Las Cruces in the News

[Downtown]

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (Reuters) -- A 10-year-old girl allegedly beat her 4-year-old brother to death on instructions from her father to punish the little boy for bed-wetting, state officials said Tuesday.

The father, who allegedly watched and gave orders, is being held on child abuse charges, the officials added.

Las Cruces police spokesman Mark Nunley said 4-year-old Devon Booth was being punished for bed-wetting and drinking from the toilet when his sister allegedly kicked and hit her younger brother after her father, Louie Guerrero, 38, allegedly told her to.

According to the criminal complaint, the beating occurred over the weekend. The father allegedly watched the punishment being administered, the complaint said. Guerrero has been charged with child abuse resulting in death or great bodily harm, police said.

The child was airlifted to University Hospital in Albuquerque, 224 miles north of Las Cruces, after his 16-year-old brother found him unconscious. Devon died on Monday from the beating, hospital officials said.

Nunley said the 10-year-old sister is with her mother, and the investigation is continuing.

 

[Mastiff]

Is New Mexico a death penalty state?

That guy is a needle canidate if I ever heard one...

 

[Habanero]

To hell with the needle- beat him with cacti..

 

[Mastiff]

Works for me... I prefer it to be painful.

 

[Dan]

3398 Eastridge Place. Nice neighborhood ... Telshor Hills.

Sigh. For some strange reason, there's a lot of these unusual crimes in Las Cruces. Animal cruelty seems especially rife there, for whatever reason; puppies with their ears cut off and left in the desert, dogfights, lost pets used as fodder for pit bulls, stuff like that.

I don't know why such activity is so common there. Another strange thing is that such events usually get coverage only deep in the local newspaper; mundane events are given front page coverage, on the other hand. See http://www.lcsun-news.com for today's example, in an online form.

 

[BKM]

Well, I think we WON'T be seeing these kinds of stories any more, Dan. After all, the School District is adopting the "Character Counts" program. That will solve everything.

OT Rant:

Its a major pet peeve of mine. I consider myself a liberal/lefty, but this whole mythology developed by well-meaning (usually baby boomer) liberal members of the chattering classes that "Education" is just the solution to everything in society really bugs me. I don't believe it!

 

[Downtown]

Sigh. For some strange reason, there's a lot of these unusual crimes in Las Cruces.

Maybe Las Cruces has the same problem as Santa Carla, California.