New laser guns


Cpl. P. Gallegos of the Gallup City Police department demonstrates and tests one of the two laser guns the police department has. In addition his car is equipped with a new video recording system.

Photo by Douglas Tesner



Tuesday night, Brett Torgler stands in front of the prefabricated home that he and 30 Mentmore familes are upset about being built in their neighborhood.

Photo by Craig Robinson

 

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Teen escapee still on loose

Andrea Egger
Staff Writer

GALLUP — A McKinley County Sheriff's Department deputy and his patrol dog tracked and then lost the trail of a Gallup 16-year-old male who escaped from the Juvenile Detention Center Wednesday morning.

As of this morning, Adrian Reyes, 16, of 915 E. Highway 66, was still missing, according to the department.

Deputies were called at 11:30 a.m. to the Juvenile Detention Center to investigate an escape, according to Cpl. George Justice, who detailed in his report the trail he and his patrol dog, Voy, traveled in search of the teen. Reyes was being held at the detention center on charges of burglary, conspiracy and possession of stolen property, all felonies.

"We don't believe he poses any danger to the community," a detention center staff member said this morning. Detention Center Administrator Julian Mestas was not available for comment.

Justice learned from detention staff that around 11 a.m., the male inmates were taken to the classroom. At 11:25 a.m., staff noticed Reyes was missing, according to the report.

Detention staff told Justice they believe Reyes got out of line when they were heading to the classroom and hid. He escaped through the roof where the fence meets the main building at the southeast corner.

Detention Center employee Claudette Foutz reported she saw Reyes in the yard near the southeast corner of the building around 11:10 a.m.

Reyes wore an orange jail jumpsuit and sandals issued by the detention center. Justice found sandal prints, similar to prints that would be made by detention center issued sandals, leading south from the building.

Voy tracked southeast from the detention center, across Hasler Valley Road, toward a junkyard area. Police searched the junkyard area but found no trace of Reyes.

Voy then entered a ditch near the junkyard. The dog again picked up the trail and headed south in the ditch.

Justice and Gallup Police Lt. Jess Watkins found sandal prints again as Voy tracked an area just east of Highway 66 across from Williams Street near Pronto Fina. Voy indicated the suspect had gone into a drainage ditch.

Deputies checked the ditch, and it appeared that Reyes had gone inside the ditch and then turned around and climbed out. The dog wasn't able to locate a track leading away from the ditch.

Watkins and Justice searched for footprints leading away from the area but weren't able to find any.

The officers abandoned tracking the suspect and sent out an "attempt to locate" to all other agencies. Other police agencies searched the area of the detention center but were unable to locate Reyes.

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Grants grandma fights for holiday

Tom Purdom
Staff Writer

GRANTS — A tenacious grandmother was not about to take "no" for an answer and because of it, Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday will probably be an official school district holiday again next year.

In 2001 students were allowed the holiday, but this year the school calendar committee eliminated the holiday and incorporated it into President's Day in February.

Grants/Cibola County School District was one of four districts in the state not to observe King's birthday this year, a fact which did not set well with Alice Lackey, a retired cook, who moved to Grants 40 years ago as a young woman and decided to stay. She's retired now, a grandmother, but still knows wrong when she sees it, she said.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday is a national holiday celebrated on Jan. 21. The civil rights and human rights movement leader was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. in 1968.

While school districts across the nation celebrate his birthday, Grants did not and on Monday students were attending classes and Lackey felt something had to be done.

"I really didn't want to get into it, but someone had to," Lackey said. "I think the kids should be taught about his (King's) history, and the history of other black leaders."

She said history without black history is not the full story of history. Lackey noted that Grants lacks a celebration of Black History Month as well. She said someone needs to take up the call and push for a city-wide celebration of Black History Month. "There's a little bit of a celebration at the Emanual Baptist Church (in Milan next to Grants), but none in Grants and if my health was better, I'd do it myself," she said.

But when students in the Grants/Cibola County School District were striped of the King birthday celebration Monday, enough was enough.

Lackey went to the school board meeting Tuesday to "discuss" the issue with the board. Lackey said she told the board King was not a president, and should not have his national holiday incorporated into President's Day. "Dr. King deserves a day of his own," she said.

The feisty lady said the board was apologetic. About her actions and what she told the board and the board's reaction, Lackey said "I just felt it was the right thing to do."

Board Member Robert Murdoch said he did not believe there was anything intentional on the part of the school's calendar committee, however, he added, "It's impossible to defend the indefensible."

"We'll do our very best to get Dr. King's holiday back into the school calendar for next year," Murdoch said. "It should not be too difficult."

Teachers are inundated with what Murdoch calls "too many" inservice teacher meetings. Students are let out of class for a half day while the teachers undergo inservice training. Murdoch said the state requires each district hold at least two inservice days each year. Grants has between six to eight, which Murdoch said even some of the teachers complain about as being too many.

He said Martin Luther King Jr.'s holiday could be re-incorporated into the calendar through eliminating two of the inservice days. "In fact, I think we need to limit inservice days to just two, because it would allow teachers more time to do their task."
Murdoch also said reducing the number of inservice days would allow parents of smaller children more flexibility in not having to hire "emergency" baby-sitters on inservice days. "If there's one complaint I get more than any thing else, that is it," Murdoch said.

