Threats land man in mental health facility

MEEKER I Sheriff’s deputies responded to a 911 call Oct. 26 when a 47-year-old man from Delta was “threatening to kill everybody.”
The call came in about 6:45 a.m. when the man left the bunkhouse at the Curtis Cherry ranch and said he was “heading over to the building where all the rifles were,” said Undersheriff Mike Joos, who responded to the call, along with Sheriff Si Woodruff and Deputy Corey Dilka. The man worked at the ranch during hunting season.
“Corey got there first. He immediately confronted the guy in the driveway. The guy came at Corey. He wasn’t armed. Corey had his gun drawn, but realized the guy wasn’t armed, so he put his gun away,” Joos said. “He (Dilka) pulled out his taser and kept warning him to back off. But the guy just kept coming at him, yelling he was going to kill him, so he fired his taser.
“It was apparent … something happened, either a medical condition or a mental condition. The man was talking to people who weren’t there and wanted to fight everybody. We didn’t take him to jail. We took him straight to the hospital, where he was examined. Mental health came in and did an evaluation. They determined he needed further treatment, so he was transported to a mental health holding facility in Grand Junction. He wasn’t criminally charged with anything,” Joos said.
— Jeff Burkhead