{"id":16225,"date":"2025-10-09T12:05:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T18:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-police-talk-street-racing-culture-and-dangers\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:55:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:55:51","slug":"farmington-police-talk-street-racing-culture-and-dangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-police-talk-street-racing-culture-and-dangers\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington Police talk street racing, culture and dangers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kalynn
Kalynn Kenworthy, 22, of Farmington being questioned by police after a street racing crash Sept. 26.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Weekend operations to combat street racing are underway in Farmington, as police respond to a recent incident where a car burst into flames.<\/p>\n

Reese Berthold, 27, of Aztec, and Kalynn Kenworthy, 22, of Farmington, were reportedly racing at 11:40 p.m. Sept. 26 on East 20th Street.<\/p>\n

Officer Miles Mead was near Knudsen Avenue and 20th Street when he saw them. \u201cI was going to see if I could catch up to them and get them stopped,\u201d he said during an Oct. 8 interview at the Farmington Police Department.<\/p>\n

Mead said in his report he chose not to pursue when he believed the cars were fleeing.<\/p>\n

\"Farmington
Farmington Police Officer Miles Mead will receive a commendation for pulling Cole Medina from a burning vehicle after an alleged street racing incident on Sept. 26, 2025 on East 20th Street in Farmington.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said Mead was \u201ctrying to catch up so he can affect a traffic stop and they\u2019re speeding.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happened next \u201cwas shocking,\u201d Hebbe said. \u201cIt isn\u2019t something that an officer sees very often.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mead described \u201ca large ball of fire\u201d erupting, and the \u201cvehicle was beginning to be engulfed with flames\u201d in front of Smith\u2019s Grocery Store.<\/p>\n

His first thought: \u201cI was surprised. I had yet to see that happen in person before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His second thought: \u201cthe fact that there was people in that car, and if possible, I needed to get them out,\u201d Mead said.<\/p>\n

Kenworthy, driving a red Toyota Supra, had parked and was attempting to pull Cole Medina from the burning car when Mead arrived and got her out of the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was more worried about one, getting him out and making sure that there was no one else in the car, because the fire was quickly getting worse,\u201d Mead said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an outstanding and heroic job. This is the kind of thing our officers face every day. He raced in there and did his level best to help people,\u201d Hebbe said, adding Mead will receive a commendation.<\/p>\n

Berthold reportedly left the car and was found later in the parking lot, according to the affidavit supporting his arrest warrant.<\/p>\n

He was charged with aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer, a third-degree felony; failure to give information or render aid, a fourth-degree felony; and racing on highways and improper equipment, both petty misdemeanors.<\/p>\n

Kenworthy was charged with racing on highways, a petty misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

\"Kalynn
Kalynn Kenworthy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Both Berthold and Medina were taken to the hospital. Medina suffered a fractured skull and burns to his arms and hands. Berthold suffered burns to his arms, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

That night, Kenworthy told law enforcement she wasn\u2019t racing, saying her dog was in the car and she wouldn\u2019t endanger it. Mead said there was a group of vehicles, and the red Supra and white vehicle \u201cwere accelerating away from the group of cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Mead\u2019s presence on 20th Street wasn\u2019t part of a targeted operation, Hebbe said, \u201cWe do sting operations targeting racing on 20th, and in the wake of this we will continue to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farmington police \u201chave issued more than 15 racing citations this year \u2014 a large increase from last year,\u201d Sgt. Carlos Martinez said. Eight arrests have been made for racing, five more than in 2024.<\/p>\n

Since January, 1,500 traffic citations have been issued on the 20th Street corridor from North Dustin Avenue to East Main Street. That\u2019s 15% of the 9,800 citations written citywide, Capt. Nate Lacey said.<\/p>\n

While police have tried to curb speeding, Hebbe said street racing has become a culture the department is working to change.<\/p>\n

Many in the community tolerate street racing due to the lack of a drag strip in Farmington, but Hebbe said \u201cthat is a separate conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you don\u2019t get \u2013 because there isn\u2019t a drag strip \u2013 is we are going to put people\u2019s lives in danger. It is extremely fortunate that somebody wasn\u2019t killed that night,\u201d Hebbe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand the logic of this \u2013 how can we value other people so little and put their lives in danger because we want to race cars,\u201d Hebbe said, adding his department will continue to be tough on street racers.<\/p>\n

A grant-funded program is helping police focus \u201cour efforts to have a higher visibility rate on 20th Street and Main Street to prevent and have them not race,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n

The program began in February, and \u201ca lot of officers have sacrificed their Friday and Saturday and their family time to try to keep the community as safe as possible,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n

Now the community needs to get involved. Parents and teachers \u201cneed to have these conversations with these teenagers,\u201d Martinez said, adding they shouldn\u2019t be out late at night and in the early morning hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they are out there watching it, they are encouraging it,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fortunate these past few years that no families have been torn apart because of racing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

charged in Sept. 26 incident in Smith\u2019s parking lot<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16226,"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-16225","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\/16225","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=16225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20082,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16225\/revisions\/20082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16225"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}