Crime of passion
Domestic violence calls to Gallup PD nearly double

McKinley County Sheriff's deputies transfer a suspect in custody to a different patrol unit in this Feb. 26, 2008, after responding to a domestic disturbance in Gamerco. Independent file photo

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Phil Stake
Staff writer

Domestic violence calls in McKinley County — not including calls fielded by Navajo Police — totaled 865 between Jan. 1 and March 15, according to Metro Dispatch records. That’s nearly double the 459 domestic violence calls during the same period last year. But the scenario in almost every case remains the same: ignited by jealousy.

“Of the people we see, 99.9 percent of them are involved in a disagreement based on some form of jealousy,” Battered Families Executive Director Barbara Lambert said Tuesday.

“Jealousy is a delusion based in the abuser’s mind ... The jealousy and the accusations come from the abuser’s own insecurity.”

Below are two recent examples.

Thoreau man accused of punching his wife

THOREAU — Adrian Martinez, 22, was arrested early Monday after he allegedly punched his wife in the nose.

Martinez had already fled his Alonzo Court trailer in Thoreau when McKinley County Sheriff’s Deputy Elreno Henio arrived about 2:20 a.m. March 16, according to Henio’s incident report.

Martinez’s wife told Henio her husband was drunk and fled when she called police. Henio later concluded that the victim was drunk, too. She said Martinez accused her of infidelity after a former boyfriend drove past their home; and then Martinez punched her on the nose, leaving blood on her face and shirt and knocking her to the floor. Henio searched but did not find Martinez.

More than two hours later, Martinez’s wife called police again, saying Martinez had returned home. Henio again responded about 4:50 a.m. and found Martinez “hiding under a table in the yard ... ,” according to the report. Martinez told Henio his wife had hit him on the nose, too — an accusation evidenced by dried blood below his nose. However Henio arrested Martinez only — on one count of aggravated battery upon a household member, a misdemeanor — after identifying Martinez as the primary aggressor because he twice evaded police.

Prewitt man accused of choking his wife

PREWITT — Orlando Chacho, 27, was arrested Friday after he allegedly choked his wife with a leather strap.

McKinley County Sheriff’s Deputy Elreno Henio responded to Chacho’s Saint Bonaventure trailer about 8: 50 p.m. March 13, after the victim’s sister, Tina Becenti, called police, according to Henio’s incident report.

Becenti told police that she had stopped by to check on her sister. When she walked inside the Chachos’ trailer, the victim ran out of a bedroom saying that her husband, Orlando Chacho, was choking her. Henio later took photographs of the victim’s neck injury.

Initially the victim did not want to call police, according to Henio’s report. She left when Becenti called police, but later returned to give a statement. Henio described her as “crying and scared.”

The victim told Henio that she her husband accused her of infidelity, that Chacho then slapped her across the left check, grabbed her hair and threw her to the floor. Next he took a leather strap and choked her before holding an “unknown object” to her neck.

“(The victim) said it might have been a pocket knife,” the report reads.

Chacho appeared calm when police approached him. He denied choking or hitting his wife, stating that the two had only argued over her having an affair. Henio reported that Chacho was not injured, and denied being battered at all by his wife.

He was arrested on one count of aggravated battery on a household member and one count of battery on a household member, both misdemeanors.