{"id":104636,"date":"2016-06-13T16:58:59","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T22:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gunfire-at-j-paul-browns-ranch-under-investigation\/"},"modified":"2016-06-13T16:58:59","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T22:58:59","slug":"gunfire-at-j-paul-browns-ranch-under-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gunfire-at-j-paul-browns-ranch-under-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunfire at J Paul Brown\u2019s ranch under investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Republican
Republican state Rep. J Paul Brown walks with his wife, Debbie, on their sheep ranch south of Ignacio in July 2015. A disturbance was reported on the ranch June 5.<\/span>Shaun Stanley\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gunshots were reportedly fired last week during a family\/employee disturbance at state Rep. J. Paul Brown\u2019s sheep ranch near Ignacio.<\/p>\n

The La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office said Friday it is investigating, but no arrests have been made and no charges have been filed.<\/p>\n

Brown was not at the ranch at the time of the incident, which occurred about 5 p.m. June 5.<\/p>\n

According to restraining orders filed in La Plata County Court, Michael David Brooks was providing alcohol to Navajo sheep herders working at the ranch.<\/p>\n

Luke Brown, the son of J. Paul Brown, confronted Brooks about the situation, and Brooks became verbally and physically abusive.<\/p>\n

Brooks is Luke Brown\u2019s brother-in-law.<\/p>\n

Brooks clenched his fists, chest-bumped Luke Brown and jabbed his finger into Luke Brown\u2019s chest, according to Luke Brown\u2019s motion for a protection order.<\/p>\n

Brooks then left the ranch, only to return minutes later. He grabbed a rifle from Luke Brown\u2019s pickup and fired rounds at a barn or some other metal object, Luke Brown wrote in his report.<\/p>\n

The shots were fired in the general direction of Luke Brown and his mother, Debbie Brown, according to the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was on a 911 call \u2026 and my mother and I raced to her house where we locked the doors, shut shades and hid as we feared for our lives,\u201d he wrote in his report.<\/p>\n

Brooks apparently left the ranch, and the La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office began a search for him.<\/p>\n

Dan Bender, spokesman for the Sheriff\u2019s Office, said the case remains under investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re constrained to the facts that we find in an investigation, and that\u2019s what moves our investigations forward,\u201d he said. \u201cWe try to deal with the facts as they become available rather than supposition or opinions of other individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luke Brown, Debbie Brown and Stacy Brown, who is Michael Brook\u2019s sister, all filed for protection orders in La Plata County Court. A hearing on the orders is scheduled for next week.<\/p>\n

J. Paul Brown said he was in Denver at the time, but he returned home to help deal with the situation.<\/p>\n

The family hasn\u2019t heard from Brooks since the incident, he said. Luke Brown hired Brooks earlier this year, but it wasn\u2019t working out, J. Paul Brown said.<\/p>\n

Efforts to reach Brooks for comment were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hopeful that he\u2019s gone back to the state of Washington where he\u2019s from,\u201d J. Paul Brown said.<\/p>\n

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

Incident with employee occurred June 5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13,722],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-104636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-state-rep-j-paul-brown"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104636","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=104636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104636"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=104636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}