{"id":40973,"date":"2022-04-26T16:54:40","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T22:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/police-arrest-man-suspected-of-shoplifting-showing-gun-at-home-depot-in-durango\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:58:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:58:39","slug":"police-arrest-man-suspected-of-shoplifting-showing-gun-at-home-depot-in-durango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/police-arrest-man-suspected-of-shoplifting-showing-gun-at-home-depot-in-durango\/","title":{"rendered":"Police arrest man suspected of shoplifting, showing gun at Home Depot in Durango"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Durango Police Department arrests Matthew Kiesel, 30, on Tuesday after officers found a weapon in his backpack that matched the description of a weapon showed to employees at Home Depot. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Law enforcement arrested a man Tuesday on suspicion of flashing a gun when employees confronted him about shoplifting at Home Depot, according to the Durango Police Department.<\/p>\n

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

Matthew Kiesel, 30, was arrested about 45 minutes after the initial call.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a long history with him,\u201d said Cmdr. Ray Shupe, spokesman with DPD.<\/p>\n

Home Depot notified police at 10:13 a.m. that a man pulled out a sawed-off shotgun shortly after being confronted about a possible shoplifting incident at the store, Shupe said. It was later learned the gun was a sawed-off BB gun, he said.<\/p>\n

\"A
A Durango Police Department officer pulls a gun from the backpack belonging to Matthew Kiesel, 30, on Tuesday after he was stopped on his bicycle on suspicion of shoplifting and flashing a gun to employees at Home Depot. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After confronting Kiesel, employees apparently walked him out of the store to the garden area where he had stashed his bicycle and backpack, Shupe said. That is where he allegedly flashed the gun, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s what got us rolling on it,\u201d Shupe said.<\/p>\n

It does not appear Kiesel pointed the gun at anybody.<\/p>\n

Based on initial reports, police described Kiesel as a \u201crobbery suspect who is reported to be armed with a sawed-off shotgun,\u201d according to the DPD\u2019s Facebook post.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t point it at anybody or threaten anybody,\u201d said Brice Current, assistant chief of police, after Kiesel\u2019s arrest. \u201c\u2026 We\u2019re not going to take any chances, and we treated it as a menacing or a robbery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Durango
Durango Police Department and La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office personnel question Matthew Kiesel, 30, on Tuesday about allegedly flashing a sawed-off BB gun at employees at Home Depot in south Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Police searched the Home Depot area, and set up a perimeter around the store. Store employees described the suspect as a skinny man with short black hair, possibly in his early 20s, with a dirty red backpack, and a black bike that appeared too small for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey (employees) gave us a really good description of him and a direction of travel but didn\u2019t know exactly where he\u2019d gone, and so we set up a perimeter and wound up getting him inside the perimeter,\u201d Shupe said.<\/p>\n

Officers located Kiesel near Ska Fabrication, just west of Home Depot and near Dallabetta Park. He was taken into custody without incident at 10:55 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually caught him riding his bike. So he was trying to ride his bike out of the area when we contacted him,\u201d Shupe said.<\/p>\n

\"Law
Law enforcement question Home Depot employees on Tuesday after a call was made to 911 reporting a man had pulled a sawed-off shotgun shortly after being confronted about a possible shoplifting incident at the store. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Escalante Middle School was placed on a lockout during the incident, meaning students were taken inside and the school was closed to outside visitors. The lockout was lifted shortly after the arrest.<\/p>\n

Police had not yet determined possible charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at possibly a menacing,\u201d Shupe said. \u201cWe just have to look at all the facts behind everything and how it went down and whether or not it\u2019s going to fit into the statute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kiesel had three active warrants, including for felony assault, police said.<\/p>\n

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

Escalante Middle School was placed on \u2018lockout\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,1065,28,993,52,74],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-durango-police-department","tag-headlines","tag-investigation","tag-law-enforcement","tag-theft"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40973","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=40973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84814,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40973\/revisions\/84814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40973"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}