{"id":32690,"date":"2023-07-24T17:59:23","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T23:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-woman-arrested-near-silverton-after-firing-gun-during-altercation\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:02:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:02:05","slug":"new-mexico-woman-arrested-near-silverton-after-firing-gun-during-altercation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-woman-arrested-near-silverton-after-firing-gun-during-altercation\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico woman arrested near Silverton after firing gun during altercation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Valerie
Valerie Lynn Wells, 62, of Bosque Farms, New Mexico, was arrested in San Juan County, Colorado, last week on suspicion of menacing with a deadly weapon and prohibited use of a firearm.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A woman camping near Silverton was arrested last week on suspicion of firing a gun during a verbal altercation with a couple.<\/p>\n

Valerie Lynn Wells, 62, of Bosque Farms, New Mexico, was booked July 18 in the La Plata County Jail on suspicion of menacing with a deadly weapon, a felony, and prohibited use of a firearm, a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

Before her arrest, the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office released photos of Wells and her Toyota Tacoma taken around 8 p.m. Monday. The Sheriff\u2019s Office asked for the public\u2019s help in locating her.<\/p>\n

In an arrest affidavit, Adam Clifton, an officer with the Sheriff\u2019s Office, wrote that he was contacted about 8:30 p.m. Monday and met with Matthew Miller and Amanda DeMello. The couple showed Clifton a video they had taken of a woman, later identified as Wells in Cunningham Gulch, northeast of Silverton.<\/p>\n

\"A
A video taken by a couple in a verbal altercation with Valerie Lynn Wells showed Wells discharging a firearm away from the couple as a means of intimidation. (Courtesy of San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The video described in the affidavit depicted Wells discharging a firearm during a verbal altercation. Wells allegedly fired the weapon away from the couple but over a road that \u201cwas being traveled by a family, as shown in the video.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheriff Bruce Conrad made no specific comments about the incident itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to thank the community for its help as the woman sought by the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office has been arrested and charged with Felony Menacing with a Deadly Weapon,\u201d he said in a written statement to The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

DeMello declined to comment about the incident.<\/p>\n

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

Valerie Wells, 62, suspected of felony menacing with a deadly weapon <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,150,28,138,1562,327],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-firearms","tag-headlines","tag-new-mexico","tag-san-juan-county-colorado","tag-silverton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32690","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=32690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81892,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32690\/revisions\/81892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32690"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}