A man on metro Denver’s 25 Most Wanted list was arrested this week in a small town in New Mexico.
Craig Anthony Rodriguez, 30, was taken into custody in Mora by the local sheriff and two U.S. marshals from Albuquerque.
Rodriguez was wanted on outstanding warrants for assault with a deadly weapon, drugs and parole violation. He has a lengthy arrest and criminal record in Colorado and has served time in prison here.
Mora County Sheriff Thomas Garza said Rodriguez was living in a duplex in Mora, a small ranching and farming community of about 8,000, with an 18-year-old girlfriend, who is pregnant, and his step-father.
When the trio of law officers arrived at the duplex on Monday, Rodriguez ran inside the home and bolted the door.
As the sheriff yelled at the fugitive to surrender — “Come on Craig, give up! We have the house surrounded and you have to give up!” — loud noises could be heard coming from inside, Garza said.
“He had a hammer and was making a hole in the wall” trying to get into the neighbor’s home to escape, Garza said.
Rodriguez did break through into the adjoining duplex. The woman who lives there came running out her front door screaming for help.
“When he broke through the wall, the lady came running out of the door, ‘He’s in my house, he’s in my house,'” Garza recalled.
At one point Rodriguez scampered on the roof of the duplex looking for a way to escape. But the officers had spread out and had the doors and windows to both units covered.
Eventually, after about 45 minutes, Rodriguez came out and gave up without further incident.
Garza said Rodriguez has been living in Mora for about three to six months.
The sheriff would see him around town walking dogs, a couple of pit bulls.
“He would wave at me,” Garza recalled.
But that man didn’t look like the person in the at-large photographs of Rodriguez the officers carried on Monday.
The Colorado fugitive had put on weight — about 40 to 50 pounds — and he had grown his short hair out and was wearing it long, Garza said. Rodriguez had also stopped wearing his eyeglasses.
After the surrender the sheriff questioned the girlfriend and step-father, but they were not arrested.
The duplex Rodriguez was living in was searched, but investigators didn’t find any weapons or drugs.
Rodriguez is being held at the San Miguel County Jail awaiting extradition to Colorado.
“It went well,” Garza said of the arrest. “He had nowhere to go. That’s why he gave up.”
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
