— Deadly Day —
No injuries in shooting,
police make arrest in armed robbery

ABOVE: Armed robbery — A pair of pedestrians with skate boards seem disinterested Monday as Gallup police officer Roseanne Morrisset holds an armed robbery suspect at gun point and awaits back-up on the Munoz overpass near Maloney Avenue. Once in police custody officers searched the suspect and discovered a semi-automatic handgun in his possession. BELOW: Drive-by shooting — A Gallup police officer scans up and down South Seventh Street and Hill Street, looking for the suspect in a drive-by shooting Monday at the intersection of 8th Street and Aztec Avenue. A man and his girlfriend and four children were inside a Cadillac at the store's parking lot when a suspect in a gold-colored SUV fired three bullets into the doors of the car. Nobody inside the car was injured. [photos by Jeff Jones / Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Gallup Police had a busy afternoon Monday with a drive-by shooting and an attempted armed robbery being reported within a few minutes and a couple of blocks of each other.

The attempted armed robbery ended with a suspect in custody. Police said they have a suspect in the drive-by shooting and late Monday secured a warrant for his arrest.

Arrested for the attempted armed robbery was Rodan Wood, 19, of Window Rock. He is accused of attempting to rob Joseph Keane, 28, of Vanderwagen, at gunpoint about 12:45 p.m. as he was walking down Historic Route 66 between Fifth and Sixth streets.

Lt. Rick White, a spokesman for the Gallup Police Department, said the suspect stuck the gun in the victim’s face and demanded his money.

“The victim got scared and took off running,” White said.

The suspect also fled the scene. Police, many of whom were a couple of blocks away responding to the drive-by shooting report, immediately received a report of what the suspect was wearing and began a search.

Within 30 minutes, Officer Rosanne Morrissette saw the suspect heading north on the Muñoz Overpass. After pulling out her gun, Morrissette placed him under arrest. Within seconds, backup units were on the scene, and White said Wood was arrested without incident.

When he was searched, police found a fully loaded .25-caliber automatic. Wood was charged with attempted armed robbery and aggravated assault with a firearm.

Wood and Keane did not know each other. While armed robberies of businesses aren’t unusual in Gallup, White said it is rare for someone to attempt to rob an individual at gunpoint on a Gallup street, especially in the middle of the afternoon.

Gallup police take Rodan Wood into custody Monday on the Munoz overpass bridge near Maloney Avenue. Wood was arrested on suspicion of attempted armed robbery. Police searched Wood and found a semi-automatic pistol in his possession. [photo by Jeff Jones / Independent]

Drive-by shooting

Three bullet holes are visible on the doors of this Cadillac Sedan DeVille as it sits parked behind police tape at the Lowe's Shop and Save grocery store parking lot on Monday afternoon. The shooting occurred only two blocks away at the intersection of 8th Street and Aztec Avenue. The driver, his girlfriend and her four children were inside the vehicle at the time of the shooting, and no one was injured. [photo by Jeff Jones / Independent]

At first, police thought the attempted armed robbery might be related to the drive-by shooting, since they took place so close to each other in location and time. After investigating, police determined that the two incidents were not related.
Police were still investigating the drive-by shooting late Monday, so many details, including the name or the victims, would not be released by the police until Tuesday morning.

The suspect, whom police were looking for in connection with the shooting, was identified as Jessie Gutierrez, 20, a Gallup resident.

The incident occurred about 12:41 p.m. near Eighth and Aztec streets. In this case, police said that both the driver and the suspect knew each other.

At least three shots were fired at the victim’s car, one hitting the driver’s-side door while two others hit the driver’s-side rear door. Neither the driver nor any of the five passengers, which included four children, were injured in the incident.
White said the dispute was over property and that the suspect was identified by the driver of the car.

A witness told the police that the driver was talking to a person who sounded as if he was the person responsible for the shooting, yelling at him for firing shots at him and calling him names and complaining that “now the cops are involved.”

Police immediately went to Gutierrez’s residence on Seventh and Hill streets and talked to residents there but did not find him. A check of New Mexico court records showed that Gutierrez had been placed under arrest for two domestic violence charges in the last two years.