{"id":102616,"date":"2017-12-01T18:36:51","date_gmt":"2017-12-02T01:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/arizona-man-pleads-guilty-to-biting-firefighter-near-hesperus\/"},"modified":"2017-12-01T18:36:51","modified_gmt":"2017-12-02T01:36:51","slug":"arizona-man-pleads-guilty-to-biting-firefighter-near-hesperus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/arizona-man-pleads-guilty-to-biting-firefighter-near-hesperus\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona man pleads guilty to biting firefighter near Hesperus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Benally\"
Benally<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

An Arizona man was sentenced to 18 months probation Wednesday as part of a plea agreement for biting a firefighter who tried to help him after a rollover crash south of Hesperus.<\/p>\n

Joe Benally, 20, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault, a felony.<\/p>\n

According to terms of the plea agreement, Benally will be given a deferred judgment, meaning the felony will be wiped from his criminal record if he successfully completes terms of his probation.<\/p>\n

District Judge William Herringer also ordered Benally to receive a mental-health evaluation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have the opportunity to avoid a felony and stay out of jail,\u201d he told Benally, who was free on bail.<\/p>\n

The incident occurred about 4 p.m. Feb. 23 in the 20600 block of La Plata Highway (Colorado Highway 140), about 4 miles south of Hesperus.<\/p>\n

Benally was a passenger in a car that rolled over. Colorado State Patrol stopped the occupants from fleeing the scene of the crash.<\/p>\n

State Patrol arrested the driver of the vehicle on suspicion of drunken driving. Benally was sitting with a second passenger on the side of the road when a firefighter attempted to check on them.<\/p>\n

The La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office said Benally started fighting with the firefighter and bit him on the finger. He also fought with a sheriff\u2019s deputy and state patrol trooper when they tried to handcuff him.<\/p>\n

At Mercy Regional Medical Center, Benally told three deputies he knew where they lived and threatened to do a drive-by shooting of their houses.<\/p>\n

Annie Woods, Benally\u2019s public defender, said he reacted \u201cout of panic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is extremely shy and has never been in trouble before,\u201d she said. \u201cI know that he is sorry for what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woods read aloud an apology letter Benally wrote to the firefighter and La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

mrupani@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benally will serve 18 months probation, receive mental-health evaluation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[585,168],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-102616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-assault-general","tag-crime"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102616"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=102616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}