NM authorities dispel rumors of looting during the South Fork and Salt fires

"We are not finding mass looting or anything like that," said Lincoln County Undersheriff Geraldine Martinez. (Screenshot courtesy of Southwest Area Incident Management Team 5)

As thousands of people go back to their homes in the Village of Ruidoso, authorities say they are clearing out neighborhoods where there has been significant damage from fires and floods where the public must wait to return.

And contrary to some 911 callers and rumors, there have been no reports of looting, according to New Mexico court records, public statements and interviews with officials from four different local authorities.

Authorities are leaving open the possibility that more could be found as they complete their search of the evacuated areas.

On June 18, the second day that the South Fork and Salt fires tore through the forest around Ruidoso, a man from Texas walked into an empty home to find shelter, and drank “several” bottles of wine he found inside, according to a criminal complaint filed in the local magistrate court.

A New Mexico State Police patrol officer charged him with trespass, a misdemeanor, and larceny worth less than $250, a petty misdemeanor, and booked him into the local jail, court records show.

“Nothing else has been reported,” New Mexico State Police spokesperson Ray Wilson said on Tuesday morning.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office has not identified any reports of looting or burglaries, said Michael Scales, emergency management specialist for the county.

Other than the guy who police say drank wine while the village burned around him, a search of all state criminal cases filed in the local district court and the two local magistrate courts showed no cases of looting or burglary filed since the fires began.

A search of all federal criminal cases filed in the U.S. District Court in Albuquerque showed no cases related to the fires.

The Ruidoso Police Department “investigated the claim that there have been break-ins in Midtown and through Ruidoso,” and only found the one case where the Texan drank nearly a caseful of wine, according to a social media post by village officials published on June 21.

Lincoln County responded to calls from people concerned about looting in Alto and “various areas around the evacuated areas,” Lincoln County Undersheriff Geraldine Martinez said at a community meeting on June 20.

“We’ve checked the situation out and we are coming across some people that shouldn’t be out there, but for the most part, some people chose not to evacuate, so they stayed there,” Martinez said. “But we are not finding mass looting or anything like that.”

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Ruidoso police, state troopers, and deputies from Lincoln and Otero counties are running checkpoints and doing roving patrols, she said.

Twelfth Judicial District Attorney Scot Key said based on his knowledge, there have been no referrals nor filings of criminal complaints against anyone for looting.

“I haven’t heard of any criminal cases started regarding looting,” Key said in a phone interview on Monday afternoon.

Lincoln County Sheriff Michael Wood did not return a phone call and text message on Monday seeking comment. Scales said he would forward our questions to Wood.

Phone calls, emails and voice messages left for Ruidoso Police Department leadership and a spokesperson for the Village of Ruidoso were not returned as of Tuesday afternoon.

Key, whose local prosecutors handle all felony cases in the area, said in a vacation point like Ruidoso, people who aren’t living there full-time often report burglaries only when they go to use their vacation house. “And then it’s months old, and there conceivably could be problems in doing the investigation and finding the responsible persons,” he said.

“I think right now, in my mind, there’s an absence of complaints,” Key said. “Now, that’s not to say that as people get back to their houses, there’s not going to be a rush of phone calls to the PD or the sheriff’s office saying, ‘Hey, my house is burglarized.’ Obviously that’s a distinct possibility, and we just don’t know it.”

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