{"id":25463,"date":"2024-10-08T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/injured-farmington-officer-la-plata-county-agree-to-dismiss-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:17:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:17:34","slug":"injured-farmington-officer-la-plata-county-agree-to-dismiss-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/injured-farmington-officer-la-plata-county-agree-to-dismiss-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Injured Farmington officer, La Plata County agree to dismiss lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Farmington Police Department released body camera footage showing an officer-involved shooting that occurred Friday night. Elias Buck, a Durango fugitive, is suspected of shooting Officer Joseph Barreto in the arm. (Courtesy of Farmington Police Department)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The parties in a lawsuit brought by a former Farmington police officer against the La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Board of County Commissioners and detention center have agreed to dismiss the claims without any financial settlement.<\/p>\n

Officer Joseph Barreto was allegedly shot and injured by Elias Buck on Jan. 7, 2022, eleven days after Buck escaped from the La Plata County Jail, where he was being held on suspicion of theft and robbery.<\/p>\n

\"Barreto\"
Barreto<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Buck was sentenced Monday to two years in prison <\/a>for the escape and the assault and aggravated vehicle theft charges on which he was originally arrested. He will serve the sentence concurrent to a 10-year federal sentence he received for being a felon in possession of a firearm.<\/p>\n

Barreto initially sought $3.5 million<\/a> from the county, alleging that negligent behavior on the part of the jail led to Buck being able to inflict injury. In a complaint filed in December 2023, the officer alleged that the county, the Sheriff\u2019s Office and jail staff members breached a duty to provide a safe and secure jail facility and failed to maintain adequate surveillance and oversight of the inmates.<\/p>\n

In a motion to dismiss to case filed in April, county attorneys argued that Buck\u2019s unexpected escape and subsequent actions were too disconnected for the county to be held responsible for Barreto\u2019s injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Buck\u2019s actions in absconding from custody, concealing himself from law enforcement for 11 days, traveling across state lines, stealing a firearm, and firing at Plaintiff resulted in Plaintiff\u2019s injuries \u2013 the alleged operation of the jail is too attenuated,\u201d the motion read.<\/p>\n

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

In a joint order of dismissal filed by Barreto\u2019s attorney Sept. 26, the two parties agreed that the claims would be dismissed with prejudice, and each party would pay their own attorney\u2019s fees.<\/p>\n

La Plata County offered little explanation as to what transpired during negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe simply decided to move on and drop the case,\u201d County spokesman Ted Holteen wrote.<\/p>\n

Barreto\u2019s attorney did not immediately respond to a request to comment.<\/p>\n

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

Barreto initially sought $3.5 million after he was allegedly shot by jail escapee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2833,28,1024,1901],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-farmington-police-department","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-jail","tag-la-plata-county-sheriff"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25463","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=25463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78949,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25463\/revisions\/78949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25463"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}