Grand Junction – When drug agents shot and killed an armed methamphetamine user in a bowling alley two weeks ago, the increasingly volatile mix of weapons and the violence-inducing drug had exploded in the worst way.
Investigators are still examining the details of that shooting, but law-enforcement officers know with certainty that loaded weapons in the possession of meth users and dealers are now the norm and the cause for increasing concern.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives does not tally weapons confiscated specifically in meth arrests, said Ray Brown, agent in charge of the Denver office. In metro Denver, he estimates that 95 percent of suspects arrested in meth cases have weapons.
At times the weapons are found in arsenal-level numbers and unexpected varieties.
“The meth culture is intertwined with weapons of all kinds,” said Tom Gorman, agent in charge of the Grand Junction office of the Drug Enforcement Administration. “We see a degree of weapons and violence with other drugs, but not to the degree that we see it with meth.”
Gorman said meth and weapons go hand in hand because paranoia is rampant in the meth subculture: Weapons are needed for protection from other dealers and users.
Dan Rubinstein, a prosecutor in the Mesa County District Attorney’s Office, said he believes meth users also become weapons collectors because they have too much time on their hands during long binges.
“The more exotic the weapon, the more they seem to like it,” he said. “We’ve seen quite a few battle-ax collections.”
In Mesa County in the past six months, officers have confiscated dynamite, crossbows, high-powered rifles, daggers, swords, rifles with bayonets on the ends and even a disabled rocket launcher from the homes, vehicles and bodies of those involved in meth-related crimes.
In that same period there have been nearly a dozen shooting incidents involving meth. They range from the recent shooting by officers to an alleged meth user accidentally shooting himself in the hand while on a phone call being tapped by agents.
“There’s nothing in my memory to come close to what we’re seeing,” said Gordon Smith, a 36-year criminal investigator for the Colorado State Patrol who now handles weapons in the evidence room at the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office.
The room includes dozens of weapons that have come from single locations. Once a cache of weapons and a stash of methamphetamine were found after Mesa County sheriff’s deputies served an eviction notice at a DeBeque home last winter.
The renter had a homemade “zip gun,” a sawed-off shotgun and an AK-47 altered to fire as an automatic weapon in an arsenal that included 31 firearms. The arrest report said some of the guns were loaded and within reach of 4- and 6-year-old children at the home. So were knives and arrows and a rattlesnake in a living-room cage with wire mesh on top.
This volatile combination of so many weapons and a drug that causes paranoia, impulsive and aggressive behavior and sometimes psychosis has created a heightened sense of danger for law enforcement.
Gorman said drug agents try to be more strategic in how they handle meth cases.
That awareness may have kept violence out of the mix when dozens were arrested in a methamphetamine-ring roundup in March. In many of those arrests, the suspects were pulled over in vehicles and handguns were found sticking out from under seats or lying in plain sight. Often they were fully loaded.
Weapons did come into play in a bloody spate of meth-related crimes late last year.
One meth dealer allegedly shot a user he suspected of being a snitch and left him for dead in the desert. He also allegedly shot at officers pursuing him. When the suspect was arrested after a massive manhunt, he had two loaded, high-powered handguns strapped to his body. He had an arsenal of weapons and dynamite in a motel room.
“You go into these cases knowing you have a volatile situation,” Gorman said. “You know meth users have the access to weapons and the willingness to use them.”
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
