{"id":30936,"date":"2023-10-28T03:16:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-28T03:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/suspect-taken-into-custody-after-4-hour-standoff-in-farmington\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T07:30:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:30:43","slug":"suspect-taken-into-custody-after-4-hour-standoff-in-farmington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/suspect-taken-into-custody-after-4-hour-standoff-in-farmington\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspect taken into custody after 4-hour standoff in Farmington"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A man was taken into custody with no reported casualties or shots fired. (David Edward Albright)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A traffic stop on U.S. Highway 550 led to a pursuit by the New Mexico State Police and a four-hour standoff in Farmington Friday after the suspect entered a home near McGee Park.<\/p>\n

A reporter from the Tri-City Record<\/em> arrived at the scene of the standoff on U.S. Highway 64 about 5:20 p.m., where the suspect had driven after eluding the State Patrol. He entered the home of Justin Eric Sanchez, who spoke with the Tri-City Record.<\/em> Sanchez said the suspect entered his home between 1:30 and 2 p.m.<\/p>\n

Sanchez said that he was napping when the suspect, whom he identified as Andreas, entered his unlocked back door. He said that Andreas comes and goes to work on his car. Sanchez said he\u2019s known Andreas about three weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess they were chasing him for whatever reason,\u201d Sanchez said. \u201cI just barely know him.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that when the suspect entered the house he left immediately because didn\u2019t want to be accused of harboring a suspect.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like it,\u201d Sanchez said. \u201cMy dogs are in the house, and there\u2019s all these police here talking about going in. I hope the dogs don\u2019t get hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 20 state police vehicles and two BearCat SWAT units were present, including one from the Farmington Police Department. Spokeswoman Shanice Gonzales confirmed in a phone call that the police SWAT unit was on the scene, but no further information was available because it was a \u201cstate police operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

After about three minutes on the scene, a Tri-City Record<\/em> reporter heard two loud explosions. When asked if the suspect was armed, Sanchez said, \u201cI have a shotgun in the house, but no ammo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if there was a search warrant, Sanchez said, \u201cI gave them permission. \u2026 I don\u2019t want him in there. \u2026 I didn\u2019t invite him in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cherie Swanton, Sanchez\u2019s partner, said she received a call that officers had arrived about 2 p.m. \u201cSo I left work and came home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

State Police officers took a door-ramming machine on tracks with container to block the doorway from the staging area just east of the residence, a small mobile home. It moved into position in front of the mobile home.<\/p>\n

\"A
A SWAT ramming unit moved into position where suspect was in private residence. (David Edward Albright)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"SWAT
SWAT robot moved to the residence west of staging area on U.S. Highway 64. (David Edward Albright)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Shortly after that, a robot was removed from the SWAT unit, followed by two drones that hovered over the scene.<\/p>\n

A neighbor, who preferred to remain anonymous, said she arrived home about 3:30 p.m. from a trip to Mexico and heard two gunshots after arriving. She said that was unusual.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of scary, but at the same time, it\u2019s exciting,\u201d she said. \u201cNothing\u2019s ever happened here like ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Highway 64 was blocked from McGee Park to about 1\/4 mile east of the location of the standoff.<\/p>\n

Swanton and Sanchez engaged in a conversation with a State Police negotiator, who said they were awaiting a search warrant from a judge. At this time another explosion was heard.<\/p>\n

The standoff was resolved with the arrest about 6:20 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SWAT team and equipment assist State Police operation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30936","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\/30936","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=30936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81260,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30936\/revisions\/81260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30936"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}