On ride-along
Mid-morning last Tuesday, Durango
Patrol Officer David Longenette climbed behind the wheel of his Ford Crown Victoria squad car and pointed it toward north Durango. Longenette, who recently celebrated his one-year anniversary with the Durango Police Department, looked out through a pair of Oakleys and had the rap music of a local pop radio station playing beneath occasional blasts on the radio from dispatch.

As he pulled out onto North Main Avenue, he commented on current crime matter-of-factly.

“I think it’s been pretty standard, but it does seem like we’ve had some more intense crimes,” he said. “It seems like three or four stabbings this year, and we had another just the other night.”

Longenette referred to a domestic incident last weekend that investigators believed to be an accident. When asked about the incidents involving his fellow officers, he was quick to respond, however, saying “those were bad deals, but at least we caught the guys.”

Shortly thereafter and close to the midday rush, the radio crackled to life, notifying Longenette of a traffic accident near the high school. He readily flipped a u-turn and
calmly drove toward the location, arriving a couple minutes later. A 95-year-old man had run a red light and been side-swiped by a teen-ager. No one was injured, and the
elderly man was eventually ticketed, fairly standard fare.

However, as the scene was being mopped up, part of one lane of Main Avenue was blocked, and tension escalated. Suddenly, a high school girl in a BMW was honking at
a car that had stopped to let an officer pass. Moments later a large truck with its window down passed close by Longenette, its driver loudly shouting expletives about the squad car blocking traffic. Longenette squinted to identify the truck’s tag as it pulled away and called the license number in for a check.

“It’s too bad you couldn’t come out at night,” he said climbing back into the car and heading off to check out a stolen 12-pack at a local liquor store. “There’s a lot more
going on.”

The real culprits?

While a stolen 12-pack may not seem significant, a quarter pound of methamphetamine was seized in Ignacio last week, and additional arrests were made several days later. Chief investigator Ezzell attributed many of La Plata County’s law enforcement issues to substance abuse issues that range from alcohol to crystal meth. “It seems like a lot of it relates back to substance abuse,” he said. “Most of the
cases I deal with are crimes of violence and crimes against property, and oftentimes
there are drugs and alcohol related to those offenses.”

Captain Smith concurred.

“We find that a lot of these incidents occur when drugs and alcohol are involved,” he said.

However, Smith also added that he believes larger forces to be at work. “I think it’s a sign of a change in society as a whole,” he said.

Hilltop House has acted as a regional corrections facility for nonviolent offenders and as a halfway house for criminals who have done hard time. John Schmier, the organization’s new director, said that while most of his cases are bar-fight style
assaults, the largest recent spike has been in drug crimes and, primarily,
methamphetamine.

“It’s definitely on the rise,” he said of the drug that can be manufactured using household chemicals. “There are an abundance of La Plata County incidents.”

Schmier added that crystal meth usage gives rise to other crimes, specifically theft. “People steal to supplement their habit, and they steal chemicals to try to manufacture
it,” he said.

One of Hilltop House’s dilemmas has been whether or not to bring methamphetamine offenders into La Plata County for detention, Schmier said, “We often ask ourselves, ‘Why bring these offenders to La Plata County when we already have a significant problem?’”

The up side

While this year’s incidents seemed to demonstrate that the intensity of violence is growing in La Plata County, several question how “significant” our crime problem really is relative to past years. A look at statistics reveals that the jump in numbers was insignificant at best. Last year, Durango posted 170 total assaults, the lowest number since 1992. Through July, Durango police have responded to 119 separate assaults. The highest number of recent assaults occurred in 2000 with 258 individual incidents. While the two incidents of assault on a police officer accounted for this year’s
only occurrences, the year 2000 saw eight separate assaults of police officers.

Smith said a number of additional strides have been made on the Durango crime front. “Our burglaries are down significantly,” he said. “That speaks to patrol officers working to stay visible. We’ve also increased our presence at the close of bars, and this has had a positive impact.”

Jay Burnite has lived in Durango for most of his 33 years and has a unique perspective to offer on local crime. “I lost my dad because he was actually shot and killed, and it was not an accident,” he said. Burnite’s father was murdered in 1975 after a business dispute, and he said he believes that the dynamic in Durango really has not changed, but population numbers have. “I think it hasn’t really changed that much,” he said. “There’s probably a high degree of crime because the population has grown so much.”

Community support for victims has been one other thing that probably has not changed much. Pete Woods remarked that when his friend Mario de la Vega was
stabbed, he was hospitalized with no medical insurance. In response, Lady Falconburgh’s hosted a large benefit and defrayed most of de la Vega’s medical expenses. In addition, Durango City Manager Bob Ledger and five other city
employees joined de la Vega in his hospital room for the Superbowl.

“I feel like our getting jumped was one of those things that could have happened anywhere,” Woods said. “But you’re not going to get that kind of community support
anywhere.”

Ezzell added that that community support also should remain available to local law enforcement.

'When citizens get involved it makes our life a lot easier, and it makes life a lot easier for the community,” he concluded. “If it’s a situation that looks like it needs immediate police attention, people should certainly call 911.”

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