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LAS CRUCES - Police work is unpredictable - life-threatening one day, an endless series of mediating domestic disturbances the next - and the Las Cruces Police Department handled its share of strange, sad and baffling crimes in 2010.
"The job of a Las Cruces Police officer, or any law enforcement officer for that matter, is extremely unpredictable," said LCPD spokesman Dan Trujillo. "It's plausible for an officer to write a citation, persuade a mentally unstable teenager from harming himself, comfort an elderly victim of a crime and chase a violent suspect who just committed a crime all in the span of an hour. An officer has to be prepared to handle uncertainty. An officer could be tasked with herding cattle running down Main Street or a seemingly simple dispatch to a loud-music call could be the officer's last."
Thieves broke into Awesome Reptiles on Feb. 5 and stole 14 boa constrictors, a python and a king snake, valued at nearly $5,000, from their terrariums. The store's owner offered a reward for their return, especially two rare Cay Caulker Island boa constrictors, which were not for sale. Six months worth of food was also taken.
The next month, a 19-year-old was arrested March 11 after breaking into and defecating in a man's Honda Civic, thinking it belonged to a woman who had caught his fancy. The teen was convicted, sentenced to probation and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He also repaid the man for smashing the Civic's window, but the car's
In May, codes officers found 176 red-eyed, albino rats inside a rented stucco house on the 4800 block of Camino Dos Vidas with rat feces "wall to wall." The skeletons of two dead dogs that were presumed to have been eaten by the rats were also found inside. The renter was evicted and charged with three misdemeanor counts of improperly caring for her animals.
Later that summer, what started off as a strange story - a man who claimed his friends set him on fire for losing a drinking game - became even stranger as the case unfolded. The 47-year-old, detectives discovered, allegedly set his own prosthetic leg aflame with a crack pipe. Police were originally called to the scene July 5 to reports that the man was on the Interstate 25 overpass, naked and on fire. He was charged with making a false report to officers.
Closing out the year was an attack unlike most officers had ever seen before, in which a woman allegedly grabbed her daughter-in-law's breast and ripped her nipple off when the younger woman tried to intervene in a drunken argument Dec. 12. After the mother-in-law was removed from the apartment, the victim realized the struggle had left her bleeding, untucked her tank top and watched her nipple tumble to the floor.
