West Side neighborhood on edge after troubling behavior from neighbor

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. –   Residents of an Albuquerque West Side neighborhood are on edge amid years of troubling behavior from one of their neighbors. 

Robert Witt told KOB 4 he found the man carving a racial slur into his driveway with a sword Sunday morning. Witt said he raised the sword, then started yelling before walking back to his house near Paseo and Golf Course. 

Witt said no one was hurt and he called police, but not for the first time. He said the man has made several other neighbors feel unsafe over the years, and together they have called APD dozens of times. 

Vincent Peele, an African American, said he believes the man has personally targeted him with racial slurs. 

“I’ve got to deal with him calling me a n****, I’m going to eliminate you n****,” Peele said. “We’ve been putting up with it at four o’clock in the morning, and he’s yelling and screaming, and all this demonic stuff that he wants to hurt people, he’s going to kill the neighbors.” 

Four other neighbors, who asked to remain anonymous, said the man has taken their mail and scattered it in the street, and he occasionally throws rocks at people walking near his home. 

“Most of us in this neighborhood are elderly,” one neighbor said. “I am afraid to walk on Independence.”

“I don’t think anybody feels unsafe to walk anywhere else in this neighborhood, except for this particular street,” another said.

“It’s very unsettling to hear that loud, angry voice saying ‘I’m going to kill you’ and all sorts of threats,” a third neighbor told KOB 4. “We just all believe he’s going to hurt somebody.” 

An APD spokesperson said its Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) does not have an active case with the man. It was closed out earlier this year because of an active felony warrant for his failure to appear for a restraining order hearing. 

Before then, CIT tried connecting the man to services for two years, but APD said he refused to work with detectives.

APD added that in the last four months, there has only been one call to the man’s Independence NW address. Albuquerque Community Safety went out that time and was unable to contact him.  

Officers on Albuquerque’s West Side are actively investigating the most recent incident involving the sword.