News briefs from around the state

From Wyoming News Exchange newspapers

Three Cheyenne police officers on leave after suspect is killed

CHEYENNE (WNE) — A call to the Cheyenne Police Department for a domestic dispute ended in the police killing the suspect Friday evening, CPD said in a news release Monday afternoon.

The man was identified Monday as 47-year-old Cheyenne resident Patrick Flores.

The shooting occurred Friday, March 8, when police officers were dispatched to calls for a domestic disturbance with a firearm, which the agency said was around 6:18 p.m.

Dispatchers told police that he was “shooting the firearm and his wife was heard screaming.”

The call was “near the 5200 block of Fishing Bridge.”

According to the CPD, officers approached the front door of the residence and “made multiple announcements, commanding the occupants to exit,” with no response.

An officer broke down the front door of the residence upon hearing a woman scream, the release said.

Officers said they “encountered Flores, who was shooting his weapon, and returned fire.”

The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation is looking into the matter, and an investigation is ongoing.

The CPD has placed three officers on administrative leave.

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Mexican citizen imprisoned for ‘huge amounts of drugs’

POWELL (WNE) — After illegally entering the United States, a Mexican man became one of Park County’s larger drug dealers, authorities say.

Jose De La Cruz Guerra Torres is now set to be deported from the country — but first, he must serve an eight- to 10- year prison sentence for three felony drug crimes.

Guerra indicated that he came to the U.S. in 2021 for “the financial opportunity to support his family and to pay off debts,” his defense attorney said at a hearing last fall.

For roughly a year-and-a-half, Guerra said he lived in Powell, working in area sugar beet fields and at a Cody meat processor.

However, Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation agents concluded that Guerra was also earning money as “a large-scale distributor of controlled substances.”

Powell police officers arrested Guerra for drunk driving in December 2022 and found more than $12,000 worth of cash in his car. Inside his North Cheyenne Street home and another vehicle, DCI agents seized not only more cash, but nearly a half-pound of meth, close to a half-pound of cocaine and 110 counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl.

The street value of the drugs easily reached into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Guerra pleaded guilty to three felony counts of possessing drugs with intent to deliver, but at a November sentencing hearing, he disputed being a dealer.

“Yes, I did have the drugs with me, but I did not do anything with them,” Guerra said through a translator in Park County District Court, adding, “My language doesn’t permit me to sell things … I can’t speak English, so I can’t offer drugs to people.”

His denials are undercut by court filings, however.