Crime takes root amid voter apathy
On the same morning the Journal published its poll revealing, to no one’s surprise, that crime is now the top concern among likely Albuquerque voters, a body lay crumpled on a Southeast Heights sidewalk, dead of an apparent gunshot wound.
Another man found dead of suspicious causes in a North Valley home was also reported in the Journal’s online page that morning.
Other stories in the paper that morning: Albuquerque Public Schools board member Analee Maestas blamed her daughter for the allegations of embezzling funds from a school they both ran; a former doctor was sentenced to 15 months in prison for having pornography of children as young as 1; a Northeast Heights neighborhood was getting back to normal after a SWAT callout involving a domestic dispute; and a Circle-K clerk was suspended for shooting an armed intruder before he could shoot her.
Also that morning, children at both Hope Christian High School and Edmund G. Ross Elementary School in the far Northeast Heights were
on lockdown for hours as deputies searched the neighborhoods for an accused car thief; jurors convicted a former jail guard of raping a handcuffed, shackled inmate; and the parents of two middle school students, ages 12 and 13, were reeling from the news that their little darlings were being accused of carjacking a woman at knifepoint and absconding to Colorado, all in the name of puppy love.
Later that day, police found the body of a man who weeks before was seen in a photograph appearing dead and sexually mutilated.
It was just another typical Thursday in the Duke City.
Our lawless reputation also reaches beyond city boundaries.
That same week, Gizmodo published an article rating the chances of cities, including Albuquerque, to become the next site for Amazon’s new $5 billion headquarters. Despite being the birthplace of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (true story), possessing a wealth of affordable land and an ample power grid and workforce as well as being free of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and tsunamis, the magazine listed our city as one of the least likely to land the business behemoth.
And why? Because, the magazine said, Albuquerque has double the national average of violent crimes, and “the West Mesa Bone Collector remains at large,” the latter referring to the mystery killer of 11 women whose remains were unearthed on the West Mesa.
It should be noted, however, that the last murder associated with that case occurred in 2007. And, seriously, who refers to the killer as the Bone Collector?
Social media has also made us aware of crimes that don’t make the nightly news. On Thursday alone, the Albuquerque Metro Stolen Vehicle Watch page on Facebook listed a 2001 silver F-250 truck stolen from the Olive Garden parking lot and a blue and silver Chevy Silverado truck taken from Lowe’s FOR THE SECOND TIME in two years.
NextDoor, an app that invites neighbors to form their own private online group, lets members report crime in their own communities. One reader shared with me a chilling entry about a young woman in her neighborhood who was attacked by an intruder with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. This, in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town.
No wonder, then, that nearly seven in 10 likely voters in the Journal poll identified crime as the worst woe facing Albuquerque.
I mention this not to incite fear or hand-wringing — well, maybe just a little — but to remind you Albuquerque voters, likely and otherwise, that you have an important decision to make Oct. 3 in selecting the city’s next mayor — or the two candidates to face off in a runoff battle should no candidate meet the 50 percent threshold.
But another one of our handy Journal polls finds that 32 percent of you had yet to decide which of the eight candidates to back. That’s a higher percentage than any single candidate received.
I suspect even more of you have yet to decide whether to bother to show up to the polls at all.
As someone who lives just outside the city limits, it is frustrating to watch voters not take seriously this vote and the impact the next mayor will have on our No. 1 issue of crime.
So read up on the candidates. Go vote. Because we can’t take too many more typical Thursdays in the Duke City. They’re killing us — or robbing us blind.