{"id":48531,"date":"2021-02-18T23:04:55","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T06:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-arrested-after-slow-speed-rv-chase-in-cortez-is-charged\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:43:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:43:26","slug":"man-arrested-after-slow-speed-rv-chase-in-cortez-is-charged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-arrested-after-slow-speed-rv-chase-in-cortez-is-charged\/","title":{"rendered":"Man arrested after slow-speed RV chase in Cortez is charged"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Ritter\"
Ritter<\/span>Courtesy of the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Formal charges were brought Thursday in Montezuma County Court against the man who led police on a slow-speed RV chase through Cortez earlier this month.<\/p>\n

The highest offenses that Kevin Ritter, 41, was charged with were two counts of vehicular eluding. This occurs when an individual is driving recklessly while being pursued by police officers.<\/p>\n

There was a charge for each of the two officers pursuing him. Both are Class 5 felonies.<\/p>\n

Ritter was charged with criminal impersonation, a Class 6 felony, for giving a false name to police.<\/p>\n

The 22nd Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office also charged Ritter with violation of bail bond conditions, another class six felony. Ritter had previously been released on bail in regard to a case in Jefferson County in which he was accused of felony possession of a weapon by a previous offender.<\/p>\n

Charges also included two counts of resisting arrest.<\/p>\n

The remaining charges were violation of a protection order, reckless driving and unlawful possession of a controlled substance.<\/p>\n

The 22nd Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office filed the charges on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Bond was not addressed at Thursday\u2019s hearing and remained at $50,000.<\/p>\n

On the morning of Feb. 5, police pulled Ritter over for a traffic infraction near the Hampton Inn on Hawkins Street. Ritter fled in his RV and ran over spikes set by police, blowing a rear tire.<\/p>\n

Officers followed Ritter in a slow-speed pursuit as he drove west along Main Street and then north along U.S. Highway 491 until he turned onto County Road Y.<\/p>\n

Ritter\u2019s RV got stuck in mud near the intersection of County Road Y and County Road 16, where police apprehended him without issues.<\/p>\n

Officers from the Colorado State Patrol, Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office and Bureau of Land Management assisted Cortez police officers in the case.<\/p>\n

Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin told The Journal <\/em>earlier this month that Ritter had 11 warrants out for his arrest from Jefferson County and two others from Denver County.<\/p>\n

Warrants had been issued for offenses that included, but were not limited to, possession of an illegal weapon, child abuse, third-degree assault, first-degree aggravated motor vehicle theft and unlawful possession of a controlled substance.<\/p>\n

Ritter\u2019s preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 18 at 10 a.m.<\/p>\n

anicotera@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preliminary hearing set for March 18<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48531","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=48531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87399,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48531\/revisions\/87399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48531"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}