Between Fourth and Fifth

WTF Albuquerque?

Walking to work today, I noticed a pile of trash outside of its dumpster. Then another, and another. Most of the errant piles o’ crap were in the alley that runs East/West between Central and Gold. But the mother load, the oops-the-garbage-truck-malfunctioned-and-dumped-contents-everywhere cake-taker, is behind our office, in the alley I like to affectionately refer to as Kimo Way.

• an alley guy told me the compactor was broken. (Carl Petersen) [ Mon Jun 13 2011 3:06 PM ]
  
• I dubbed it Pee Alley (marisa) [ Mon Jun 13 2011 5:43 PM ]
  

 

Aleksander Mkhitarian had five years of probation added to the three years he was already serving after a 2008 raid that shut down his Downtown club. (Recall that the raid also reignited then-Mayor Martin Chavez’ fervor to ban the sale of alcohol at all-ages venues.)

His first round of probation was punishment for fire code violations. The second comes from six felony counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was indicted on 36 counts relating to child abuse but pled guilty to six earlier this month. The other 30 were dropped.

Judge Albert “Pat” Murdoch took into account Mkhitarian’s completion of a bachelor’s degree and ambition to go to graduate school, according to a news release from the District Attorney’s Office. But the judge also said Mkhitarian “profited from an intolerable situation.” Investigators reported almost 300 people under 18 present at the raid, and about 600 patrons total. Prosecutors said he created a dangerous environment and invited children.

As part of his plea, Mkhitarian said he would tell the whole story of Club 7 and give information on fellow defendants Michael Aragon and Joel Rodriguez. If he violates his probation—two years of which are supervised—he’ll be returned to court and will likely face jail time. He has not served any time in jail yet.

The Daily Lobo covered Mkhitarian’s start when in 2003 he opened the Colosseum as a 23-year-old UNM student. He’d created the business plan for the million-dollar club when he was 17.

• Club 7 (JJehosaphat) [ Tue Mar 29 2011 8:12 PM ]
  
• Probation? (Novalist) [ Tue Mar 29 2011 8:39 PM ]
  

Posted to Alibi's Flickr photo pool by our buddy Jiggs_.

Gotham Sleeps

 

Below is an e-mail interview with Derek Minno Bloom, one of the founders of Albuquerque's Copwatch. The Alibi talked to him in September, when the organization was getting started. I checked in earlier this week to see how things are going with the citizen observation group.

How many times has the group formally gone out?
Fives times now.

How many of you go?
Anywhere from eight to four. This week we should have 12 or so.

Do you have Copwatch shirts so you're easily identified?
Not yet. We always have one person who is the intervener and announces ourselves to the APD and person who is being arrested or detained.

What has the reaction been?
For the most part real good. The people love us. We hand out flyers and a lot of the responses are either: This is great, thanks for your work; some type of police harassment story, or just a plain and simple "Fuck the police." (Normally people who have said this have had a few drinks.)

APD has been very respectful. One officer even thanked us for our work and said that APD does need to be held accountable.

Some police officers have refused to give us their names or badge numbers, which is illegal: We have the right to know who our public servants are in the U.S. But that has been the worst of it.

Have you seen anything important?
We have seen that a lot of APD officers do their job very professionally. Who knows if that is because we are there with a camera or not? We have also seen that we have a chance to break up fights before APD gets to the scene. We have also seen that a lot of people are not aware of there rights, so it has been good to have lots of conversations about our rights. We have been able to tell people their rights while they were interacting with the APD.

For more info, e-mail abqcopwatch@gmail.com or look up "Albuquerque Copwatch" on Facebook.

Dodging bullets on the way to the Alibi offices; there was an officer-involved shooting at Second and Central Downtown this morning.

George Michael gets eight weeks in the pen after crashing his 4x4 while high.

Great, now swimming in chlorinated pools can cause cancer.

A spider monkey is on the loose in San Antonio.

A woman in Ohio is arrested for teaching her 2-year-old daughter how to smoke pot.

Apparently, money can buy you happiness according to this study.

Joaquin Phoenix gets another chance to make himself appear a little less odd on Letterman.

According to the FBI, violent crime has decreased in New Mexico.

The makers of corn syrup want a better name for their product. What could possibly be better than “high fructose corn syrup”?

• A Nightmare in Las Cruces (sloppy) [ Tue Sep 14 2010 4:23 PM ]
  
• Further south? (ChiKung) [ Tue Sep 14 2010 5:16 PM ]
  
• oops, by "further south," I meant where the shooting happened (sloppy) [ Tue Sep 14 2010 5:24 PM ]