{"id":25669,"date":"2024-09-16T23:44:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T05:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/san-juan-county-chief-deputy-da-arrested-on-suspicion-of-dwi\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:24:13","slug":"san-juan-county-chief-deputy-da-arrested-on-suspicion-of-dwi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/san-juan-county-chief-deputy-da-arrested-on-suspicion-of-dwi\/","title":{"rendered":"San Juan County Chief Deputy DA arrested on suspicion of DWI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=a8d5cc54-be50-53bd-8886-2724b1649902&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"640\" height=\"423\" alt=\"San Juan County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dustin O'Brien has been arrested under suspicion of drunken driving after a Sept. 15 single vehicle crash.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">San Juan County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dustin O'Brien has been arrested under suspicion of drunken driving after a Sept. 15 single vehicle crash.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>San Juan County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dustin O\u2019Brien was arrested Sept. 15 and charged with a misdemeanor count of aggravated DWI and cited with leaving the scene of an accident after crashing into a retaining wall.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Brien, 53, has been placed on administrative leave \u201cuntil further notice\u201d pending an internal and external investigation, according to San Juan County District Attorney Rick Tedrow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m very disheartened to hear this news,\u201d Tedrow told the <em id=\"emphasis-294856745d6f3f788b330df559a17232\">Tri-City Record.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Tedrow added he was unable to comment further because it could relate to a personnel matter.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"naviga-map\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?q=36.7398537%2C-108.2090065&amp;z=15&amp;output=embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" style=\"border:0;\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Map\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n<p>Farmington Police officers were called at 1:26 p.m. Sept. 15, to a home in the 900 block of Gladeview Drive in response to a vehicle hitting a retaining wall. The driver allegedly walked away, leaving his gray 2022 Dodge Ram 1500 on the property \u201cparked against the retaining wall, with what appeared to be several areas that had been impacted from the truck,\u201d according to the statement of probable cause.<\/p>\n<p>The officer stated he walked around the truck and \u201cobserved heavy damage to the driver-side and passenger-side front bumpers and the driver-side rear bumper was directly against the retaining wall,\u201d according to the statement of probable cause.<\/p>\n<p>The officer conducted the tow inventory, and allegedly observed \u201ctwo 375ml bottles of Canadian Mist whiskey under the driver\u2019s seat,\u201d and both had broken seals. One container was empty, and the second had \u201capproximately half its contents consumed,\u201d according to the statement of probable cause.<\/p>\n<p>The homeowner whose wall was struck by the truck provided law enforcement with a Ring camera video that reportedly showed a man \u201cwearing a red flannel shirt, brown shorts, and flip-flops, walking northbound from the residence.\u201d The officer stated in the probable cause statement that he recognized the man as O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Brien reportedly was found around 2 p.m. in the same clothing in front of the Speedway in the 1900 block of North Dustin Avenue. The officer questioned him, and O\u2019Brien reportedly \u201cadmitted to consuming 1-2 alcoholic drinks and said he was safe to drive,\u201d according to the probable cause the statement.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Brien, who reportedly \u201crefused to provide a breath sample,\u201d did complete three standard field sobriety tests, in which the officer stated that O\u2019Brien \u201cappeared to struggle to maintain his balance as his body was swaying from side to side.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The officer also noted in the probable cause statement that there was \u201ca heavy odor of alcohol from his exhaled breath.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Brien reportedly told the officer that he \u201cwas not \u2018feeling good,\u201d and did not feel well enough to drive. He also refused medical attention, according to the probable cause statement.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Brien was arrested and booked into the San Juan County Detention Center. He was released Sept. 16 on his own recognizance.<\/p>\n<p>Private Attorney Mitch Burns entered his appearance as O\u2019Brien\u2019s attorney and made a motion requesting discovery, a certificate of disclosure, a speedy trial and demand for a jury trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>O\u2019Brien requests speedy trial, is released on his own recognizance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79043,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25669\/revisions\/79043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25669"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}