Federal officials arrested Richelle Elexsis Pallanes and Hector Machuca in El Mirage for their alleged role in smuggling nearly 26 kilos of cocaine from Mexico into the Valley, according to a criminal complaint filed in Arizona’s federal district court. On July 2, federal agents served a search warrant at 12903…
Police are searching for a man who shot three people, including two children, at a Phoenix apartment complex Tuesday night.A 41-year-old man was walking his dog at the complex, near 32nd Street and Thomas Road, around 10 p.m. Tuesday when a man on a second-story balcony vomited on the dog,…
Police in Glendale sniffed out a pot grower who had a kindergarten-level excuse for his growing operation — the dog ate his medical-marijuana card.According to court documents obtained by New Times, Charles Stephens III was growing outside of the limitations of the medical-marijuana program anyway…
An incident involving a man who threatened Phoenix police with AK-47-style airsoft gun this weekend is a perfect reminder that it’s incredibly easy to avoid being shot by police officers, for the most part.However, there are many things you can do that may prompt police to shoot you, as New…
Can’t say I’m surprised that Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery wants to retry Debra Milke, whose 1990 murder conviction was recently thrown out by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. After all, the Milke case stirs passions like only the killing of a child can. The state alleged Milke…
State transportation officials have taken another step in the slow process of studying a passenger rail line between Phoenix and Tucson.The Arizona Department of Transportation announced yesterday that there are now three proposed plans for the rail line, and that will be narrowed down to one by the end of…
The plans for a passenger rail line between Phoenix and Tucson are crawling at a snail’s pace.However, state transportation officials announced today that they’re going to “study the feasibility” of three routes for the potential rail line…
A memorial service for the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots killed in the Yarnell Hill Fire is under way in Prescott Valley.Vice President Joe Biden, Governor Jan Brewer, and thousands of members of the public showed up to remember the 19 men…
Russell McKinney almost lost his life because he threatened Phoenix police with an AK-47 — even though the weapon turned out to be a toy airsoft gun, police say. Just after 6 p.m. Saturday, police responded to a call because someone allegedly had broken the window of a home near…
The locksmith worked nervously trying to pick the lock on the back door of a small white church in downtown El Mirage. On Monday morning, anxiously waiting for the locksmith in the blistering heat, were about a dozen people who had been forced away from that congregation by its pastor,…
Today in Found at the Border: A Mexican teenager trying to cross the border into the United States this weekend who may have looked a little excited to see border officers just had a lot of meth in his “groin area.”The 16-year-old, whose name wasn’t released by authorities, had a…
Just in time for a round of political debates and candidate forums — including one tonight — an anonymous letter to the Arizona State Bar Association has prompted an investigation of Lawrence Robinson, a candidate in the race for a District 8 seat on the Phoenix City Council. (Chicanos Por…
If there’s ever a competition for worst robber ever, 55-year-old Tempe resident Harry Williams probably will be a medalist.Police say Williams tried to rob two large Tempe businesses, and he was so bad at it that his entire haul consisted of one single lonely sausage…
A Tennessee man who was the highest bidder at a Barrett-Jackson auction for a rare Mercedes-Benz claims he didn’t find out the vehicle had an odometer “discrepancy” until weeks after the auction.In response to a federal lawsuit filed by Gary Thompson, lawyers for the Scottsdale-based Barrett-Jackson say that window stickers…
Temperatures inside a U-Haul truck where smugglers stashed up to 20 undocumented immigrants might have reached 180 degrees, which forced Pinal County authorities to airlift two of the immigrants to the hospital.On Sunday afternoon, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call near the Bowlins Travel Center near Interstate…
Maricopa County agreed to pay out $18,000 to a FedEx worker who was attacked in 2011 by an MCSO deputy, our colleague Ray Stern reported yesterday.Deputy Sean Edwards-El was convicted later that year of misdemeanor assault, and it appears that Edwards-El is still working for the Sheriff’s Office…
It looks like folks just aren’t getting behind the wheel plastered on Independence Day like they used to.Stats from the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety show the fewest DUI arrests, 367, over the lengthy Independence Day weekend since 2009…
When the deputies of serial racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio raided Phoenix’s Lindstrom Family Auto Wash in 2009, on the hunt for undocumented car-cleaners, they did so with the full authority of the federal government. It was June of that year, and Arpaio still had his force of 160 officers trained…
The Dean Peak Fire that’s burning near Kingman is “wind[ing] down,” according to firefighting authorities.The 5,400-acre, lightning-caused fire, which has been burning just 10 miles southeast of Kingman, is now 90 percent contained…
An unspectacular bust of a low-level pot dealer in North Phoenix got pretty spectacular after police found a powerful bomb at the house.Phoenix police were serving a warrant at the home of the alleged weed salesman, 21-year-old Todd Robertson, when officers found the device that bomb technicians said “would ‘level’…
A preliminary report on the investigation into the Yarnell Hill Fire, which killed 19 firefighters last week, says flames “entrapped” the Granite Mountain Hotshots.”Nineteen members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were entrapped when flames overran their position on June 30,” the report states. “Eyewitnesses state that fire behavior was extreme…
If you had to pick one word to describe the smugglers who try to sneak drugs and other items over the U.S./Mexico border every day, that word is “creative.”Smugglers take drastic measures to get their product into the United States, while trying to avoid detection by officers at the border…
