{"id":23348,"date":"2025-02-25T16:01:06","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T23:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/search-and-rescue-law-enforcement-train-while-combing-animas-river-for-evidence\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:34:19","slug":"search-and-rescue-law-enforcement-train-while-combing-animas-river-for-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/search-and-rescue-law-enforcement-train-while-combing-animas-river-for-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Search and rescue, law enforcement train while combing Animas River for evidence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Volunteers
Volunteers with La Plata County Search and Rescue and members of the La Plata County Sheriff's Office Regional Dive Team fanned across the Animas River just south of Santa Rita Park on Monday to search for evidence connected to the 2023 fatal shooting that occurred just upstream. (Reuben M. Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

About 25 volunteers with La Plata County Search and Rescue and members of the La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office Regional Dive Team fanned across the Animas River just south of Santa Rita Park on Monday for a dual-purpose mission.<\/p>\n

The effort was both a swiftwater training exercise and an attempt to locate evidence connected to the killing of Rodney D. Bellino, who was fatally shot in the park<\/a> in October 2023. Three teenagers were also shot and injured in the incident.<\/p>\n

\"A
A member of the La Plata County Sheriff's Office Regional Dive Team use a metal detector to search for evidence connected to the 2023 fatal shooting that occurred just upstream. (Reuben M. Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Searchers gathered near the U.S. Highway 160 overpass along the Animas River Trail on Monday morning. They combed the banks of the river as well as the riverbed using small hand tools, magnets, drones and metal detectors, as well as snorkels and masks. They did not find any evidence connected to the shooting, Cmdr. Jacob Dunlop said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt it was important to make a second effort to look for evidence in the Santa Rita Park shooting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement initially recovered spent shell casings, two handguns and an AR-15-style rifle from the scene, and say they may not be done combing the river.<\/p>\n

One of the shooters pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced last month<\/a> to 45 years in prison. A second alleged shooter, Kayden Jacob Hernandez, has pleaded not guilty <\/a>to charges of first-degree murder and other felonies and has a trial scheduled for October.<\/p>\n

Although almost a year and a half has passed since the shooting \u2013 and a runoff season has elapsed since the event \u2013 this wouldn\u2019t be the first time that a lost item has turned up in the Animas River. In March 2023, a fisherman found a camera <\/a>that contained wedding photos lost 13 years earlier.<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Members
Members of the La Plata County Sheriff's Office Regional Dive Team fanned across the Animas River just south of Santa Rita Park on Monday to search for evidence connected to the 2023 fatal shooting that occurred just upstream. (Reuben M. Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Volunteers
Volunteers with La Plata County Search and Rescue and members of the La Plata County Sheriff's Office Regional Dive Team fanned across the Animas River just south of Santa Rita Park on Monday to search for evidence connected to the 2023 fatal shooting that occurred just upstream. (Reuben M. Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Volunteers
Volunteers with La Plata County Search and Rescue and members of the La Plata County Sheriff's Office Regional Dive Team fanned across the Animas River just south of Santa Rita Park Monday to search for evidence connected to the 2023 fatal shooting that occurred just upstream. (Reuben M. Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Efforts were unsuccessful Monday to locate items linked to the 2023 fatal Santa Rita Park shooting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[304,28,1807,51],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-animas-river","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-search-and-rescue","tag-police"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23348","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=23348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78081,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23348\/revisions\/78081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23348"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}