Just minutes after stopping to help a couple parked along a lonely stretch of rural U.S. 40, Colorado Parks and Wildlife district manager Nathan Martinez found himself disarmed and on his knees.
A sheriff’s deputy had also been stripped of his gun and was on his knees next to him. A suspect — a fugitive on a drug-fueled, cross-country crime spree with his wife — leveled a pistol at both of them.
Martinez was sure he was about to die, “but he wasn’t going to die without a fight,” he later told investigators.
The fugitive couple — James Brent Damon, 46, and Georgie Hand, 43 — was wanted on several warrants issued across the nation, according to an arrest affidavit that detailed Monday’s events in northwest Colorado.
The couple had been on a week-long methamphetamine bender, with Damon injecting the drug “two to three times a day, if not more,” Hand told investigators.
She said she had been with Damon for 14 years and the couple was headed to Utah — just 10 miles away — but their SUV had broken down. They were wanted on extradition warrants out of Mississippi, officials said.
The two also were wanted on warrants issued Feb. 11 in Chaffee County in connection with a string of vehicle break-ins on Old Monarch Pass between Jan. 25 and Jan. 31, the sheriff’s office there said.
Martinez encountered Hand and Damon after he stopped to help investigate a suspicious vehicle — a white, late-model Ford Explorer — parked on a hillside just off U.S. 40 near the town of Dinosaur at about 2 p.m. Monday, the affidavit says. The officer, accompanied by his dog, said he thought the SUV was suspicious and wanted to make sure its occupants were OK.
As Martinez talked with the couple, Damon pulled a gun on him and ordered him not to move, the affidavit said.
Damon ordered Hand to disarm Martinez and told him: “If you try to touch her, if you lay a hand on her, I will shoot you.”
“Damon told Officer Martinez to sit down and asked Officer Martinez if he had a wife and kids,” the affidavit said. “Officer Martinez said he did have a wife and kids.”
Damon also asked Martinez: “How do we get out of this? How does everybody walk away alive?”
As the two men talked, Damon noticed that a Moffat County sheriff’s deputy, Bhrent Shock, had also arrived at the scene. Records show Damon pointed his gun at Shock’s face and ordered him to the ground, too.
He held both officers at gunpoint, and the officers said Damon pressed the barrel of a handgun to Shock’s head.
Damon gave Hand his semiautomatic 9mm handgun and told her to get Martinez’s truck so the pair could flee. Damon held Martinez’s gun in one hand and Shock’s gun in the other, the affidavit said.
As Hand walked away, Martinez tried to grab his gun from Damon, instigating a struggle, the officer told investigators.
“Shock somehow got involved and was able to get Damon to the ground,” the records say.
Martinez said he then picked up his handgun and tried to fire it at Damon, but it malfunctioned, according to the affidavit.
“Officer Martinez cleared the malfunction and was able to fire one round into the back of Damon’s head, immediately incapacitating (him),” the records say.
Neither officer was injured. Damon died. The incident lasted just 10 minutes, according to the affidavit.
Hand told investigators the last thing she heard from her husband was his yelling, “Honey, help me!”
Hand is being held in Moffat County — where the shooting happened — on suspicion of several charges, including two counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree kidnapping and two counts of disarming a peace officer. She was formally charged Thursday and is being held without bail.
Investigators say she played a prominent role in detaining the officers, including helping Damon disarm them and pointing handguns at them.
Martinez and Shock are on paid administrative leave pending an investigation by the 14th Judicial District attorney’s office. Law enforcement officials have yet to comment at length on the encounter except to say they are glad the two officers are safe.
“Incidents such as this certainly demonstrate things can happen at any given moment in time, anywhere,” Moffat County Sheriff KC Hume said Wednesday.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JesseAPaul
