The Sun rides along with Officer Hughte on his Dec. 11 patrol

Gallup Police Department Officers continued their open field searches across the city on Dec. 11, in an effort to prevent exposure deaths during the winter months. Recent cold weather has gripped the community, and the recent death of a Window Rock man on the east side of Gallup has been considered exposure related.

Community service aide officers from the police department patrol arroyos, fields, hills, back areas of businesses, rocky purchases and overnight camps that spring up across the city. The black and white vans of the CSAs are a familiar sight on city streets.

GPD Capt. Marinda Spencer said camps erected by vagrants usually consist of tents and makeshift shelters.

“Our community service aides go into those areas and check on those folks,” Spencer said. “We had the first reported death of the winter season and we don’t know for sure if it was an exposure death. We are awaiting the autopsy report to determine death.”

The purpose of protective custody is to provide a safe place for individuals that can’t care for themselves due to being impaired. In the Gallup area, most impaired individuals are high on alcohol.

“Maybe their intoxication level is putting them in danger,” Spencer said. “Or people might call in and report individuals. Sometimes it’s voluntary and individuals will wave down our community service aide vans.”

The police department has a total of 67 officers. Eight of these positions are for CSAs. Seven of the positions are currently filled.

GPD Chief Phillip Hart said that the dedication of CSAs patrolling nightly during winter months in an effort to save lives should not be overlooked.

“Community service aide officers are out patrolling seven days a week. We recently purchased a UTV that is specially outfitted with 360-degree floodlights and heating,” he said.

The $18,000 off road vehicle that Hart referred to is on patrol in the ditches nightly, starting at 7 pm.

The GPD has been conducting these open field patrols for the past eight to 10 years. Spencer said that the searches have become more intensive of late, as CSA officers have been actively searching.

In 2016, there were 71 deaths in Gallup, four of which were attributed to hyperthermia related injuries. In the same year, the Na’Nizhoozhi Center, Inc., where CSAs drop folks off to detox, reported servicing 18,107 people, which was a three percent decrease from the 2015 total of 18,600.

GPD Lt. Francie Martinez is assigned to the patrol. He noted that police and CSA officers work together for safety reasons.

“We deploy the UTV when necessary,” he said. “Some of these homeless people set up campsites with tents, shelters, old mattresses and any items that can be used. We work with code enforcement to go in and shut down the camps.”

Campsites like these ones can prove dangerous.

“Sometimes [campsite occupants] start fires and in the past, this resulted in brush fires,” Martinez said.

ON THE JOB AND ON PATROL

Officer Timothy Hughte began his Dec. 11 patrol with his partner, K9 officer Kuno. Kuno is a Belgian Malinois and is six-years-old.

Hughte, a 10 year veteran of the job, has five years as a law enforcement officer and five years as a CSA.

He said the toughest part about being a CSA was answering all the calls that came in.

But Hughte has a positive outlook on the direction safety is headed in Gallup. Since the time he started on open field patrol, the number of calls has decreased, he believes.

Kuno is one of four K9 Officers in the GPD. Together, he and Hughte perform building and vehicle searches.

“Kuno is a dual-purpose dog,” Hughte said. “He does patrol work, narcotics, field searches and tracking. We’re on [duty] 24-7, 365. He’s my fur baby.”

The radio crackle signaled the start of the shift for the Gallup K9 unit. It relayed their first report: aggravated battery and kidnapping.

Later, at 4:57 pm, a report came in of parked vehicles obstructing the roadway on Boyd Avenue.

“The number of calls we get really depends on the time and day of the month,” he said. “We get a lot of calls of the first of the month. You see an influx and this small city suddenly becomes a population of 100,000. The local motels fill up and sellout on first of the month.”

There is an influx of intoxication calls at that time of the month, too.

At 5:18 pm, a domestic violence call came in regarding an intoxicated male at a trailer court on the west side of town. Hughte responded and was met by backup police officers Steven Peshlakai and Justin Foster.

A woman answered the door and told officers she was the sister of the man in question. She said that her brother came over intoxicated and that she did not want to let him in because she feared he might cause trouble. She said he found a ride back home to Arizona.

Intoxication calls often outnumber regular calls for service, Hughte said.

The GPD is taking steps to integrate its presence into the community, beyond patrolling or intervention when a problem arises.

“Sometimes, we have our shift meetings downtown in an effort to be visible and create an omnipresence. We like to get out there and surprise people,” Hughte said. “Sometimes people come up to us and talk. We encourage that, we’re friendly.”

