{"id":25817,"date":"2024-09-05T19:03:46","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T01:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-sheriffs-office-investigates-dwi-in-da-hatfields-crash\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:28:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:28:35","slug":"update-sheriffs-office-investigates-dwi-in-da-hatfields-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-sheriffs-office-investigates-dwi-in-da-hatfields-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Sheriff\u2019s Office investigates DWI in DA Hatfield\u2019s crash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Christian
Christian Hatfield, 22nd Judicial District Attorney, was involved in a car crash on Friday in New Mexico.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office is investigating a single-vehicle car crash Friday on U.S. Highway 64 near Farmington, which involved District Attorney Christian Hatfield of the 22nd Judicial District in Cortez.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a DWI investigation that is going on, pending blood results,\u201d San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari said, adding tests were done to see if drugs or alcohol were involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not in a position to charge just yet,\u201d Ferrari said, adding his office is looking charges, while the New Mexico State Police investigated the crash.<\/p>\n

Hatfield, who was injured in the crash, is recovering at home and told The<\/em> Journal<\/em> on Thursday that he has no recollection of the crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere apparently was a crash, and it\u2019s a crazy story, but I went to bed and my wife was already asleep,\u201d he said. \u201cI crawled into bed and I woke up 16 hours later in the intensive care unit. I\u2019ve never had anything like that happen before, and I don\u2019t remember a single thing after getting into bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hatfield said he had two collapsed lungs in the aftermath of the crash and had to be bilaterally intubated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the EMT probably saved my life, and I\u2019m happy to be here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The DA\u2019s Office said it was covering Hatfield\u2019s caseload while he recovers at home. He said he plans to return to work in a week or so.<\/p>\n

Hatfield is running a reelection <\/a>campaign to keep his role as district attorney. The 22nd Judicial District has not made an announcement about the crash.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement agencies in Montezuma County and in San Juan County, New Mexico, also have remained silent about the crash.<\/p>\n

There has been no official statement or announcement from the DA\u2019s Office or the 11th Judicial District in San Juan County.<\/p>\n

In the November election, Hatfield is running as a Democrat against former Assistant DA Jeremy Reed<\/a>, a Republican, for the district attorney position.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy understanding is that Mr. Hatfield is recovering, and his injuries are not life threatening,\u201d Reed said. \u201cI\u2019m glad to hear that it sounds like he\u2019ll make a full recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hatfield was appointed to the position by Gov. Jared Polis in April 2023.<\/p>\n

Assistant DA Jason Eley,<\/a> Hatfield\u2019s former partner in their Durango-based law firm, would not answer questions Thursday morning about Hatfield\u2019s health or condition. Eley recently withdrew as a DA candidate for Colorado\u2019s 6th Judicial District.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, The<\/em> Journal<\/em> requested the incident reports, body cam footage and lapel camera footage from the crash through the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Journal reporters Bailey Duran and Cameryn Cass and Tri-City Record reporter Debra Mayeux contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was updated Thursday to include statements from San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montezuma County DA involved in single-car crash near Farmington<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,133,168,837,28,1025,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-dolores-county","tag-headlines","tag-law-and-justice","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25817","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=25817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79113,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25817\/revisions\/79113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25817"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}