Some muggers apparently just don't know whom to pick on.
Santa Fe police now believe the young assailant who lost a tug-of-war for a purse with an 83-year-old woman last month is the same knife-wielding thug who failed when he tried to rob a state Court of Appeals judge near the Plaza in November.
In both cases, the would-be victims who fought back were more than three times the age of the suspect— 20-year-old Angelo Trujillo of Chimayó.
"I'm sure he had no way of knowing these people were going to fight back," Santa Fe Police Lt. Tom Wiggins said. "It was just another decision in a chain of bad decisions on his part."
Trujillo was one of three men arrested last month after an attempted purse snatching that has made a folk hero of 83-year-old Bernie Garcia of Santa Fe.
Garcia was pumping gas outside of the Smith's supermarket at 2308 Cerrillos Road when a young man— police say it was Trujillo— tried to yank her purse.
But Garcia hung on, and she sprayed gasoline on the robber, to boot.
Garcia was being dragged on her side toward the purse-snatcher's getaway car when another Smith's patron yelled at the robber, who let go of the purse, hopped into the vehicle and took off with accomplices.
"I don't like being taken advantage of, especially (by) young people with no respect for the elderly," Garcia said after the incident. She was not seriously injured.
Police would arrest Trujillo and others in the car as they were driving north out of Santa Fe on U.S. 84/285. They face charges of robbery and conspiracy for the attack.
Now police suspect Trujillo is the man who also did not pick wisely in November when choosing another potential robbery victim: New Mexico Court of Appeals Judge Ira Robinson, age 65.
Trujillo has not been charged in the Robinson case, but police have turned over evidence to the district attorney's office.
Robinson and some relatives who were visiting from San Diego were confronted on Nov. 28 by a man with a knife on East San Francisco Street near the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis.
A day after the mugging, Robinson said that he had told the robber, "I'm not gonna give you a damn thing."
The mugger swung at Robinson with his knife, but the judge swung back, trying to grab the weapon. Robinson was pushed to the ground but was not robbed.
After the scuffle, however, the bandit did manage to get away with a purse containing cash and credit cards that one of Robinson's companions had dropped.
Wiggins said Thursday that Trujillo was identified as the Nov. 28 mugger through photo line-ups that were shown 10 days ago to the couple who were with Robinson— his cousins Deborah Troy and writer Sandy Troy, who has written biographies of the Grateful Dead.
Wiggins said police were able to place Trujillo at the Robinson crime scene after seeing patterns during their investigation of the Garcia purse-snatching attempt.
"You look at similar descriptions, methods of attack," he said. "There's something like three percent of people who commit 90 percent of crimes."
Wiggins said the Santa Fe District Attorney's Office now has both cases, and charges in the Robinson incident will be up to the DA's staff.
While police advise against resisting robbers, like Garcia and Robinson did, they understand where the urge to fight back comes from.
"Fear translates to anger pretty quick," Wiggins said.
