{"id":22964,"date":"2025-03-27T15:50:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T21:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-man-arraigned-on-police-shooting-charge\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:22:15","slug":"durango-man-arraigned-on-police-shooting-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-man-arraigned-on-police-shooting-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango man arraigned on police shooting charge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Elias
Elias Buck is suspected of escaping from the La Plata County Jail and shooting a Farmington Police Department officer while on the loose.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Durango man accused of shooting a Farmington police officer in 2022 could enter a plea agreement.<\/p>\n

Elias Buck, 26, entered a plea of not guilty when he was arraigned March 24 in the 11th Judicial District Court.<\/p>\n

Defense attorney Mary Stubberud told District Judge Stephen Wayne during the arraignment that Buck plans to plead guilty to the third-degree felony charge of aggravated battery upon a peace officer causing great bodily harm.<\/p>\n

The charge is in connection to a Jan. 7, 2022, shooting of officer Joseph Barreto of the Farmington Police Department.<\/p>\n

Buck is serving a 10-year sentence at the federal prison in Otisville, New York, for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. The sentence runs concurrent to a two-year sentence for charges of escape, assault and aggravated vehicle theft in La Plata County.<\/p>\n

A prior felony of attempted possession of methamphetamine for sale in 2019 in Arizona barred him from possessing a firearm, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Buck\u2019s crimes in La Plata County are directly tied to the alleged shooting of Barreto.<\/p>\n

Buck was arrested by the Aztec Police Department on suspicion of motor vehicle theft Nov, 27, 2021, and extradited to Colorado. While at the La Plata County Jail, he climbed a perimeter fence and escaped Dec. 27, 2021.<\/p>\n

Buck resurfaced in Farmington Jan. 7, 2022, with then-girlfriend Victoria Hernandez Rossi.<\/p>\n

He allegedly was driving drunk at 10:17 p.m. \u201cin the drive-thru at Starbucks\u201d at 2900 E. Main St. Buck reportedly was driving a 2009 black Cadillac passenger car \u201ctraveling at a high rate of speed,\u201d according to the arrest affidavit.<\/p>\n

Police found the Cadillac unoccupied at 10:32 p.m. in the Carl\u2019s Jr. parking lot, and three minutes later, Barreto located Buck and Hernandez Rossi walking in the area of 10th Street and North Fairview Avenue, the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

The couple claimed they were \u201crunning from a dog,\u201d when Barreto asked them to sit down, the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Buck asked if he was being detained and when Barreto said yes, Buck allegedly \u201creached into his waistband, backed up, asked why he was being detained and shot the officer,\u201d according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Buck and Hernandez Rossi fled Farmington after the shooting and were apprehended at a convenience store in Maricopa County, Arizona.<\/p>\n

Buck was brought to Farmington by the San Juan County District Attorney\u2019s Office to face the shooting charge. He will remain in the San Juan County Detention Center until the case is completed.<\/p>\n

A pretrial conference and possible change of plea hearing is set for 8 a.m. May 12 in Wayne\u2019s courtroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

agreement is forthcoming, according to defense attorney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22964","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=22964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77924,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22964\/revisions\/77924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22964"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}