| OCR Text |
Show 11-1-" .11 i i - Escalante Garfield County Sheriff's Deputy David Jones, killed Sunday in the line of duty, is shown beside his patrol vehicle shortly after joining the Garfield County Sheriffs Department in July 2001. Jones had just fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming a law enforcement officer as he and his family moved to Escalante. Deputy Remembered As Friend, Father ESCALANTE Two men are in custody following an intense search late Sunday afternoon after-noon in the rugged terrain of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument after Garfield County Deputy Sheriff David Jones, 44, was shot and killed about 3:30 p.m. five miles south of Escalante on the long, dirt Smoky Mountain Road, known locally as the Alvey Wash Road. Sixty-one miles later the suspects sus-pects were apprehended shortly (See REMEMBERED on pg. 2) Deputy Remembered From Front Page before dark after a Classic Airmed helicopter out of Page, Ariz., spotted their 1994 white Ford F150 pickup about 10 miles northeast of Big Water. A second helicopter from the Arizona Department of Public Safety dropped off officers about one-half mile away who walked toward the vehicle to make the arrest without incident. inci-dent. Shortly after, the driver was in jail and his injured passenger pas-senger life-flighted to a Page, Ariz., hospital. Both men had been living and working in Escalante less than a year. Fifty-year-old William Byron Allred, originally from Salina, had been held in the Iron County Jail, until Tuesday afternoon when he was transported to appear in Sixth District Court for a bail hearing. Judge K. L. Mclff appointed attorney John Hummel, St. George, as his public defender and denied him bail. Allred remains incarcerated incarcerat-ed at the Garfield County Jail. The second suspect, Earl Leston "Pops" Barnes, 53, reported as from Colorado, is recovering from injuries at Flagstaff Medical Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., where he was life-flighted from a hospital in Page. He has undergone surgery twice, the second time on Tuesday afternoon after-noon to remove a bullet from his right lung, and is reported to be recovering well. An information informa-tion filed Monday in Sixth District Court on Barnes by Garfield County Attorney Wallace Lee states one count of aggravated murder. Lee was given until 9 a.m. Monday to file official charges on both Allred and Barnes. Events had started about 3 p.m. on Sunday when Deputy Jones followed the suspects' pickup truck headed south on the Alvey Wash Road, apparently apparent-ly noticing its occupants consuming con-suming beer. He stopped them and contacted Garfield County Sheriff's dispatch center in Panguitch to run the vehicle's plates and identification on the two men. Jones administered a field sobriety test driver William Allred, and when he failed the test, arrested and handcuffed him and placed him in the seat of his unmarked dark blue Chevy Tahoe patrol vehicle. Jones had asked Garfield County Sheriff's dispatch to send a tow truck to impound the men's pickup, and Curt Richins left his Escalante home at 3:12, arriving on scene about just before 3:30 to see the pickup speeding south in the distance and the mortally wounded Jones lying on his back in front of his patrol vehicle with no one else around. Richins said he called dispatch dis-patch for help using the radio in Jones' patrol car and tried to help the dying officer whose struggling final words were "love her" which Richins said he knew were meant for Jones' wife Carolyn. Jones had been shot in the heart by a high-powered weapon at close range, piercing his bullet proof vest. Richins, after the scene was secured, headed south on Smoky Mountain Road with Deputy Sgt. Dan Perkins and a wildlife officer from Panguitch to pursue the suspects. The report "officer down in Escalante" quickly went out on the radio from Panguitch dispatch dis-patch and law enforcement personnel per-sonnel from all over Garfield and surrounding Utah counties, as well as from Coconino County in Arizona responded to aid in the search'. Garfield County Sheriff's Deputy Clint Pierson, stationed in Tropic, had already been called out as backup for Jones when Jones' first request to dispatch dis-patch for information on the two men indicated they had previous problems with the law. Garfield County Sheriff Than Cooper rendezvoused with other officers in Cannonville to send searchers south on Cottonwood Canyon Road to points where other roads leading off from Smoky Mountain Road connected connect-ed with Cottonwood. Road blocks were set up all over the nearby southern Utah area. Sheriff Cooper later learned a detailed sequence of events from a tape recorder which Jones always wore and which was operating when he stopped the two men. It reveals how Jones administered a field sobriety sobri-ety test on Allred who, upon failing the test was arrested, handcuffed and placed in Jones' vehicle. When Jones then spotted spot-ted an open container in the pickup, he asked Barnes to leave the truck and enter his patrol car, announcing his intent to arrest Barnes. Momentarily distracted by a radio call, Jones turned to face Barnes who was pointing at him a high-powered weapon retrieved from the truck. On the tape, Jones can be heard ordering order-ing Barnes three times to "put the gun down". Then, suddenly, almost simultaneous gunshots are heard, and Jones went down as Barnes was also seriously wounded. Barnes is heard helping help-ing Allred out of the patrol vehicle, vehi-cle, then speaking to the dying Jones, "give me the keys or I'll shoot you again." He can be heard removing the keys from Jones and the handcuffs from Allred. Just after the two sped off, Richins arrived on the scene. Significant evidence recovered recov-ered at the scene and along the (See REMEMBERED on pg. 3) Remembered From Page 3A Smoky Mountain Road was gathered and Sgt. Perkins, armed with a search warrant, flew to the hospital in Flagstaff on Tuesday to obtain additional blood samples and other important impor-tant evidence. Other warrants were issued on Monday to search the Escalante residences of both suspects. Allred had been living in his 1989 Aljo 5th-wheel trailer trail-er at Broken Bow RV Park since July when he hired on as a loader operator at the newly opened Skyline Forest Resources. Barnes had worked for the past two months at the sawmill where he stacked wood, living in a white Champion manufactured home at 50 East 100 South. Skyline Forest Resources co-owner co-owner Stephen Steed said that Allred and Barnes, two of his 53 employees, had been dependable, depend-able, well-liked workers and that he and their co-workers were "shocked" to hear the two men were suspects in Jones' death. Albery Cronin, manager at the broken Bow RV Parkwhere Allred resided, also was stunned at the events of Sunday sying ' that he had been a dependable ! and helpful tenant who was 1 respectful of tourists. ; -; Sheriff Cooper said that he ; was overwhelmed by the ; (See REMEMBERED on pg. 5)'-; : Remembered From Page 4A response of other agencies and individuals associated with law enforcement who turned out in . such numbers not only to aid in .. the search for the suspects but to i. help with special skills not avail- able in his small department. He called Jones' death "tragic . and senseless" and said he could not understand why such alleged actions could have resulted from . the simple threat of an open con-tainer con-tainer citation. "But," he said, - "we have a very strong case, and ; we will pursue it; we owe it to , Dave Jones and his family." |