But a days work means getting involved during some tense situations.

At 5:23 pm, a custodial call came in at a west side apartment that called in twice earlier in the day. The police units pulled up with lights off for the element of surprise, and made contact with a female in possession of court documents.

The district court documents she held named her for custody and referred to a restraining order that was filed against her spouse. The officers spent time speaking with the grandmother and mother of the child in question.

Such custody disputes take time and Hughte knew that this call would take a while to complete. Eventually, CYFD was called at the request of the father.

As 7 pm rolled around, the open field patrol began.

“I commend each officer I serve with in the city of Gallup. Hats off to my Gallup crew,” he said, knowing that the start of his shift is just another night protecting and serving residents of Gallup and beyond.

By Rick Abasta
For the Sun

By Abigail Rowe

Sun Editor

When Gallup Police Department Officer Timothy Hughte arrived at the 400 block of South 5th Street on a call Dec. 11, he did not know if the female victim he coming to assist was alive or dead.

The victim’s mother met with officers as they arrived on the scene. It was 12:18 am. She informed Hughte that she had found her daughter and located her pulse.

The victim, who is in her early 20s, was sitting on the floor inside the residence beside a tipped over chair. Blood “covered her face,” according to the police report.

Other furniture inside the residence had also been toppled, including a sofa and a television set. Children’s clothing was spread across the floor.

The victim’s hands and feet were bound by a TV cord. The blood, a result of cuts to her face, appeared recent, and “was still wet and sticky,” according to Hughte’s report. The victim also sustained a fractured wrist.

Carefully, Hughte removed the binding from her hands and ankles. Hughte was able to untie and pull off the cord around her hands, but the DVD cord used to bind her feet had to be severed.

Hughte asked the victim for information about who had assaulted her, but she evaded the questions. She seemed “in a daze and seemed lost,” according to Hughte’s report.

Medical staff transported the victim to the hospital.

After the victim was taken away from the scene, Hughte discovered blood where she had been sitting. Blood was also found on the television that lay on the floor.

While Hughte was investigating inside, a man approached the house. GPD Officer Cellicion detained the man, who was then identified as Jalen Clarke, 24.

Clarke had no weapons. But he did have blood smeared on his face, and a fresh injury on his thumb, according to the report.

Hughte noticed that Clarke’s hands and shirt sleeves were wet, as if they had recently been washed.

Hughte took Clarke to the GPD for questioning, where he admitted to tying up the victim and to texting a photograph of her, after she had been bound, to his mother’s phone.

Clarke was charged with kidnapping and aggravated battery. He is being held at the McKinley County Adult Detention Center on a $2,000 cash surety bond. As of Dec. 14, 6:25 pm, he remains in custody.

A woman pulled from a mid-morning house fire was pronounced dead at the scene Dec. 12

Gallup Police Department Capt. Marinda Spencer said the call on the fire, at 608 S. Woodrow, came in Metro Dispatch shortly before 11 am this morning.

First responders were on scene within minutes, and kept the blaze from spreading to other structures.

“(Firefighters) found a person unconscious inside of the house,” Spencer said. “They weren’t successful in reviving the individual.”

Office of the Medical Investigators officials arrived on scene to investigate the death. No details were released about the victim, pending notification of next of kin.

At this juncture, it’s not clear what may have ignited the blaze. Spencer said a full investigation involving the state fire marshal's office is underway.

Update Dec. 12, 5:53 pm:

The victim is Terri Martinez, 52, of Rio Rancho, N.M. Martinez worked at the Gallup Indian Medical Center.

Her death was the result of an accidental electrical fire.

Developing story.

Gallup Police Department officials believe that the death a man found on Gallup's east side may be exposure related.

Police responded to a call on a report of a dead body south of KFC east, 2504 E. Highway 66, shortly after 11 am Friday.

The man was later identified as Ambrose Lincoln, 65, of Window Rock, Ariz. His body was found behind a shed. Police didn't give an estimated time of death, but this likely marks the first open-area death of the the winter season.

"It looks like weather played a factor, but his body has been sent to OMI in Albuquerque for autopsy," GPD Capt. Miranda Spencer said.

Lincoln is listed on the Navajo Nation's Public Sex Offender Registry. He hadn't updated his address since 2014, and was considered an absconder living on the streets of Gallup, according to navajo.nsopw.gov.

He was a "Tier 3" offender, convicted of sexual abuse of a minor in July 2007.