{"id":48313,"date":"2021-02-25T18:40:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T01:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hundreds-pay-tribute-to-detective-who-died-in-san-juan-county-n-m\/"},"modified":"2021-02-26T01:40:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T01:40:00","slug":"hundreds-pay-tribute-to-detective-who-died-in-san-juan-county-n-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hundreds-pay-tribute-to-detective-who-died-in-san-juan-county-n-m\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds pay tribute to detective who died in San Juan County, N.M."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><!-- gallery:6ef4fab9-b01a-4338-a81d-52311bed2c6c --><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/10s_tS4PtNk\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>FARMINGTON \u2013 Community members paid tribute Thursday to a San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office detective who died last week while on duty.<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of cars filled a parking lot at McGee Park, the starting point of a memorial procession that included friends, family, law enforcement and other service workers. The procession went through Aztec and north into Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement has released few details about the detective\u2019s death, other than to confirm a deputy died while on duty and that the death was not duty-related. The Sheriff\u2019s Office called it an \u201cisolated incident\u201d and said it does not release information about such incidents.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=f1a5b689-b3a4-4822-a03b-ed1dda359c42&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"808\" height=\"1128\" alt=\"Becenti\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Becenti<\/span><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The Farmington Police Department investigated the case. An open records request submitted last week by <em>The Durango Herald<\/em> revealed officers responded about 2 p.m. Feb. 18 to an \u201cunattended death\u201d at the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office in Aztec. Officers arrived to find Katie Becenti, 36, deceased. It did not identify the cause of death.<\/p>\n<p>Becenti was a mother of three, wife and detective for the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office. In her obituary, she was called \u201can absolute rock star in everything she did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the procession Thursday, law enforcement vehicles, firetrucks, state department vehicles and community members\u2019 vehicles were all staged to participate.<\/p>\n<p>The procession drove under a large American flag being held up by two firetrucks.<\/p>\n<p>On the route leaving the park, Sheriff\u2019s Office deputies lined up to salute those in the procession. Other members of the community showed up in their vehicles and lined the route as well.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=b94f4d12-fc88-4fa4-a171-75792628b737&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" alt=\"A San Juan County Sheriff&amp;#x2019;s Office truck brings up the end of a procession held Thursday in Farmington in honor of Detective Katie Becenti, who died while on duty Feb. 18. Her death was not duty-related.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A San Juan County Sheriff&amp;#x2019;s Office truck brings up the end of a procession held Thursday in Farmington in honor of Detective Katie Becenti, who died while on duty Feb. 18. Her death was not duty-related.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Morgan Mitchell\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Among the many vehicles that showed up was a school bus.<\/p>\n<p>Billy Huish, Becenti\u2019s former school bus driver, said Becenti\u2019s mother was a bus driver for many years before retiring. Huish said he watched Becenti grow up. And even as Becenti grew to over 6 feet tall, he said he always called her \u201cShorty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnybody who knew Katie will definitely miss her,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was that kind of person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Huish said her smile was genuine and could light up a room. He referred to a photo that accompanied her obituary and said, \u201cThat picture with that big ol\u2019 grin on her face, that was just her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe will be missed dearly,\u201d he said. \u201cI just loved her to death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmingtonfuneral.com\/obituary\/Katie-Becenti\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">obituary<\/a>, Becenti is survived by family including her husband, Shaun, and children Abby, Tate and Olivia.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:mmitchell@durangoherald.com\">mmitchell@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authorities release few details about deputy\u2019s death<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[255,28,445,443],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-death-and-dying","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-san-juan-county-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48313","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=48313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48313"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}