Tag: Crime Scene

Posted on

13 Bodies Found On Albuquerque's West Side Amole Mesa

Victoria Chavez anbd Michelle Gina Valdez were identified as 2 of 13 bodies found at KB Home’s housing development on Albuquerque’s Amole mesa on the west side of town near 118th and Dennis Chavez SW. Police think that one person buried the bodies between 2001 and 2005.

The problem, as The New Mexico Independant points out, the police are treating this as if these are cold cases and the person who did it isn’t currently active. Yes, the two bodies that were identified had criminal pasts. That does not mean all of the bodies were those of criminals? What if there’s still a serial killer on the loose?

Does anyone else feel like we’re being told: Yes, we are still pulling bones from the ground but these people were drug users, prostitutes and transients (and not coincidentally, apparently all women) so… all you normal people out there in ABQ, sitting on the couch watching this on the news, you have nothing to worry about.

Jeremy Jojola, a reporter for Channel 4 KOB, has set up a blog called Mesa Mystery to track the largest crime sceen in Albuquerque’s history.

When the crime scene is gone the housing construction will continue. There are no state laws that the real estate agent or developer has to reveal the site was the location of a murder. Will people remember and still buy houses there?

The Albuquerque Police have set up a tip line at 1-877-SOLV-APD (1-877-765-8273)

Posted on

Local Camerman Gets Arrested

Albuquerque only seems to get national attention when something bad happens. This time the local NBC affiliate KOB channel 4 had a cameraman who was arrested by a police. The “raw video” shows the cop gets into a scuffle with the cameraman while the cop tries to arrest the cameraman.

There’s something missing from this video, like what lead up to this indicent. KOB’s story only says:

The photographer says he was asked to leave the scene and go to a media staging area. However, he says officers did not tell him where that area was located.

I bet there’s more to it than that. The cops probably told the cameraman mutiple times what to do any he probably continued to mouth off to them and ignore their instruction. I’ve never heard of this sort of thing happening in Albuquerque before and I doubt the police officer just walked up to him decided to arrest him becasue he asked for his badge number.

My opinion of KOB is they like to sensationalize the news and this seems to be leading in this direction.

Update 6/12/08: Guess the cops did make a mistake.

The Chief of Police Ray Schultz has viewed a videotape of the confrontation and concluded that several mistakes were made during the confrontation.

Update 7/2/08: The charges against the photographer has been dropped.

A judge has thrown out the charges against an Eyewitness News 4 photographer accused of disobeying a police officer at a crime scene.
The officer is now on paid leave, and is scheduled to have a disciplinary hearing next week.

Update 9/13/08: The officer has been fired.