A Durango man is suspected of attempting to strangle a woman and threatening police officers with a knife Thursday, resulting in law enforcement using a K-9 unit and a Taser gun to subdue the suspect, the Durango Police Department said.
Police arrested the man – Joshua Muniz, 45 – sometime after 1:32 a.m. Thursday.
Cmdr. Rita Warfield said the couple were together at a residence near the 900 block of Florida Road when Muniz became violent and attempted to strangle the woman.
The woman hid somewhere in the house, and Muniz left with their 1-year-old child. The woman then called police.
Police located Muniz and the child, using information from his phone, outside the Best Western Mountain Shadows hotel at 3255 Main Ave.
When officers contacted Muniz, he told officers, “I’m not going back to prison!” As police were taking him into custody, Muniz pulled a knife “in an aggressive manner and told the officers to kill him,” the police department wrote on its Facebook page.
A deputy with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office who also responded to the incident deployed a K-9 to subdue Muniz, but he grabbed the dog by its collar.
“Officers ordered the man to drop the knife, and the man repeatedly said that he was not going back to prison,” police wrote on Facebook.
That’s when police shot Muniz with a Taser, which gave officers the opportunity to remove the knife and arrest him. Warfield said Muniz was first taken to Mercy Regional Medical Center for care before being booked at the La Plata County Jail.
Muniz was charged with attempted murder, domestic violence, menacing and obstructing police. He was being held Thursday in the La Plata County Jail without bail.
Warfield said Muniz was on parole for second-degree murder. She was unsure where the murder occurred but said it does not appear to have happened in Durango.
The child, the woman who was attacked, the K-9 and all the officers were safe, police said.
jromeo@durangoherald.com