National Night Out, a law enforcement and community block party event celebrated in Durango and around the country yearly since the 1980s, works to “enhance the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community,” according to a news release for the event by the city of Durango.
This year, the event will be held 5 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Buckley Park with an open invitation to the community.
The event will feature demos from K-9 officers, games, the chance to get up close and personal with police and fire vehicles, and some hearty eats – supplied by Serious Texas BBQ and funded by Michael Stratton, son of late Durango Police Department Chief Robert “Bob” Stratton, in his honor.
For Michael, the decision to support the force and honor his father through National Night Out was an easy one.
“The police came to me two or three years ago when they were looking for sponsors, because they were looking to honor someone,” he said. “They had looked into the archives, and said, ‘well, we ought to honor this guy, (Robert) Stratton.’ I was happy to respond.”
Robert worked for both the Durango Police Department and the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office over his 30-plus year tenure in law enforcement, and has an extensive and formidable record to show for it.
If one searches the name “Robert Stratton” in The Durango Herald archives, they will be met with 283 mentions of the name throughout 194 issues detailing Stratton’s work on cases.
Stories range from petty crime, to burglaries, to traffic accidents, to homicides. In one instance, it’s recounted that Stratton, during his time as a sergeant, caught an identity thief over a cup of coffee at the Holiday Inn with then Capt. John Garnand in 1969.
Searching “Bob Stratton” yields an entirely new, and slightly more casual, crop of articles about Stratton’s legacy, including one from 1955 chronicling Stratton donning a new pair of shoes as a meter maid in his early days at the DPD, and another from 1957 detailing a debate surrounding who on the force at the time was balding the quickest.
Robert was born in 1929 in Durango to homesteader parents who had called the city home since 1880. In his younger years, he was the captain of both the Durango High School football and basketball teams during state championship wins in 1947 and 1948.
After graduating from Durango High School, he enlisted in the Army, where he lost sight in one eye from a faulty grenade pin while in training for service in the Korean War. From there, he made his way back to Durango to pursue a career in law enforcement.
Robert began as a meter maid for the Durango Police Department in 1953.
“They were meter maids, but (he) was a meter man,” Michael said. “He drove around this three-wheel Cushman motorcycle, and unloaded all the money from the meters.”
Michael said there were only three people besides his father working in the police department when he started.
Between 1955 and the late 1970s, Robert climbed the ranks of the DPD from meter man to patrolman, patrolman to sergeant, sergeant to detective, detective to captain and, finally, captain to chief. He retired from the force in the late 1970s after over 20 years in service with the DPD, then later returned to law enforcement for a 10-year stint working in the jail with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office.
According to Michael, his father saw a very different version of law enforcement in Durango than what the community experiences now.
“It was a different place, you know?” he said. “It was this old cowboy Western hub town before it was a ski town, or a tourist town, or a rafting or fishing town. At that time, it was a really small town, so a person with a larger than life persona stood out – and (Robert Stratton) was kind of a John Wayne.”
An especially prominent story Michael remembers from his father’s time on the force, and one that has become legend in Durango’s law enforcement history, is Robert, along with several other prominent law enforcement officers at the time, taking a literal stand against an attempted ambush by Hells Angels in the 1960s.
“As I know it, in the late ’50s or early ’60s, the Hells Angels roamed all over the Southwestern U.S., and in those days, Durango was only 5,000 to 7,000 people,” Michael said. “The Hells Angels would roll into town with 100, 200 motorcycle bad guys. They would take over these little towns, hold people hostage, take the cops, throw them in jail, go crazy – make all kinds of mischief and bad crime – and then they would go down the road to the next place.”
Michael said law enforcement personnel in Durango at the time, including Robert, caught notice of the planned Hells Angels ambush in Durango, and set up a barricade with police cars at the bottom of Farmington Hill to meet them as they attempted to enter town.
“As the Hells Angels came down the road, the roadblock was there, and all the sheriffs and police guys – which I think was four or five for both departments – held them at bay, and had their shotguns out, loaded and ready,” he said. “And (the Hells Angels) turned around and went somewhere else.”
Michael also recounted his father responding to instances of cowboys driving into town during Spanish Trails Fiesta days and drunkenly lassoing civilians in the street.
“These cowboys would drive a pickup truck down Main Street, and a couple of them would be in the back bed of the pickup, and they’d lasso people on the sidewalks,” he said. “That was not something that was well tolerated, but it was something that went on all the time.”
Luckily, Michael said, his father was not to be trifled with, and was quick to respond to instances like these.
“He was absolutely straight up – people really respected him,” he said of his father. “You didn’t want to mess with him, because he wouldn’t tolerate bad stuff. When he was around in any atmosphere, people kind of minded their Ps and Qs, as it were.”
Robert died in 1991 at age 69 because of heart complications after a long and celebrated career in law enforcement and decades of building connections with the people of Durango.
“He became a legendary fellow,” said Michael of his father.
Police Chief Brice Current said that National Night Out at its core is meant to build trust and unity between law enforcement and the community, in addition to recognizing Michael Stratton’s donation, and Robert Stratton’s work.
“We’re honoring Bob Stratton and his decades of dedicated service to the Durango Police Department, and Michael Stratton, his son, is continuing that legacy with his donation, but this event also reminds us of why we’re communicating with our community – because it’s a crucial (part of) keeping Durango a safe place to live, work and play, which is ultimately our mission and vision,” Current said. “That’s why we’re calling it one block party, one community, one Durango.”
epond@durangoherald.com
