{"id":126047,"date":"2026-04-23T16:26:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T22:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/longtime-cortez-resident-veteran-and-patrol-officer-becomes-detective\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T15:02:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T21:02:17","slug":"longtime-cortez-resident-veteran-and-patrol-officer-becomes-detective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/longtime-cortez-resident-veteran-and-patrol-officer-becomes-detective\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime Cortez resident, veteran and patrol officer becomes detective"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Detective
Detective Michael Rivas started in the detectives division of the Cortez Police Department on April 13. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Detective Michael Rivas became a detective earlier this month after the Cortez Police Department promoted him to the Detective Division.<\/p>\n

He has roots in Cortez dating back to his years as a high school basketball player for the Montezuma-Cortez Panthers in the early 2000s and, after a hiatus serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, returned to the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up here,\u201d Rivas said. \u201cIt was a quiet place when I grew up here; times have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a patrol officer, he broke up violent altercations, engaged in vehicle pursuits and arrested suspects on suspicion of driving under the influence. His eight and a half years of service in Iraq and Afghanistan inspired him to pursue a law enforcement career in his own community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI help people out overseas and why couldn\u2019t I help people out in my hometown,\u201d he remembers thinking.<\/p>\n

He feels deeply connected to Cortez, its people and its surrounding geography.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good place to raise a family. You can\u2019t beat it,\u201d Rivas said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got the mountains 10 miles to the east and the desert 10 miles to the north.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivas said he did not have a single proudest achievement during his patrol years and remains focused on advancing his career as the Cortez Police Department\u2019s newest detective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really look back,\u201d Rivas said. \u201cI just go day by day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Rivas, former Panthers basketball player and veteran of missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, joins the Detective Division<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":126048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[28,29,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-126047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126047","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=126047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126303,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126047\/revisions\/126303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126047"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=126047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}