PHOENIX — A man from Arizona has been sentenced to life in prison after he reportedly murdered a woman.

Tre C. James, 31, of Pinon, Ariz., was sentenced on Sept. 23 by United States District Judge Douglas L. Rayes to life in prison on count one and an additional 10 years in prison on count two to run consecutively, for the murder of Jamie Yazzie, a woman classified as a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person from the Navajo Nation. A federal jury previously found James guilty of First Degree Murder for Yazzie’s death. The jury also found James guilty of several acts of domestic violence committed against three other women, all members of the Navajo Nation. Rayes sentenced James to...

Staff Reports

Featured DWI

Freeman Tom

Aug. 28, 4:55 pm

Aggravated DWI (Third)

McKinley County Sheriff’s Officers pulled a vehicle over for driving with a fictitious license plate and eventually arrested the driver for his third DWI.

Deputy Frank Villa Jr. was dispatched to the Domino’s at 1383 W. Jefferson Ave. He arrived and met Lieutenant Johnson Lee, who had stopped a white Chevrolet Tahoe for having the incorrect license plate. Johnson reportedly told Lee that the driver, Tom, 58, admitted to drinking two cans of Budweiser before leaving his job at Rio West Mall.

Villa met Tom, who repeated that he had drank the two cans about two hours prior to being...

Parents and students across the Gallup-McKinley County Schools district may have woken up to texts or social media messages warning them that there would be a shooting at their school on the morning of Sept. 23.

According to law enforcement officials, this is a part of an alleged scam that has plagued the State of New Mexico for the past week.

In an interview with the Sun, McKinley County Sheriff James Maiorano III said both his department and the Gallup Police Department sent additional officers to multiple school campuses across the district, but that there’s no credible threat at this time.

Maiorano said his department is not sure where the threats originated from, but concerned...

GFD receives new rapid response medical bags for mass casualty events

According to the Gun Violence Archive, a database that records all the gun-related violence and injuries in the U.S., there have been more than 385 mass shootings in the U.S. since Sept. 5. The Archive defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more victims are shot or killed.

These mass shootings have killed 385 people and injured another 2,000.

There haven’t been any mass casualty events in Gallup in recent years, but the Gallup Fire and Police Departments are trying to prepare for the worst-case scenario, so they’ll know what to do and how to help people in case something does happen.

During...