A man is facing six felonies and three misdemeanors after reportedly crashing his car while drinking at Farmington Lake.
Zackary Gonnie, 30, of Round Rock, Arizona, was charged with three counts of third-degree felony child abuse and three counts of fourth-degree felony battery upon a peace officer. He was charged with a misdemeanor DWI, a misdemeanor resisting, evading or obstructing an office and a petty misdemeanor concealing identity. Gonnie also was cited for reckless driving.
Farmington Police were called to the lake at 3:28 p.m. July 3 by a park ranger in need of assistance. The ranger was signaled by lake goers regarding Gonnie, whom they believed “was intoxicated” and possibly in need of help, according to the statement of probable cause.
The ranger told police when she approached Gonnie he “began to yell and curse at her,” and then reportedly loaded three children into a car and attempted to drive away, according to the statement of probable cause.
Gonnie allegedly “was driving fast, so fast that she was unable to keep sight of him,” before he crashed his Chevrolet Malibu by going over a “2-foot-tall berm of sand,” running into “the fencing that surrounds the lake” and hitting a large wooden post knocking it over, according to the statement of probable cause.
Gonnie then allegedly got out of the car and began arguing with two other people, who followed him, because they told police they were “concerned for the welfare and safety of his children,” court records state.
A woman did manage to get the children out of the car, “because she was scared they were injured,” she told police, who then spoke with the children identified as Gonnie’s 10-year-old son, 5-year-old daughter and 5-year-old niece, according to the statement of probable cause.
“They were very distraught and scared, all of them were crying,” police state in their report, and the boy reportedly told police, “He knew his father was drinking, and that he shouldn’t have been.”
The report does not state what happened to the children.
When police attempted to make contact with Gonnie, he reportedly “pushed (the officer) with both hands on (his) chest,” and allegedly resisted arrest, according to the statement of probable cause.
The officer stated he managed to handcuff Gonnie, but the man reportedly continued to struggle attempting to “push” the officer away with his shoulder before he was secured in the police vehicle and taken to the San Juan County Detention Center, according to the statement of probable cause.
However once there, police said in the probable cause statement that Gonnie “proceeded to ram” the officer with his shoulder in an attempt to knock the officer over, and then, refused to take a Breathalyzer test.
Farmington Police secured a warrant for a blood alcohol test and had Gonnie’s blood drawn at San Juan Regional Medical Center before returning him to the detention center, where he was booked on the charges and then, released on July 5 by Magistrate Russel Bradford.
His preliminary hearing is set at 8:30 a.m. July 11 in Magistrate Court.
