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No charges yet in dispute between Gallup officer and wife

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The wife of a Gallup police officer was questioned Feb. 27 after she had a confrontation with her husband in the police department parking lot and reportedly slapped him.

Because a Gallup policeman was involved, the report was taken by a deputy for the McKinley County Sheriff’s Office, Lorenzo Guerrero.

The incident occurred just after midnight. Guerrero arrived there about 1 am and he talked to a Gallup police officer who said he was going into the police station when he heard a female in the parking lot yelling.

When he went to investigate, he found Colton Lee and his wife, Kayla, standing next to a police patrol unit. He separated them.

When Guerrero arrived on the scene, he placed Colton Lee in the back seat of his unit and asked him what happened. He said he was cleaning out his unit when his wife showed up and they started yelling at each other. It was all verbal, he said.

But Kayla Lee’s story of what happened was different.

She said her husband was scheduled to get off work at 4 pm and she received a number of text messages saying he was going to work a little longer. But when she came to the police department about 5:40 pm, she was told her husband got off at 4 pm.

She said she continued to call and text her husband throughout the evening and got no response. Finally, she received a text around midnight from her husband, saying he was ready to be picked up.

When she got to the police station, she said she saw her husband’s police unit parked where it had been earlier in the day and when she saw him, she began yelling and demanding to know where he had been since 4 pm.

She told Guerrero that she and her husband got into verbal arguments often, adding that she thought he was with Demetra Henry, an ex-girlfriend of her husband’s.

She said when her husband refused to answer her questions, she slapped him. That was when the other officer came and separated them.

Guerrero then went back to Colton Lee and told him that his version and his wife’s version of what happened didn’t agree. But Colton Lee stuck by his earlier story saying that the confrontation was only verbal and nothing happened.

He also told Guerrero that he would not be a witness against his wife and would not press charges.

Henry was still at the police department, so Guerrero went to her to get an account of what happened earlier that evening.

She said she and Colton Lee went to the Rocket Cafe and he went into the package liquor section. She said she did not know if he purchased anything. When they left the package liquor store, the two hung out as she took care of some personal business.

All during this time, she said she noticed Colton Lee was getting calls and text messages, which he ignored. When she asked if he planned to answer them, she said Lee told her “she can wait.”

The two returned to the police station about 11:30 pm and Henry said Colton Lee told her to wait for him and he would come back. However, he never returned, she said.

No charges were filed at that time, said Guerrero, adding he did send the report to the district attorney’s office to be reviewed and to determine if charges should be filed.