Week of Aug. 31, 2026: Another Officer Arrested for Child-Related Sex Crimes and Another Officer Arrested for Domestic Violence

Welcome to our weekly sum-up. Every Monday we send out a short summary of the last week’s officers that have landed on Colorado’s Peace Officer Standards and Training public database of law enforcement misconduct and actions. These actions from POST are not necessarily only those that have happened in the last week, but those that have been added, and consist of any other context we could find. Additionally are officers with otherwise obvious misconduct from around the same time.

This week we have an officer arrested for internet luring of a child and an update on a deputy who was arrested for domestic violence-related assault.

Dustin Martin (CO-139260)

• Subject of a criminal charge as an officer with Springfield Police Department on Sept. 1
• Arrested on charges of internet luring of a child based on Colorado Bureau of Investigation investigation with Orange County Sheriff’s Office in Florida finding that “Martin communicated through the Snapchat application with an individual he believed to be a minor for the purposes of engaging in sexual activity.”
• Baca County Court did not respond to a request for the arrest affidavit of Martin before publishing
• Springfield PD denied Blue Surveillance Martin’s internal affairs report due to it being an ongoing investigation

Sources:

• POST Database
• Colorado Bureau of Investigation
• Town of Springfield

Cory Bantock (CO-006-139)

• Credibility report as a jail deputy with Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office from Sept. 2
• Terminated for cause from Lincoln County SO on Aug. 13
• Neither Lincoln County nor Lincoln County SO have responded to Aug. 25 records requests as of publishing

Sources:

• POST Database

Kenneth Baptist (CO-117239)

• Resigned in lieu of termination for cause as an officer with Hayden Police Department on Aug. 31
• Received a credibility report the same day

Sources

• POST Database

Officer updates:

Records that must come directly from a law enforcement agency are not required to be released within three business days, as it is with CORA requests to municipalities. Sometimes an officer is added to the database later in the week, and there isn’t time for records requests to come before the newsletter has to be sent out. Sometimes the records we get back are resumes or job applications without much more information, but sometimes they are documents that do lend more important details. Whenever any of these updates come in, we’ll put them here.

Michelle Reed (CO-135808)

• Terminated for cause as an officer with Woodland Park Police Department on Aug. 3
• Updates: termination letter and internal affairs summaries
  • According to internal affairs documents, Reed recently broken up with someone and sent a box of their belongings to their workplace with bold letters on top stating “DISPOSABLE BULLSHIT BAG SEALS BS IN.” The person emailed Reed and Captain Kristyn Arseneau requesting Reed not contact them and calling the package embarrassing as they received it in front of co-workers. Arseneau told Reed to not contact the former partner, of which Reed did soon after.
  • According to the termination letter, Reed was terminated for conduct unbecoming of an officer and insubordination

Darrien Ahrendsen (CO-037-810)

• Resigned in lieu of termination as a deputy with Weld County Sheriff's Office on July 20
• Arrested Aug. 11 on domestic violence-related charges of third degree assault knowingly or recklessly causing injury
• According to a summary of an internal affairs investigation, between May 4 and June 23, Ahrendsen was “involved in disputes with his significant other in which police response occurred,” and during those investigations, Ahrendsen “failed to conduct himself in accordance with the standards outlined in the Weld County Sheriff’s Office Standards of Conduct policy.”
• Updates: arrest affidavit
  • According to Ahrendsen’s arrest affidavit, officers reported to an anonymous call from a witness that described observing “a male strike a female, then when she was unconscious he placed her into a vehicle and drove off.”
  • From interviews with the neighbor and roommate, reporting officers state in the affidavit that Ahrendsen’s partner of six months attempted to leave their driveway, Ahrendsen chased the car, stood in front of the car to attempt to stop it, and clung onto the hood when the partner tried to drive around him.
  • According to the affidavit, officers found surveillance footage farther down the street showing Ahrendsen in the passenger seat where he opens the driver side door and “strong arm shoves” the woman out of the car onto the pavement where she “goes limp and does not move.” Reporting officers note that the woman “appears to land with the left side of her face making contact with the pavement first...”
  • The affidavit continues that Ahrendsen comes around the car, pulls the woman to her feet “at which point she seems to regain her senses” and enters the car through the passenger side.
  • Reporting officers describe hearing the woman “yelling ‘no’ and ‘stop’ repeatedly.”
  • In interviews, the affidavit describes the woman refusing to answer questions that might have incriminated Ahrendsen. It states that the woman “repeatedly stated that her visible injuries, which consisted of scrapes to her knees, blood along her lips, and swelling/bruising to the left side of her face, had all been from” Ahrendsen’s dog pulling her down.
  • Ahrendsen was charged with domestic violence-related assault in the third degree

Correction:

Previous information on this newsletter regarding former Kersey Police Officer Maria Maldonado has been removed as it had inaccurate information about her criminal charge according to Colorado POST