Gallup man charged in federal vehicular assault in Vanderwagen

A Gallup man faces federal charges after prosecutors said a vehicle attack on a dirt road in Vanderwagen left a victim with injuries including cuts, bruising, abrasions, contusions, a hematoma and a small pneumothorax.

Darius Kyran Eskeets, 24, is accused of striking the victim with a vehicle on April 27 after driving toward the victim and others, forcing them out of the roadway, making a U-turn, veering off the road and hitting the victim before leaving the scene. Federal prosecutors said Eskeets is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and is charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and assault resulting in serious bodily injury.

The case went to federal court because the alleged assault happened in Vanderwagen, an unincorporated community in southwestern McKinley County where Navajo Nation jurisdiction, federal authority and local public safety concerns often overlap. In serious assaults in that part of the county, the FBI’s Gallup Resident Agency frequently works with Navajo law enforcement, and that is the investigative path followed here. The Navajo Nation Police Department and the Navajo Department of Criminal Investigations assisted in the case, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary C. Jones is prosecuting it.

Eskeets was released to home detention with strict GPS monitoring while he waits for trial, which has not been scheduled. If he is convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. The charge announcement was made by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison and FBI Special Agent in Charge Justin A. Garris.

The filing lands in a county where geography can sharpen the stakes of violence. Vanderwagen sits about 17.5 miles south of Gallup, the county’s largest city and main service center, and McKinley County had 72,902 residents in the 2020 Census. In a rural corridor where long road stretches, limited transport options and slower emergency access can shape the first minutes after an attack, the injuries described by prosecutors underscore why the case is being handled with such gravity.