A St. Michaels, Arizona man, arrested June 11 by Gallup police on assaulting a peace officer and resisting arrest charges, was released from the McKinley County Adult Detention Center June 20, officials said.

Aaron Begay, 36, punched Teddie Yazzie at about 5 pm near Camille’s Sidewalk Café on South Second Street, apparently because Yazzie happened to be wearing the color black, according to a police report on the matter.

Begay, whose nickname on the street is “Ghost,” asked Yazzie where he was from, telling Yazzie, “I don’t like the color of your bandana,” the police report reads. Yazzie shrugged off Begay’s remarks, but not before Begay cold-cocked him in the...

ALBUQUERQUE – Attorney General Hector Balderas announced that pediatrician Juan Torres Santos, who was found guilty of one count of Sexual Exploitation of Children in October 2015, lost his appeal to the New Mexico Court of Appeals June 22.

Torres Santos was previously a licensed pediatrician in Pennsylvania and in Texas, and was working on his application for a medical license in New Mexico at the time of his arrest. Torres Santos appealed his conviction claiming there was not sufficient evidence he intentionally possessed child pornography and that the district court should not have allowed the Office of the Attorney General to show the jury evidence of the child pornography.

The...

An investigation continues into a Toyota 4Runner that overturned June 18 at mile-marker 10 and not far from New Mexico 264, according to a Navajo Nation police report. Sgt. Shane Bennet recorded that the Toyota SUV was traveling eastbound and rolled over. A witness at the scene said he heard a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed, telling Bennett that “he heard a loud crash.”

Three females approached the crash scene and one said that she was in the vehicle earlier in Gallup. Bennett’s report stated that fire personnel attempted to get the driver out of the vehicle, but stopped due to the fact that the driver was dead.

By Bernie Dotson

Sun Correspondent

GRANTS – New Mexico State Police were called to investigate a single commercial motor vehicle crash on I-40 at mile post 87, at 3:49 am on June 20.

The commercial motor vehicle left the roadway, entered the median and overturned.

The driver of the vehicle, Mr. John Valdez, 56, of Desert Hot Springs, Calif. was not wearing his seat belt, and sustained fatal injuries, he was pronounced deceased at the scene.

The passenger of the vehicle Mr. Abdelnebi Basyouni, 59, of Fontana, Calif. was asleep in the cab section of the vehicle, he sustained injuries during the crash and was transported to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, NM.

This vehicle crash is still under...