A Dodge City, Kan., murder suspect was caught in a stolen Hummer after a chase across Colorado’s Eastern Plains, authorities said Saturday.
Christopher Tahah, 33, was arrested on investigation of first-degree motor vehicle theft, eluding and reckless driving after Friday’s chase, authorities said.
Tahah is a suspect in the murder of his girlfriend, Erin Lynn Jones, 31, who was killed May 5 at her home in Dodge City, said Kyle Smith of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
About 8:55 a.m. Friday, employees of OnStar, the General Motors auto-monitoring service, called the Colorado State Patrol about a black 2004 Hummer that had been stolen in Denver. OnStar tracked the SUV going eastbound on Interstate 70 just east of Deer Trail in Elbert County, Trooper Gilbert Mares said.
A trooper stopped the SUV near Agate, he said, but the driver refused to get out and then took off. Officers placed tire deflators on the road, which partially disabled the vehicle, but the suspect continued to drive, Mares said.
The suspect drove onto a frontage road and veered south on Kit Carson County Road 10, and 4 miles later jumped out of the SUV and ran, Mares said. Authorities quickly arrested him.
AIR FORCE ACADEMY
Ticket demand low for grad speaker
Only about 100 people have picked up free tickets so far to hear Defense Secretary Robert Gates speak at the Air Force Academy graduation May 30.
The tickets have been available for more than a week at the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce. When presidents are invited as graduation speakers, all available tickets are gone within hours.
President Bush spoke at graduation at Falcon Stadium three years ago, followed by Vice President Dick Cheney in 2005. Donald Rumsfeld, who was then secretary of defense, spoke last year and drew a smaller crowd than Bush.
Academy officials said the tickets haven’t been advertised well.
“Ticket demand has been lower than expected, but the public really didn’t know tickets were available,” academy spokesman John Van Winkle said.
The Air Force’s Thunderbirds aerial stunt team will also participate in commencement exercises, flying over Falcon Stadium as graduates toss their hats.
FORT COLLINS
Man dies after car sideswiped on I-25
One person died Saturday afternoon in a two-vehicle accident that sent a car over a bridge after it was sideswiped at mile marker 269 on Interstate 25.
According to the Colorado State Patrol, a Dodge Ram pickup driven by Stephen Stary, 19, of Lafayette, Calif., hit a 1993 Buick at 4:07 p.m. as both vehicles traveled north.
The impact sent the Buick, driven by a 62-year-old Montana man, over a bridge. The man, who was ejected from the vehicle before it caught fire, was pronounced dead at the scene. His name was withheld pending notification of kin.
The accident closed a northbound stretch of I-25 for about two and a half hours.
PUEBLO
Odds could get better for Colo. jackpots
Two jackpots worth a total of $1 million are likely still available in one of the Colorado Lottery scratch games, but opportunities for collecting the cash are running out, officials said.
Ticket sales for the $35 Million Super Cash Spectacular game are scheduled to end in about three weeks, even though only six of the eight jackpot-winning tickets have been turned in.
“We’re starting to wonder if someone might have thrown away a winner,” said Peggy Gordon, director of the Colorado Lottery.
“If the tickets are still available, then players increase their chances of winning the top prize by nearly eight times.” The original odds of winning a $500,000 prize were 1 in 630,000.
Based on lottery figures that only 155,000 game tickets remain available, Gordon said the odds are 1 in 77,700. Other winning tickets had already been sold in Colorado Springs, Denver, Englewood, Hayden and Northglenn.
GRAND JUNCTION
Teacher may face charges after fight
A Grand Junction High School teacher is facing possible criminal charges after an altercation at a business late last month, police said.
Michael Taylor is a business teacher at the school who was arrested after a verbal and physical fight with Gregory McQuitter of Parachute at the Ale House on April 27.
Witnesses allege that Taylor, who’s white, got into a shouting match with McQuitter, who’s black.
Grand Junction police say the fight became physical after Taylor yelled racial slurs. When McQuitter approached Taylor, the teacher and another man allegedly threw McQuitter to the ground, then hit and kicked him in the face multiple times. He was not injured seriously, a Grand Junction police spokeswoman said.
Some parents of Grand Junction High students have expressed concern that Taylor is still in the classroom, despite the allegations.
COLORADO SPRINGS
Diversity remains a priority at AFA
The Air Force Academy will not lose its ability to recruit minority candidates to its prep school despite the possible deletion of legal language making that a priority, the Pentagon said Friday.
Marine Maj. Stewart Upton, a Defense Department spokesman, said the deletion was being considered at the request of the Air Force’s legal counsel to conform to a U.S. Supreme Court decision barring rules that benefited minorities in the admissions process at the University of Michigan.
The U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School for the Colorado Springs-based academy is the source of 40 percent of the academy’s minority enrollment.
But a statement issued by a division of the Office of the Air Force General Counsel said that the “absence of the language will not impair the ability of each Service Academy to develop and defend its respective diversity policies.”
