GRANTS, NM – Chaos erupted on the night of June 25, as a targeted act of vandalism left a Chevy Avalanche with shattered windows. Officer Ty Robinson of the Grants Police Department responded to a distress call reporting the incident, which involved two females in a green/blue Ford Explorer. The events unfolded near the intersection of 1014 E Roosevelt Ave and Cordova Court before culminating at a nearby Allsup's convenience store.
According to the reporting person, she witnessed the two females damaging the unoccupied Chevy Avalanche's windows and diligently followed their vehicle until it came to a stop at the Allsup's parking lot. She provided a description of the suspects, noting that one of them wore a black jacket with stripes, while the other had a distinctive 'bowl' haircut and a graphic t-shirt.
Officer Robinson swiftly arrived at the scene, where he spotted two females matching the given description exiting the store. Identifying them as Shanaleiyah Shorty and Angela De La Cruz, he approached them to inform Shorty about the call for service and her resemblance to the suspect description. Shorty denied any involvement at Cordova Ct, claiming she had just come from her residence on Austin Ave. According to the police report, Officer Robinson noticed signs of possible intoxication, including slow, slurred speech and bloodshot, watery eyes. Inquiring about her alcohol consumption, Shorty admitted to having had two shots but emphasized that she was not the driver. When Officer Robinson directed the question to De La Cruz, she initially denied being the driver, but upon further probing, she confessed that she did drive the vehicle, albeit without a valid license.
As Officer Robinson interviewed Shorty about the Cordova Court incident, he noticed De La Cruz shaking her head in disagreement with Ms. Shorty's statements. Suspecting conflicting narratives, he asked De La Cruz to confer with Sergeant Sylvester, another officer present at the scene. It was during this time that Ms. Shorty confessed to the destructive act, driven by her discovery of her boyfriend's infidelity earlier that day. According to the police report, enraged and under the influence of alcohol, she persuaded her friend, De La Cruz, to accompany her to the Cordova Court apartments. Armed with a baseball bat, Shorty vented her anger by smashing the windshield and driver's side windows of the targeted Chevy Avalanche. Initially, she claimed to have damaged all the windows, but later revised her statement, suggesting that only the driver's side windows were vandalized, with the other windows already broken beforehand.
With the evidence against her mounting, Ms. Shorty was placed under arrest. Officer Robinson secured a blue baseball bat found in the passenger seat of the Ford Explorer, which belonged to Ms. De La Cruz. Following the arrest, Ms. Shorty was transported to Cibola General Hospital for medical clearance before being transferred to Core Civic, a local detention facility, to await further legal proceedings.
Sergeant Sylvester, upon inspecting the damaged vehicle, confirmed that all windows, except for the rear passenger window, were shattered. Linda Rodriguez, the regular operator of the Chevy Avalanche, revealed that the rear passenger window had suffered a previous incident. The fresh damage primarily affected the windshield and driver's side windows, corroborating Shorty's admission.