Deputy laid to rest like a true hero

Amid friends and family from around New Mexico and Arizona, law enforcement officers remembered Christopher Tsosie, 43, a veteran policeman with the McKinley County Sheriff’s Office, who died Jan. 25 in Crownpoint as he was about to start work. He was laid to rest Feb. 1.

The veteran officer’s family mourned alongside his “brother” police officers. They wore their dress blue and grey or brown uniforms trimmed with gold. They gathered together in the Rehoboth Christian School gymnasium to celebrate and honor Tsosie’s life.

There were law enforcement personnel from the Navajo Nation, the New Mexico State Police, the Pueblo of Zuni...

Jeff, Long are no-shows

As next week’s Gallup-McKinley County Board of Education election date nears closer, a candidate forum was held Feb. 1 at the school district’s main office on Boardman Drive. The forum was sponsored by the Gallup Sun, the Greater Gallup Economic Development Corporation and the Gallup-McKinley County Chamber of Commerce.

The event was attended by close to 100 people and was centered upon a 90-minute question-and-answer session for those running for seats in districts 2, 4 and 5.

Improving teacher quality and transparency were two issues that dominated the forum – the first of its kind in recent memory as it relates to school board seats. Candidates Freda...

A Gallup man remained jailed Feb. 2 at the McKinley County Detention Center on a $22,500 bond amount after being arrested by the Gallup Police Department on two outstanding warrants. The arrest ends a months-long search.

An arrest warrant indicates that John Paradise, 26, was taken into custody Jan. 31 on shooting at or from a motor vehicle, criminal damage to property over $1,000 and negligent use of a deadly weapon charges.

“Mr. Paradise was arrested,” Marinda Spencer, public information officer with the GPD, said. He is still in custody.”

Spencer said the GPD and the McKinley County Sheriff’s Office have been searching for Paradise for months. She said GPD believes Paradise...

A Jan. 27 bomb threat – the seventh in the past year – at the McKinley County Courthouse turned up nothing, officials said. Each time a threat has been called in nothing has been discovered, so officials believe the prankster is a criminal seeking to delay justice and interrupt county administrative business.

McKinley County Attorney Doug Decker said a telephone call came into Metro dispatch at about 1:34 p.m. The county went into its standard emergency protocol.

“We evacuated everyone from the building,” Decker said. “The matter is under investigation and will be until it is resolved.”

Decker said judges and attorneys at the Courthouse weren’t too happy about...