Said Lackey, "I went to that school board meeting and I feel good about what was said, if, they keep their word."

Added Murdoch, "I think Dr. King had a tremendous amount to offer our nation. I think the calendar committee will get together to see how the members can re-align the calendar for next year."

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Lawmakers trot out favorite causes

Walter Howerton Jr.
Legislative Reporter

SANTA FE — The 30-day session of the New Mexico is supposed to be about money. But some lawmakers ride into Santa Fe on their hobby horses and instead of rounding up a few stray dollars for, say, Medicare, they insist on trotting out their petpeeves and favorite causes.

There are lawmakers who want moments of silence at school and lawmakers who want parents notified about abortions. There is even one representative who wants to give convicted murderers more choices when it comes to capital punishment.

Going into the session, many people thought the death penalty would be an issue. Gov. Gary Johnson even expressed doubts about whether the state should keep executing people because of the possibility of mistakes. Johnson said he would entertain the idea ofsigning a bill to repeal the death penalty. No one has introduced one.

Instead, Rep. Bengie Regensberg, D-Colfax, Guadalupe, Mora and San Miguel,has introduced a bill that — in the spirit of a consumer culture — would give death row denizens a few choices.

Regensberg's bill would give the inmate the chance to choose between lethal injection (the current official method), the gas chamber, electric chair and, in a reversion to the low-tech good old days, hanging and the firing squad. Inmates would have to make the decision within 60 days of sentencing. No decision would mean automatic lethal injection.

Of course, all these choices would require the state, which has recently spent thousands of dollars to build a lethal injection facility, to build a gallows, a gas chamber, an electric chair and be prepared to round up a firing squad on the whimsy of thecondemned.

It already costs millions of dollars to execute a single inmate. Having to provide an inventory of death seems way too much to
ask in a year when the budget is tight.

Regensberg's bill is not expected to get out of committee.

Shhh! hold it down

Rep. Gloria Vaughn, R-Otero, wants a moment of silence. Not in the Legislature. That would be asking too much. But in the schools. And the Amercan Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) thinks that just might be asking too much, too.

Lt. Gov. Walter Bradley, who incidentally also wants to be governor — not that that has anything to do with it, even in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — wants her to have it.

Vaughn has introduced a bill that would order the State Board of Education to order all school districts in the states to order one minute of silence in every classroom every day. She said passing the measure is important as the nation deals with Sept. 11.

The bill states that its purpose is, "In order that the right of every student to the free exercise of religion be guaranteed." It does not say that Muslim students could fling down a prayer rug or that Native American students might whip together a quick sweat lodge for their minute of silence. What it does say is that teachers (as if they don't have enough to do already, what with teaching math, English, history, science and a lot of what students should learn from their parents at home) would have to make sure that students sit down and shutup, meditate, pray "and make no distracting display" (that just might eliminate prayer rugs and sweat lodges).

Bradley jumped right on Vaughn's quiet little boat and said he thought such a measure would be "fair to all students."
The question, of course, is just what fair means.

And the ACLU already has said it is ready to disturb the silence if thebill is passed, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's insistence that church and state be kept separate.

Hot-button issue

Bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate that would require girls under 18 years old to notify their parents if they are seeking an abortion.

The House bill was introduced by Rep. Larry Larranaga, R-Bernalillo. The Senate version was sponsored by Sen. Ramsay Gorham, R-Bernalillo, who seems to have dragged her non-progressive politics with her from her home state of North Carolina.

The legislation was introduced on Tuesday, the 29th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Predictably, the proposed law is being seen as an assault on the ability of women,including young women, to choose whether or not to have an abortion.

Rep. Danice Picraux, D-Bernalillo, said at a pro-choice rally in the Capitol rotunda that she saw the bill for what it was: an attempt to undercut abortion rights.

Picraux said parental notification increases the risks in an already dangerous situation especially for "battered teen-agers and incest survivors."

Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Bernalillo, who sees the bills as "a threat to thehealth and safety of young women," pretty much spelled doom for the parental notification bills, noting they would have to pass through the Senate Public Affairs Committee, which she chairs.

The House bill already has been assigned to an additional committee hearing, a traditional way of sending bills off to die.

Glum Rainaldi

Gallup Democrat Lidio Rainaldi thinks additional magistrate and district judges are needed and he has introduced a bill saying so. But he doesn't think there is much chance of getting them.

After a hearing at the Roundhouse on Monday Rainaldi said the word from Johnson's office is that the governor won't go along even if his bill passes.

"He says he won't sign," Rainaldi said, pointing upstairs to the fourth floor, where Johnson's office is.

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Minister blasts 2nd casino idea

Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

HOUCK CHAPTER — A rural reservation minister said Thursday a request for the Navajo Nation Council to allow a second casino-style gambling palace is filled with the false hope of the addicted.

Rev. Milt Shirleson of the Good News Church in the Houck Chapter called gaming a second monster tribal leaders are trying to unleash on the unsuspecting people who have battled the alcoholism monster for generations.

Shirleson said calling gambling "gaming" often misleads and confuses the elderly, who twice voted against the decriminalization of the non-traditional games of chance.

So far he seems to be like a voice crying in the wilderness as no organized opposition to the spread of gambling onto the country's largest Indian reservation has emerged...

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