Local law enforcement kept busy in 2023
Top stories included arrests and an injured deputy
Law enforcement and first responders were kept busy in 2023, from arrests to putting out fires and even rescuing a dog.
In February, the Northeastern Regional Swat/negotiations Team arrested 37-year-old Robert Rodriguez, out of Texas, in the 700 block of N. Third Street in Sterling. He was wanted on a nationwide warrant for parole violations and burglary.
The following month, the Logan County Sheriff’s Office and the Denver ATF office’s Regional Anti-violence Enforcement Network task force apprehended Zhanda Carey in Sterling. He was wanted on a parole violation and in connection with a Denver drive-by shooting. He was ultimately arrested during a traffic stop but during a search of the residence he was believed to be located at, in the 100 block of Highland Drive, the surrounding neighborhood was secured and told to shelter in place.
Also in March, the Sterling Police Department arrested 47-yearold parolee Michael Scott Bretz, of Sterling, for the second time in less than a month on charges of online sex crimes against children. At the end of the month, the LCSO was ordered by a federal judge to transport Bretz from jail to the emergency room for treatment of a gaping wrist wound but his attorneys later asserted that the sheriff’s office disobeyed the directive. He was instead taken to an intake facility in Denver, where he should have been able to receive medical care.
In April, Logan County Sheriff’s Office Deputy A.J. Mcguffin was injured trying to rescue a driver from a burning car on Interstate 76. He was rushed to Sterling Regional Medcenter and flown to Swedish Medical Center. Mcguffin was later released from the hospital and given the LCSO Medal of Valor.
In June, the Northeast Regional SWAT team arrested 45-year-old Jurgen Day of Sterling in the 500 block of N. Fifth Avenue. Suffering from a mental health crisis and threatening to harm two other people in the home, officers and hostage negotiators maintained communication with the man for several hours to peacefully resolve the situation. He was
charged with two counts of Class 5 felony menacing.
That same month, a 16-year-old girl from Sterling died after being ejected from a vehicle during a rollover crash north of Iliff, and in July, a gold, grey, or silver vehicle believed to be a late 1990s or early 2000s Buick Century or Lesabre struck an elderly female, who suffered “serious life-threatening injuries.” The vehicle was last seen southbound on S. Second Avenue from Hamilton Avenue and had significant damage to its front end and front left quarter panel. To date, there has been no arrest in the case.
Also in July, the remains of a Sterling woman, Sarah Tafoya, who had been reported missing nearly three months prior, were identified in Missouri and Benjamin Tyler Simmons, of Fort Morgan, was charged by the Clay County, Missouri Prosecuting Attorney with firstdegree murder and abandonment of a corpse.
At the end of the month, Logan County Sheriff’s deputies and law enforcement officers from six other agencies were led on a highspeed car chase on I-76 by Zachary Newbern after he attacked his mother and stole her car. He was eventually apprehended and charged with aggravated motor vehicle theft, vehicular eluding, attempted vehicular assault, harassment, criminal mischief, obstruction of telephone service, and reckless driving.
In October, SPD arrested Cory Duane Makinster and Trever Makinster on 26 counts of sexual exploitation of a child after they created multiple social media accounts under fabricated identities for the purpose of soliciting sexually explicit materials and images of children from multiple sources in several states.
That same month, Alejandro Vasquez-silva and Hector Escalera-hernandez were indicted in connection with a series of smash-and-drive auto thefts in 2022. On two occasions, thieves drove vehicles into the showroom of Korf Automotive, in Sterling, and stole vehicles from the showroom. After an extensive investigation by the SPD and other agencies, 13 individuals, including Vasquez-silva and Escalera-hernandez, were indicted by an Adams County Grandy Jury, charging 121 counts including racketeering, motor vehicle thefts and burglaries.
In November, Bart Alan Baney and Nip Ha were arrested by the SPD, accused of being part of an organized band of thieves that stole an unspecified amount of merchandise, mostly expensive power tools, from The Home Depot, in Sterling over the previous year. During a raid, police recovered stolen merchandise, nearly $50,000 in cash and narcotics — fentanyl and methamphetamine — with a street value of around $10,000.
Later in the month, the SPD investigated the death of an unidentified man whose body was found inside a fenced area at the Sonic Drive-in. It appeared the deceased adult male had been there for at least several hours and there was no indication of foul play or overt threat to the community.
Also in November, the body of 23-year-old Britani Meek, of Yuma, who had been reported missing after she told her family she was traveling to Denver to meet someone and wasn’t heard from again, was found in rural Yuma County.
In December, Eucharistein Elegaonye, 19; Kaylen Stroter, 20; and Ethan Jennings, 20, were arrested by the SPD and charged with aggravated robbery, firstdegree burglary, second-degree assault, menacing and theft following a home invasion robbery in Sterling.
Also this month, the Sterling City Council approved the half-million purchase of the shuttered Sterling National Guard Armory in a 6-1 vote. Plans are to move the SPD into the building.
Sterling Fire Department was kept busy too including putting out a fire at the Swans Commodities scrap metal yard in July. They received aid from the Merino and Fleming departments. The cause of the fire was believed to be a burn barrel that had been used a few days prior and still had hot embers in it, which ignited
Earlier in the year, in April, members of the SFD C-shit were reunited with a dog they rescued from a fire the prior week. Lola, a black lab, was not breathing and had no heartbeat when she was pulled from a home on Factory Street after firefighters responded to a basement fire. Fire personnel successfully performed CPR on Lola and revived her on scene, and she was released to the family to be taken to a veterinarian.
It wasn’t all good news for local law enforcement though. In March, the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition issued a report accusing the Colorado Department of Corrections and the Colorado General Assembly of continuing to expand prison capacity in spite of staffing shortages.
“The sheer number and frequency of DOC staff vacancies have reached the point at which: staff and inmate safety and wellbeing have been compromised; basic prison operations have been interrupted; and the delivery of quality rehabilitative, medical/behavioral health treatment has been effectively disabled,” the report said.
DOC spokesperson Annie Skinner responded in its defense, saying that the department has no control over how many inmates get sent to prison, but has a duty to make space available for them. She also told the Journal-advocate that recruitment efforts had whittled the staffing shortage down, and policies had been adjusted to widen the possible hiring pool.