{"id":13932,"date":"2026-01-16T22:53:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T05:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-gets-6-year-sentence-after-gun-incident-in-downtown-cortez-park\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:42:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:42:36","slug":"man-gets-6-year-sentence-after-gun-incident-in-downtown-cortez-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-gets-6-year-sentence-after-gun-incident-in-downtown-cortez-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Man gets 6-year sentence after gun incident in downtown Cortez park"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cortez
Cortez police handcuff a person after a gunshot incident late morning Sept. 19. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Ezekiel Whiskers was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to illegally possessing a gun as a convicted felon.<\/p>\n

Whiskers was the confirmed shooter in a September incident near Good Sam\u2019s Food Pantry in Cortez. Witnesses at the pet food giveaway heard gunshots and saw a man chase another down an alley. No one was injured.<\/p>\n

Both men were arrested at Montezuma Park, but police later released the second man after determining he wasn\u2019t involved.<\/p>\n

\"Ezekiel
Ezekiel Whiskers<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Camera footage showed Whiskers fired the gun, though his attorney described it as an accident in court Friday. Some initial charges were reduced under the plea agreement.<\/p>\n

At Friday\u2019s sentencing, Whiskers, 25, apologized to the community for putting himself and others in danger.<\/p>\n

His public defender told Chief Judge Todd Plewe that Whiskers admitted during their first call three months ago that he was drunk. The attorney asked for a sentence at the lower end of the one- to six-year range, arguing Whiskers\u2019 age supports rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

The judge imposed the maximum sentence, citing prosecutor Justin Pierce\u2019s argument that Whiskers\u2019 criminal history should be considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are very young, and you have a lengthy criminal history, and I agree with Mr. Pierce that it is escalating. Soon you are going to likely be eligible for community corrections,\u201d Plewe said, urging Whiskers to take advantage of those alternative resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

imposes maximum sentence for gun possession case<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13932","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=13932"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19236,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13932\/revisions\/19236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13932"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}