull him out. Klein said that officers found significant evidence to link him to the Go-Fer Foods break-in.

The man was charged with two counts of second-degree burglary, two counts of criminal mischief, and theft of over $300 and less than $750.

—Alex Zorn, Rifle Citizen-Telegram

Man arrested for slapping other man’s behind

A 40-year-old man arrested Wednesday, July 12, for slapping another man on the behind also played a role in an alleged racist incident this spring in Snowmass Village, according to court documents.

Joshua Jones — known as “Jonesy” — denied he touched or harassed the other man on a Roaring Fork Transportation Authority bus June 19, but video footage of the incident told another story, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed in Aspen District Court.

That video, received by Aspen police July 7, shows Jones and the other man boarding the bus at Rubey Park within a minute of each other. Jones appeared “intoxicated and unsteady on his feet,” while the other man boarded the bus with his service dog on a leash, the affidavit states.

When the other man passed Jones on the bus, they exchanged high-fives, then the other man looked for an open seat in the rear of the bus. While the man looked for a seat, Jones began to pet the man’s dog, which the man noticed and said, “Hey, don’t touch my dog like that,” according to the document.

“As (the other man) attempts to walk back towards the front of the bus, Jones is seen using his right hand to smack/slap (the other man’s) buttocks,” Officer Jeremy Johnson wrote in the affidavit. “After Jones made contact with (the man’s) buttocks, (the man) yells out, ‘Hey, don’t touch my butthole; hey, I’ve been sexually harassed.’”

After that, Jones can be heard on the video saying, “You are gay,” twice to the man, while the man continues to yell to the bus driver and RFTA security guard that he’d been sexually harassed, the affidavit states.

Jones was charged with harassment, a misdemeanor.

Jones is the same man who allegedly made the initial racist remarks to a black man at a bar in Snowmass Village in April that led to another man sustaining serious injuries, according to police reports detailing that incident. Those initial remarks led the black man to knock Jones’ hat off his head and spill his drink on the bar, the report states.

—Jason Auslander,The Aspen Times

Man fires BB gun in Glenwood bar fight

Glenwood police arrested a 20-year-old man after he reportedly fired a BB gun at a couple of men in a late-night confrontation outside a Glenwood bar.

Glenwood Springs police responded to five individuals in a fight outside of Las Margaritas early June 29. An air soft or BB gun was reportedly involved.

Officers soon had three individuals stopped at the 300 block of Ninth Street. But a 20-year-old man eventually bolted from the scene, and officers chased him through the streets and alleyways, eventually downing him with a Taser, according to an officer’s report.

He smelled of alcohol and officers found an empty marijuana container in his underwear. Officers would later find marijuana in his pocket as well.

A witness reported that two men came to Loyal Brothers and started an altercation with three men who were standing outside.

Then a man who matched the description of the 20-year-old police had run down, pulled out a BB gun pistol and started firing at the two men.

Officers found a CO2-powered BB gun pistol tucked away in a Jeep that the 20-year-old had been seen in.

He was arrested on charges of menacing and tampering with physical evidence, both felonies, prohibited use of a weapon, obstruction and resisting arrest, all misdemeanors, as well as illegal possession of alcohol and illegal possession of marijuana, both petty offenses.

In May he was also arrested on charges of felony possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor DUI.

—Ryan Summerlin, Glenwood Springs Post-Independent


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