Bishop: Intruders '3-to 4-feet high'
Officials withheld information about Pelotte incident from public

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

GALLUP — The bishop of the Diocese of Gallup told police four intruders — who he described as “little people,” 3- to 4-feet high — were inside his Gallup residence, and he requested police assistance.

Authorities released more documentation about Bishop Donald Pelotte’s strange 911 call on Thursday morning, but the information has only served to raise more questions and concerns about the state of the Roman Catholic bishop’s mental condition.

Pelotte, 62, was discovered seriously injured in his Gallup home on July 23, 2007, by his assistant, Deacon Timoteo Lujan, the chancellor for the Gallup Diocese. After being treated in hospitals in Phoenix and Houston, Pelotte received outpatient care in Florida before returning to Gallup on Sept. 21. Chancery officials have said the bishop suffered traumatic brain injury in the July incident.

On Monday, Gallup Police released a supplemental police report written by Officer Shane Bennett, after stating no police report had initially been written about Thursday’s incident. The McKinley Metropolitan Dispatch Authority also released audio recordings of Pelotte’s call to Metro Dispatch, as well as intact copies of the Metro Dispatch incident report of the 911 conversation. On Friday, Glendora Orphey, the administration operations manager for Metro Dispatch, had deleted select portions of text in the incident report log, claiming those portions contained information protected under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

At 5:51 a.m. on Thursday, Pelotte called 911 to report four intruders were inside his Gallup residence, and he requested police assistance. What Orphey deleted from the copy of the incident report were Pelotte’s strange descriptions of the alleged intruders: The four unknown subjects — one male and three females were “little people,” 3- to 4-feet high, wearing masks, and hiding in a closet.

The audio recording details the odd character of the 911 call. The quiet and soft spoken Pelotte is mostly calm, but he sometimes fails to answer the dispatcher’s questions, his confused answers sometimes don’t fit her inquiries, and he expresses some frustration when she repeatedly questions the story he tells her.

Pelotte misspells his own surname during the call and repeats several times that he is the bishop. At one point, Pelotte tells the dispatcher he had been visiting with other priests in his home when the intruders came inside; at another point, he says he is supposed to be in Albuquerque to celebrate a Mass. His intruders are “gentle people,” he says, but they put on masks, hide from him, and won’t answer his questions.

Officer Bennett’s report adds more documentation about the bishop’s apparent confused thinking. Bennett writes, “... Pelotte stated that the an (sic) unknown female subject had grabbed an ornament from the wall of the residence and put it on her face using it as a mask and had curled up into a ball and laid down on the wood pile near the fireplace.”

After listening to Pelotte describe how some of the unknown subjects had run outside and hidden in trees and bushes, the officers searched the exterior of Pelotte’s home and surrounding neighborhood. “We then returned to Mr. Pelotte’s home advising him that there was no one in the area,” Bennett states. “At that time Mr. Pelotte then stated to Officer Holder and Officer Cellicion that one of the subject (sic) had crawled into the fireplace and tried to hide.”

Bennett reports that he questioned the bishop about any medication he was on or if he suffered from a head injury or mental illness. Pelotte then apparently talked to the officer about his July 2007 head injury and his subsequent hospitalization. When Bennett asked Pelotte if he needed medical attention, the bishop “stated that he would be okay and just requested a routine patrol for the unknown male subjects that might come back to his home.”

Officials with the Diocese of Gallup are struggling to understand Thursday’s incident just as they are struggling to run the diocese in the aftermath of Pelotte’s injury. According to Interim Communications Director Matt Doyle, until the Independent contacted diocesan officials with information about Thursday’s 911 call, the recovering Pelotte had seemed “functional” to chancery officials during regular and routine phone conversations.

News of the 911 call and the accompanying reports changed everything. “The only thing I can say is that the contents are stunning,” admitted Doyle of Bennett’s police report.

Doyle was asked if officials had determined what might have caused Pelotte’s apparent mental confusion on Thursday — traumatic brain injury, possible mental illness, medications, or alcohol use — and if Pelotte would be undergoing further medical examination to determine such a cause.

“I can’t answer any of those questions because I’m not qualified to make that judgment,” Doyle said. The situation is complicated by Pelotte’s dual roles, Doyle said. Pelotte is a Roman Catholic bishop “24 hours a day,” he explained, but Pelotte is also a private citizen who has the right to make his own decisions about his medical care. Chancery officials, he added, have no authority to force Pelotte to seek medical diagnosis or treatment.

In light of the bishop’s injuries, his return to Gallup, and his current condition, diocesan officials are having to navigate through complicated new territory. When Pelotte was out of the diocese, Doyle explained, the Rev. James Walker, the vicar general, could convene the priests who serve as consultors to help make important decisions for the diocese. Walker still oversees the day-to-day administration of the diocese, but now that Pelotte is back, he added, Canon Law prevents the consultors from meeting as a formal body without being convened by the bishop.

Citing Pelotte’s many professional accomplishments, Doyle expressed hope that the bishop will continue to make gains in his recovery and added that he hopes people will not judge Pelotte just by the current details in the police and dispatch reports.

“Regardless of what happened from July 23 on,” Doyle said, “Bishop Pelotte is the victim of an accident, and I think that is how he has to be viewed at this point.”

Reporter Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola can be contacted at (505) 863-6811 ext. 218 or ehardinburrola@yahoo.com.