{"id":36446,"date":"2023-01-05T19:50:06","date_gmt":"2023-01-06T02:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/los-pinos-firefighter-charged-in-assault-of-colleague\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:31:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:31:39","slug":"los-pinos-firefighter-charged-in-assault-of-colleague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/los-pinos-firefighter-charged-in-assault-of-colleague\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Pinos firefighter charged in assault of colleague"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Los
Los Pinos Fire Protection District faces a federal discrimination lawsuit filed by a former employee.<\/span>Shannon Mullane\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A firefighter with the Los Pinos Fire Protection District has been charged in 6th Judicial District Court in connection with a domestic violence case involving his former girlfriend, who also works as a firefighter for the district.<\/p>\n

Matthew Misquez, 36, was charged Wednesday with criminal mischief, third-degree assault and obstruction of a telephone or telegraph service \u2013 all class one misdemeanors \u2013 relating to an incident that occurred in August 2021. The alleged victim is Misquez\u2019s 37-year-old former partner, who is also a firefighter with the district.<\/p>\n

Misquez is being represented by criminal defense attorney Heather Little.<\/p>\n

According to an affidavit written by Deputy Sheriff Drew Facompre, Misquez grew angry after accusing his partner of cheating on him and reacted by throwing glassware and other items. The victim attempted to call a friend, but Misquez took the phone away and destroyed it in the garbage disposal. The victim then used a computer to contact the friend, which she did successfully before Misquez smashed the computer.<\/p>\n

According to the affidavit, the victim told deputies Misquez grabbed and shoved her during the altercation, and that she had photographs of bruises, the broken electronics and other damage to the house. The victim also showed the officer text messages in which the defendant \u201cadmits to over reacting, breaking things, being intoxicated, and being apologetic over the incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

The responding deputy spoke with the victim Dec. 26, 2022. He spoke with Misquez two days later and said Misquez admitted to destroying the electronics, punching a hole in the door, handling the victim because \u201cshe was preventing him from leaving\u201d and said he paid to repair everything he had broken.<\/p>\n

A mandatory protection order preventing the defendant from contacting the victim was signed Dec. 29 at the defendant\u2019s arrest. However, the two firefighters have continued to work at the same station, Misquez confirmed, albeit on different shifts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are never in the same room at the same time now,\u201d Misquez said during a brief interview Thursday with The Durango Herald<\/em>. \u201cThe department has implemented a new policy where we are never in the same place at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to an organizational chart<\/a> on the department\u2019s website, both the defendant and the victim work under the same captain.<\/p>\n

Misquez, who was formally advised of the charges Thursday in District Court, did not say how long the couple have worked on separate shifts but said there \u201chas been no issue at work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Los Pinos Fire Protection District Chief Tony Harwig declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n

Herald Staff Writer Megan Olsen contributed to this report. <\/em><\/p>\n

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

Defendant and victim continue to work at the department<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[585,133,168,923,28,1953],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-36446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-assault-general","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-domestic-violence","tag-headlines","tag-los-pinos-fire-protection-district"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36446","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=36446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83347,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36446\/revisions\/83347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36446"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=36446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}