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opinion editorialsThis editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by editorial page staff and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers
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Sunday, June 28, 2009
Denny's Robbers Took More Than Just Cash
There was a time when Albuquerque-area residents could dismiss the crime around them. It was usually thug-on-thug or drug-on-drug. It often involved tragic domestic disputes that everyone on the outside could tell would end badly. It was simply nonviolent property crime. It always happened to someone else in another part of town.
Then June 20 happened.
And 100 people — who had done nothing more than head out with their families at 10 a.m. on a Saturday for Grand Slam breakfast plates, for pancakes and eggs and skillet meals, for updates on work and Little League and relatives — were served a healthy dose of an ugly reality.
As many as four men armed with handguns and rifles — at least one M-16 assault model — walked into the Denny's at Coors and Iliff NW to perform what police have described as a "take-over robbery." They chased down 34-year-old cook Stephanie Anderson and killed her. They took the cash from the register. They took a lot more.
They took our community's sense of safety.
"It was just chaos," a waitress told the Journal. "They told everybody to get on the floor. When the guy ran to the back and the gun went off, people got on the floor."
According to witnesses, when the gun went off, everyone — friends and relatives, grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads, kids and servers — hit the carpet looking for a place to hide. One woman says that as kids screamed and parents tried to shield them with their bodies, "I shut my eyes and started to pray. That's all I could do."
But we have to do more.
Police are searching for 25-year-old Salvadoran gang member Francisco Melgar in the strong-arm robbery; they think he's fled to Mexico. They have fellow MS-13 gang members Pablo Ortiz, 32, and Marvin Lopez-Aguilar, 22, in jail and are working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the FBI's gang task force and the U.S. Marshals Service to identify and locate a possible fourth suspect. All face more than 40 felony counts, including murder.
Metropolitan Court Judge Rachel Walker has refused to dismiss any of the charges against the pair in custody, calling them "a continual danger to the community and a flight risk. ... I find these charges and allegations horrific and senseless. This was a restaurant they entered, killing someone in front of patrons who, presumably, included children."
Police believe these men are responsible for a string of at least eight other strong-arm heists along Coors from Alameda to Central targeting family restaurants. Detectives and extra officers responded to the Denny's so quickly because they were staking out some of the high-profile businesses in the area when the robbery occurred.
Officials say the men were in the country illegally, that at least one had been deported before, that two had New Mexico driver's licenses and DWI arrests. There are calls for getting serious about border security, for ensuring illegal immigrants who commit crimes are removed from the United States, for toughening up state driver's license requirements. They need to be answered, and doing so doesn't impede comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship as the Journal has long advocated.
According to APD Chief Ray Schultz, "this particular robbery is very concerning to us because it is so different than their other ones, because there was so many people in the restaurant."
And while detectives say New Mexico is home to "only a very few" members of the MS13 gang — considered by some in law enforcement to be the most violently dangerous gang in the United States — one is too many.
Ask any of the 100 people who just wanted pancakes with a side of family on a Saturday morning.
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