GRANTS, N.M. -- Reports that some people in the western New Mexico community of Grants may have been painting their infants gold and silver and passing them around to be sniffed at parties have provoked anger from officials.
'I think it's something that we all look at with our paternal instincts. But in this particular case, people are outraged about it,' Jerry Thurber, police chief of the town of 10,000 people, said Wednesday.
Thurber said that during recent drug raids his men got word 'on the street' of the practice of painting babies and passing them around to be sniffed to get high.
He said two children who had been examined by police earlier this year had metallic-colored spray paint on their faces and limbs, but it was unclear to officers how the paint got there.
Those children now have been turned over to the state Department of Human Resources, he said.
Thurber said if the practice is occurring as some people have told police, it amounts to a new form of child abuse that must be stopped.
'There's no 'fad' in Grants. It's a situation we don't want to turn into a fad ... If it's one incident or two or whatever, we want to find out where it is,' he said.
For that reason, police have appealed to residents to come forward if they have information of such incidents.
'This particular type of child abuse -- because of the age of the child and the fact that the paint can be washed out -- we have to go out to the public and say, 'Does anyone know of this and can they come forward?'' Thurber said.
He said the two children removed from homes last month -- an 8-month-old and a 13-month-old -- 'had paint on the face, the limbs, this sort of thing. But when we get these children they are rediapered and cleaned up. We don't know if (the paint) was applied from a can, a person or a rag.'
