ICE CREAM BREAK-IN
Gallup, July 20

Someone really wanted some ice cream.

On July 20 around 9:22 am the Gallup Police got a call saying that the Dairy Queen at 200 East Highway 66 in Gallup had been broken into.

When Lieutenant Francie Martinez, Officer Cindy Romancito, and Sergeant Terrance Peyketewa got to the scene, they saw that the glass door on the east side of the business had been broken into.

According to the police report, an employee said one of the customers had informed her about the break in.

The business owner told police that nothing seemed to be missing, but that she would have someone check the surveillance cameras. The total cost of the damage to the door is...

Joseph Romero Jr.
July 19, 10:15 pm
DWI

Gallup Police Officer Nicole Diswood was sitting in her patrol car at the Gallup Municipal Airport when someone approached her and told her about a vehicle in a ditch across from the Sonic on the west side of town.

According to her report, Diswood found the blue Nissan in the ditch off Margarite and West Historic Highway 66. When she approached the car, the driver was still trying to get out of the ditch.

Diswood noticed the driver, later identified as Joseph Romero Jr., 22, from Gamerco, had bloodshot, watery eyes, and she could smell alcohol on him. She told him to put the car in park, and he proceeded to put it in neutral and then back...

A member of the Navajo Nation has been sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual abuse of a minor.

Larry Nathaniel, 65, of Farmington, New Mexico, and an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, was sentenced on Aug. 25 in federal court to eight years and six months in prison for abusive sexual contact of a minor in Indian Country. Nathaniel pleaded guilty on Feb. 2.

According to the indictment and other court records, Nathaniel committed the offense in the family home of the victim in San Juan County on the Navajo Nation on Feb. 24, 2019. Nathaniel held down the victim by the arm and touched her genitalia. At the time of the abuse, the victim was ten years old.

Upon his release...

A multi-agency effort led to the arrest of a man who had broken his parole by unlawfully owning a firearm.

On August 26, around 2:00 p.m., the New Mexico State Police, as part of the metro proactive crime suppression and traffic enforcement operation arrested Christopher Perez, 24, of Albuquerque.

Perez, who had outstanding federal warrants for probation violation on the charge of unlawful possession of a firearm was known through investigation to be inside a residence at 312 Aztec Rd NW in Albuquerque.  Agents from the NMSP Auto Theft Unit, Violent Crimes Task Force Unit, Crime Suppression Unit, Special Investigations Unit, and Fugitive Apprehension Unit along with NMSP Tactical...