New Mexico town dissolves police dept after gun smuggling scandal

The lookout - Yahoo Blog ^ | July 12,2011 | Liz Goodwin

[Navy Patriot]

The scandal-plagued, tiny New Mexico border town of Columbus is dissolving its police department and asking the county sheriff to protect its citizens.

An employee at Columbus City Hall confirmed to The Lookout that the police force has been dissolved. The Luna County Sheriff's Office will now take over patrolling the town.

The town has been upended since federal authorities arrested Police Chief Angelo Vega, Mayor Eddie Espinoza, Village Trustee Blas Gutierrez and nine other residents for conspiring to smuggle hundreds of guns to drug cartels over the border in March. All of the accused have pleaded not guilty, and their trial is expected in October, according to the Las Cruces Sun News.

The Associated Press presciently reported in May of 2009 that a law enforcement "vacuum" had made the town attractive to drug smugglers who moved over the border to settle down in Columbus. The "four-man police force in Columbus has turned over seven times in three years because of scandal or apathy," the AP reported, adding that more residents of the formerly modest town were driving flashy cars and buying fancy homes. Vega, who had then just nabbed the police chief job, told the AP that no illegal activity would be tolerated. "This is a new day for Columbus," he said.

[Portcall24]

These are the ones. My grandparents were given copies from someone in Columbus as they didn’t move there until the late 1940’s or early 1950s. Before that they lived in Afton, NM which is now called a ghost town but not sure why as there’s nothing there. It was located on the same portion of the SP as Columbus.

[Portcall24]

Well that made me laugh. Which paper? My dad got all the papers from Deming for years mailed to him in Oregon. I found my birth announcement in the Deming Headlight from May 1945...on the front page no less. The newspapers were at Ancestry.com.

[Fiji Hill]

Interestingly, the site of Camp Furlong, the military base which Villa’s raiders attacked, is named for the perpetrator of the raid—Pancho Villa State Park.

[Portcall24]

I work for the Army next to Fort Lee, VA which is the home of Army Logistics. The headquarters here used to have photos of trucks being pulled out of the mud by horses and mules during General Pershing’s excursions into Mexico.

[SUSSA]

The BATF and the FBI didn’t like the competition. Supplying guns to Mexicans is their hustle.

[SUSSA]

Mexican troops attacked America in 2003.

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/12/23/133254.shtml

The Mexican military does as it pleases here. Our government does nothing to stop them.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Vega, Espinoza, Gutierrez...

It is a border town in NM. I wouldn't expect too many O'Briens or McDonalds there.

[B4Ranch]

Inuits, the whole bunch are.

[B4Ranch]

Thank you for posting those pics.

[Gaffer]

Chief Angelo Vega, Mayor Eddie Espinoza, Village Trustee Blas Gutierrez go figure....they are Americans, aren't they? /s

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

You do know that a few years after Pancho’s death someone opened his grave and stole his head.

[Portcall24]

I thought that was Alfredo Garcia...

[olereporter]

I worked for the Deming Headlight for three years. Then I went to Silver City and worked for the Daily Press for about seven years.

I moved to Nebraska to be closer to my kids and grandkids and was editor of my hometown newspaper until I retired. That was the same daily paper where I started as sports editor-reporter when I was 19.

I love New Mexico.

[B4Ranch]

Didn’t they move his body so thieves would not rob any more body parts?

[Tammy8]

This village is not too far from me and has always been shady...rumor is the smuggling politicians also looted the village money so they can’t replace the arrested people or continue to pay the others. It is just as well, the place is too small to need a police force anyway- it is just a wide spot in the road.

[Portcall24]

After I watched the movie, All Those Pretty Horses I got interested in Cormac McCarthy. I ended up reading just about everything he’s written. A number of his books of fiction are set in Southern New Mexico and across the border. While the characters are fictional, I assume, the landmarks, locations, etc are very faithful. I enjoyed keeping a map handy to cross-reference the travels. If you’ve never read him let me share a couple of differences. When there are Mexicans involved and speaking Spanish he uses that language and one needs to have at least a rough working knowledge of Spanish to follow, as there’s no translation. The other thing he does is writes with limited punctuation. Therefore he doesn’t use quotes for speech but simply indents with new paragraphs when the characters speak. It takes a moment to become comfortable reading this style but it does accomplish what he attempts…not to clutter the page with punctuation. His best well known work is probably No Country For Old Men. He also wrote, The Road which was also done as a movie. It’s about a man and his son after total collapse of society due to some cataclysmic event in this Country. One had to work hard to find any “Hope” in that movie.

I'll be spending 6 weeks in El Paso starting in late September testing software at Fort Bliss. I expect to get to Alamo to see relatives on my late Mom's side and to Deming to visit the grave of my paternal grandparents.