I Dislike Your Favorite Team

Well now actually, New Mexico has exactly zero professional sports teams. Our most popular team is the Albuquerque Isotopes, a minor league baseball franchise that owes all of its niche to the Simpsons. Which is reason enough to buy their gear.

I like minor league ball. The St. Paul Saints (part owner = Bill Murray = fan of El Vez, the Mexican Elvis impersonator) really got the ball rolling: promotions, "fun," baseball. The Newark Bears have busted some gusto. But no minor league team in the history of baseball has had such built-in product recognition as the Albuquerque Isotopes. If you recall, Springfield's Isotopes (owned by C. Montgomery Burns, nuclear power magnate) moves (a la the Colts midnight run to Indiannapolis -- you douchebags better not win) to Albuqueque.

Homer goes on an ill-executed hunger strike, hilarity ensues. You know.

When Albuquerque was given a second chance at a minor league team, the team name was put to a directly-democratic vote. Text messages or some shit. Point is, about three people voted for the old name ("The Dukes" -- yeah, hate to give that up) and everyone else, obviously, voted for hilarity and big merchandise sales. Duh.

But This Post Isn't About Any of That.

note: this post was inspired by Muumuuman, who apparently lived in Espanola, New Mexico (how do you tilde on this fucking internet, bro?) for some unknown reason.

Since we don't have a professional sports team to rally around, people have an opportunity to cheer on one of the most retardestly funny ongoing stories on el Mundo. The lackluster Santa Fe New Mexican provides my knowledge of this case, and I would link to the article, but their site is typically fucked up. Maybe tomorrow. From the January 25, 2007 issue front page (below fold): "Espanola Man: Gunshot led him to flee police" [sic = nice capitalization after colon: What?]. Only the sub headline gives a hint ... "Atencio says he sees himself as victim in shooting melee."

So, MMMan, and all you lazy sports "fans" in comfortable, cable-ready cities ... how about some real life demolition derby? With cops?

Earlier this month, a woman called police claiming that a car that had been stolen from her relative (well, statistically, it's a slam-dunk) was parked in the parking lot of Santa Fe's TJ Maxx. This is the very Big Box parking lot where I go to purchase my food, animal food and DVDs.

Anyway, police arrived to discover Ivan Atencio (aged 31 and representing Espanola, just like MMMan) who did not respond to verbal commands. Something happened. And then Atencio tried to run over some cops, who fired at him.

Atencio crashed into traffic stopped at a red light a few blocks away. There, police opened fire into rush hour traffic. The 19 handgun shots all missed Atencio; a shotgun blast brought him to the ground with minor injuries. One of the handgun bullets did find a mark: a police officer's life was saved by his Kevlar vest. Atencio was found to be unarmed. Efforts to locate a gun he might have tossed proved fruitless.

Atencio has been charged with four counts of assault with intent to commit a violent felony on a police officer, four counts of aggravated battery, embezzlement (huh?), aggravated fleeing from police, possession of heroin, possession of drug paraphenalia and driving while intoxicated. His defense? As Priceless as a ball of Black Tar.

Atencio was nodding out after shooting up, waiting for his girlfriend to finish shopping. Thus no response to verbal commands, thus a sudden slumping as-if-reaching-for-a-gun.

Atencio pulls off the extremely rare and elusive triple negative to plead his case: "I never had no intention to run over no police officers." Please note that the meaning of this sentence ends up being correct, though the syntax is somewhat unorthodox, bro.

He claims the police surprised him and opened fire, causing him to panic and drive away. While he admits to being high for three days, Atencio adamently asserts his innocence of trying to run cops over: "That never took place. I was just trying to be a law-abiding citizen ... I nodded out in the car and that's why he thought I was reaching for a gun. I was so high on heroin. I've never carried a gun in my life."

Well, case closed, right? Furthermore, Atencio denies that the 2000 Mercury Cougar with which he accomplished the alleged demolition derby was stolen. He claims that he was renting the car from its owner in exchange for an unspecified amount of crack cocaine.

The good news? Atencio is planning a lawsuit (presumably following his acquittal, QED) against the police department. His logic is bulletproof: "Why were they shooting at me so many times? It's very unprofessional of the city police to do that ... As I see it, I was the victim."