{"id":131804,"date":"2026-06-04T08:33:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T14:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-man-sentenced-to-three-years-in-doc-for-menacing-police-officers\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T10:06:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:06:20","slug":"cortez-man-sentenced-to-three-years-in-doc-for-menacing-police-officers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-man-sentenced-to-three-years-in-doc-for-menacing-police-officers\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez man sentenced to three years in DOC for menacing police officers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cortez
Cortez resident Shane French was sentenced to three years in the Department of Corrections on Friday. (Journal file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A Cortez man was sentenced Friday to three years in the Department of Corrections after a jury in the U.S. 22nd Judicial District convicted him of six felony counts of menacing involving a knife and a simulated firearm against Cortez police officers.<\/p>\n

French received credit for 366 days of presentence confinement.<\/p>\n

French was convicted of six fifth-degree felony menacing counts. Three involved a knife and three involved a simulated firearm. He was also convicted of three misdemeanors for resisting arrest, obstructing government operations and disorderly conduct by displaying a simulated weapon. All victims were Cortez police officers.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors had asked for a nine-year sentence, citing French\u2019s criminal history and the danger he posed to the community, law enforcement and himself, 22nd Judicial District Attorney Jeremy Reed told The Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The maximum possible sentence for the felonies, if served consecutively, was 18 years.<\/p>\n

\"French\"
French<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The convictions stemmed from a May 2025 confrontation when Cortez Police Department officers responded to a disturbance call at French\u2019s mother\u2019s home on Texas Street.<\/p>\n

According to incident reports from responding officers, French left the residence and confronted officers on Empire Street while armed with a knife. He later dropped the knife before displaying an object resembling a firearm, reports and officer testimony said. Body camera footage captured officers\u2019 commands and efforts to calm French during the altercation.<\/p>\n

French later attempted to block the entry of officers when they obtained a warrant to enter the home.<\/p>\n

French has a prior 2020 conviction for threatening a parole officer with a weapon that was later reversed on appeal, and he was acquitted by a jury in 2014 on assault and resisting arrest charges. French and his family also settled a 2016 lawsuit against the city of Cortez and several police officers, saying officers illegally entered their home.<\/p>\n

bduran@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

was found guilty on six counts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6273],"tags":[21,133,168,28,60,29,51,6419,76],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-131804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courts-and-crime","tag-cortez","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-police","tag-tj-trueanthem","tag-u-s-22nd-judicial-district"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131804","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=131804"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131822,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131804\/revisions\/131822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131804"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=131804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}