For years, local officials used a Texas price agreement to green-light bus purchases. Now they’ve stopped—but the same out-of-state bus company still dominates the market
Today, the state’s case against Marino Leyba, Jr--known to friends and family as “Reno”--continues with testimony from the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator. SFR will be checking in periodically.
In her opening arguments, prosecuting attorney Cynthia Hill portrayed Marino “Reno” Leyba, Jr, as an abusive, controlling and violent young man who carefully plotted a double-murder. Placing blame on New Mexico’s inferior mental healthcare system, defense attorney Gary Mitchell portrayed Reno as a “borderline retarded” mama’s boy who believed he was acting in self-defense when he pepper sprayed his pregnant girlfriend and her father, then shot them both dead on May 22, 2009.
Four candidates, all with law enforcement experience, are running to replace outgoing Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano in the June 1 Democratic primary election. All took SFR’s candidate Pop Quiz—no questions in advance and no research allowed.
It’s 6:30 on a Friday night and happy hours around town are winding down. SFR hops into a cab in South Capitol for a ride-along with Capital City Cab driver Robert Seigle. A former mechanical engineer who builds PCs in his spare time, Seigle has worked for Capital for eight years.
Businesses on Second and to its east signal the gentrification of the area: a kettle bell workout parlor, miniature sculpture gardens, bakeries and bike repair shops. To the west, there’s subsidized housing, a taco truck and a community center, as well as drug deals and violent crime scenes. But property crime doesn’t observe the boundaries.
A review of felony domestic violence cases, along with recent police reports and protection orders, reveals a troubling pattern: The state often fails to protect women who have been threatened, beaten or worse by men they live with, share children with or once upon a time dated. And even when police, prosecutors and social workers know offenders’ names and addresses, they can stay beyond the reach of the law.
Using undercover sources, agents from the FBI and the US Bureau of Land Management spent more than two years infiltrating a tight-knit community of looters in the Four Corners area who dig up graves and pillage archaeological sites on public lands, then sell the items they find to dealers and collectors.