{"id":24152,"date":"2025-01-02T14:49:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T21:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-with-knife-machete-suspected-of-menacing-city-of-durango-employee\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:49:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:49:00","slug":"man-with-knife-machete-suspected-of-menacing-city-of-durango-employee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-with-knife-machete-suspected-of-menacing-city-of-durango-employee\/","title":{"rendered":"Man with knife, machete suspected of menacing city of Durango employee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Durango Police Department on Thursday were searching for Quinten Dean Murphy on suspicion of felony menacing and criminal mischief for allegedly approaching a city employee with a knife in his had and slashing the employee\u2019s vehicle tire. (Courtesy of Durango Police Department)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Police are searching for a man suspected of walking aggressively toward a Durango city employee with a buck knife in hand and a machete sheathed to his hip before slashing the employee\u2019s truck tire.<\/p>\n

The Durango Police Department identified a possible suspect as Quinten Dean Murphy, 39, who is from the San Juan County, New Mexico, area but has also been known to live in the Durango area, said DPD Cmdr. Nick Stasi.<\/p>\n

The incident began shortly before noon Wednesday at Greenmount Cemetery, where an employee with the Parks and Recreation Department was speaking with an uninvolved woman about trespassing and camping at the cemetery, Stasi said.<\/p>\n

Murphy is suspected of coming out of a tree line armed with a knife and a sheathed machete.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was approaching in a pretty threatening manner toward the employee who was in a vehicle,\u201d Stasi said.<\/p>\n

\"Murphy\"
Murphy<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The employee felt threatened and pepper sprayed Murphy, he said. Murphy then slashed the employee\u2019s city of Durango vehicle tire and fled, he said.<\/p>\n

Police are unsure what motivated Murphy to allegedly approach the parks and recreation employee in a threatening manner.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t involved at all in the conversation with the female,\u201d Stasi said. \u201cHe just appeared in the tree line completely on his own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy is known to law enforcement. He has been involved in property crimes locally, and he is a registered sex offender from somewhere outside the Durango area.<\/p>\n

It was unknown if he is living homeless or with family members.<\/p>\n

Police have received numerous tips about Murphy\u2019s possible whereabouts, but as of Thursday afternoon they had been unable to locate him.<\/p>\n

Murphy is described as being white, 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing about 235 pounds. He should be considered armed and dangerous. Anyone who spots him is asked to call 911.<\/p>\n

A warrant has been issued for his arrest on suspicion of felony menacing and criminal mischief for slashing the tire.<\/p>\n

shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

used pepper spray before suspect slashed worker\u2019s truck tire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,2669,1065,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-durango-parks-and-recreation-department","tag-durango-police-department","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24152","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=24152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78423,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24152\/revisions\/78423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24152"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}