ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – An Albuquerque medical practice was left in the dark for the last week. “We heard a loud explosion and then the lights kind of flickered and almost like a power surge kind of thing and then everything just shut down,” said Stephanie Henderson, the Chief Business Officer for Family Medicine PC.
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The practice, near Eubank and Montgomery, says it’s all because of thieves. “We looked at the video cameras and saw the truck that had tied a rope to the transformer and drove off and was able to pull out a bunch of copper wire which then caused the power outage,” Henderson said.
For the last week, they’ve been using lanterns, work lights, and relying on daylight through the windows to navigate the practice. Their 15 exam rooms were cut down to just five. Thankfully, the power was restored Tuesday afternoon. “It’s horribly frustrating, you know, we’re a primary care office, there’s not many of us in town and we pride ourselves on being able to see patients when they need to be seen.”
The man Albuquerque police say is responsible for it, Brian Robinson, is a top ten shoplifting offender in the city. Police were keeping tabs on him, when he and Emma Brown, drove to a Lowes and resisted officers when they tried to leave. Police say Brown spit and kicked officers, while Robinson threw meth and tried to make a run for it. While Albuquerque Fire Rescue crews were on scene checking both suspects, a firefighter said they recognized the truck Robinson was driving, believing it was involved in that metal theft at the doctor’s office where thousands of dollars in copper wire was stolen.
Henderson says after this, the practice will be adding more cameras to the building and putting up barriers around the transformers.
Robinson was arrested on a long list of charges, including two felony warrants. He’s also accused of a copper theft at the City’s Transit Center that caused more than $50,000 worth of damage.
