Drive-by shooters target area windows

Drive-by shooters target area windows

Dec. 23, 2000

by Aspen Emmett
Journal Staff Writer

BULLET HOLES show in a window at the Senior Nutrition Center in the Montezuma County Annex Friday morning. Unidentified shooters sprayed bullets around the area Thursday night, police reported.

Trigger-happy vandals left numerous windows in pieces throughout the city and county late Thursday night, according to police.

Cortez Chief of Police Roy Lane said the targets of the shotgun blasts included the Senior Nutrition Center located in the Montezuma County Annex building at 103 N. Chestnut St., the Earthgrains of Holsum bakery at 23 N. Beech St. and several other locations on north Highway 666.

Mitch Payne, a route driver for the bakery, said one of the other workers was in the building when a vehicle drove by and someone shot out the front windows of the warehouse office.

"She was in the back and heard a big boom," Payne said. "She had just left the office when it happened."

Payne said the woman thought the window had been hit with a baseball bat and called the police around 11:30 p.m. She said she thought the smoke in the office was just dust in the air.

However, police found a .12-gauge shotgun shell directly in front of the business.

Payne said damages at the bakery are estimated at $250 for the replacement of the window but they were also looking at other costs to get the office cleaned up.

"It’s a mess," he said. "There’s glass everywhere. I’m going to have to get someone to come in here and clean up the office."

Sue Fletcher, director of the Senior Nutrition Center, arrived there Friday morning and found a similar scene.

"It was bad," Fletcher said. "It took out three-fourths of the window."

Fletcher said the window is over five feet high and just as wide.

"I don’t understand why someone would want to do that," she said. "The seniors were coming in and getting a little freaked out by it all."

Fletcher said maintenance workers attempted to remove the window but were unsuccessful, so the window was boarded up.

"We have a $600 or $800 window that needs to be replaced," Fletcher said.

However, the window was double-paned and the second pane was unharmed, she said.

Lane said his preliminary knowledge of the incidents led him to believe the shootings were acts of random vandalism and that the perpetrators were not specifically targeting someone.

"We get a lot of vandalism this time of year," Lane said.

Despite broken windows, both businesses were in full operation on Friday.

Information on related vandalism on Highway 666 was not available late Friday afternoon.