A 24-year-old Weld County Sheriff’s Office deputy was struck and killed in a hit-and-run crash Sunday outside Greeley.
Alexis Hein-Nutz, a native of Bismarck, North Dakota, had served with the department since 2018, the sheriff’s office said in a Monday news release.
The deputy was riding her motorcycle to work Sunday when Octavio Gonzalez-Garcia allegedly struck her with his car near the intersection of AA Street and Weld County Road 37, authorities said.
Gonzalez-Garcia, believed to be 37 or 38, was allegedly drunk at the time of the crash, the sheriff’s office said. After the incident, he ran away and hid in a nearby cornfield, authorities said.
Monday night, the sheriff’s department announced that a suspect had been captured at 10:15 p.m. Details on the arrest would be released Tuesday.
Hein-Nutz was one week away from her 25th birthday. The sheriff’s office called her a “hard worker, a caring deputy and a positive force for our agency.”
“After many years of dreaming of being in law enforcement, I can finally say I am officially following my dreams,” Hein-Nutz wrote in a 2018 Facebook post after graduating from the jail academy, according to the sheriff’s office. “This is only the first stepping-stone to a brighter future. Here is to a better life and doing what I was meant to do.”
The Weld County Sheriff’s Office is accepting donations through its nonprofit arm to help the family through the tragedy.
