3 arrests made in boy's shooting death that sparked New Mexico governor's aggressive guns ban — Associated Press
Two people were arrested late Thursday, and one on Friday in connection with a shooting outside an Albuquerque baseball stadium that killed an 11-year-old boy and prompted the New Mexico governor to issue a controversial gun ban.
Jose Romero, 22, and Nathen Garley, 21, were being held for the Sept. 6 shooting after an Albuquerque Isotopes game in what appeared to be a case of mistaken identity, Police Chief Harold Medina said at a news conference.
Detectives arrested Daniel Gomez, 26, who was also named in a warrant for the homicide, on Friday, according to a news release.
Medina said the men had argued with people during the ballgame and mistakenly opened fire on a truck carrying the boy and his family as it was leaving the parking lot because it closely resembled the truck of the intended targets.
"These cowards thought they were tough," Medina said in an earlier social media post. "They killed an innocent child."
Romero was taken into custody on Thursday evening. He already was wanted for failing to appear in court in connection with alleged drug dealing, Medina said.
Garley was already in custody when he was arrested in connection with the killing. He had been stopped by state police on Sept. 13 while returning from Arizona and authorities found a gun and about 100,000 fentanyl tablets in the car, state Police Chief W. Troy Weisler said at the news conference.
Further investigation linked him to the shooting, authorities alleged.
Garley's case has been assigned to the New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender, but the case is still in its early stages, spokesperson Maggie Shepard said Friday. She did not know if Romero would also have a public defender.
Police alleged that the men, both reputed gang members, pulled up in a car and attacked the pickup truck that was leaving the minor league game at Isotopes Stadium.
More than a dozen shots were fired, killing Froylan Villegas and leaving his cousin, Tatiana Villegas, paralyzed from the waist down, authorities said. A GoFundMe account for Tatiana Villegas' recovery has raised nearly $40,000 to date.
The boy's mother and his infant brother were also inside the truck but weren't injured, although two bullets barely missed the other child, police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said.
Romero and Garley had had an ongoing feud with another man and argued with him during the baseball game. The man drove a white Dodge pickup truck, Gallegos said.
The victims were in a very similar white Dodge truck that drove by the truck of the intended target, police said.
"It is our belief that these cowards mixed up the two vehicles and shot into the wrong vehicle," the police chief said.
"Investigators used cellphone data and social media to track the movements of several individuals," Gallegos said. "The day after the shooting, the man who was feuding with Romero sent him a message on Instagram indicating they shot at the wrong truck."
The shooting, one of several involving children, prompted New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, to issue an emergency public health order days later suspending the right to carry firearms in public in and around Albuquerque. The measure was fought by Republican lawmakers and gun rights groups and a federal judge last week granted a temporary restraining order to block the order pending another court hearing next month.
U.S. District Judge David Urias said that the governor's original order was likely to cause irreparable harm to people deprived of the right to carry a gun in public for self-defense.
Grisham then amended the order to apply only to public parks and playgrounds where children and their families gather.
MDC seeks $2.1M under N.M. emergency order that sends more state patrols to Albuquerque — KUNM News, Source New Mexico
More police are patrolling Albuquerque under the state’s recent gun-violence public health order, potentially sending hundreds more people to the Metropolitan Detention Center in the coming weeks, so the short-staffed local jail is asking for millions in funding.
MDC will likely see a spike in the number of people being incarcerated before they go to trial since the order instructs State Police to send additional officers to the city, and officials are requesting $2.1 million from the state’s governor to handle it.
In a letter to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Sept. 14, the Bernalillo County government asked for $2.1 million in “emergency public health funding” to reopen four cell pods to make space for more people to be incarcerated.
“These pods will require correctional officers to supervise the inmates, creating additional posts and overtime,” County Manager Julie Morgas Baca wrote.
Officials are also looking to send more inmates to other jails around the state to avoid overfilling MDC.
“MDC will need to secure agreements with other jails to ensure our count does not exceed our mandated population capacity,” Morgas Baca wrote.
Crowding and conditions at the jail have sparked litigation for decades, leading to court-ordered reforms at the jail under an agreement known as the McClendon settlement.
The jail’s funding request marks the first and so far only time a local government has asked for funding under the public health order enacted on Sept. 9. A spokesperson for the governor confirmed on Friday they received Morgas Baca’s letter.
The governor’s Senior Public Safety Advisor Ben Baker and former State Police chief Pete Kassetas, Lujan Grisham’s newly hired crime commissioner, “are in active conversation with leaders from Bernalillo County and MDC,” Caroline Sweeney said.
CAPACITY AND CROWDING
A federal judge blocked part of the order restricting firearms in the county on Sept. 13, but left the rest of it in place, including a surge of New Mexico State Police officers into the county to arrest people on outstanding warrants.
The county anticipates an additional 350 people heading to jail as a result of the “initial roundup,” which would fill MDC to its limit, Morgas Baca wrote.
New Mexico State Police confirmed the dispatch of extra officers to “assist local agencies in criminal enforcement” but have not said how many officers will go into the area and for how long.
State Police Public Information Officer Ray Wilson said on Sept. 14 the agency was “still in the initial process of developing an operational plan.”
Bennett Baur, the state’s chief public defender, said state officials need to consider how they spend their money on clearing warrants.
While having police go to someone’s house is necessary in some cases, Baur said, it is one of the most dangerous ways to approach the situation — for both police and the people they are trying to arrest.
“There’s no evidence that those people are committing more crimes than the general population,” Baur told Source New Mexico on Thursday. “We have to look at what is the best way for public safety to address that, and just talking about law enforcement going to people’s homes or rounding them up in the community is not only not cost effective, but in many ways creates more dangerous situations.”
The safe surrender program, where people turn themselves in over Zoom, has proven “extremely successful and cost effective,” Baur said, getting hundreds of people’s cases back on track.
Morgas Baca wrote that in the last six months, the jail has held an average of 1,460 people, at one point reaching a high of 1,600 people. More than 22 full-time guards would be needed to oversee the four extra cell pods, according to a breakdown by MDC Warden Jason Jones attached to the county manager’s letter.
Twenty-six people have died at the jail since 2020, the Albuquerque Journal reported at the time the public health order came down.
SENDING IN THE GUARD
The day after the county manager’s letter, Lujan Grisham narrowed the public health order and told reporters in the Bernalillo County Commission chambers that she’s willing to send help from three state agencies to alleviate staff shortages at the jail.
Lack of staffing, space and “prompt screening” of people arrested and taken to the jail are a “significant contributor to these public health emergencies by keeping police officers off the streets while they wait for arrestees to be processed,” Health Secretary Patrick Allen wrote in the updated order.
Kassetas said during the Sept. 15 news conference announcing the modified order that an officer was stuck at the jail for four hours the day before trying to book someone they had arrested “because booking was full.”
“The governor has asked us for solutions, and we’re going to come up with: How do we speed those processes up to get those officers back out in the streets in the metro to be proactive?” Kassetas said.
Lujan Grisham said the N.M. National Guard, the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and the Department of Corrections stand ready to go into the Metropolitan Detention Center.
“If we can use Guard or Homeland Security personnel or Corrections personnel — which today we believe we can — to stand up bookings and medical screenings, we’re going to do that,” she said.
That need has to be identified by county officials, she said, “but there is some degree of discussion about whether or not that’s immediately necessary.”
“Instead of waiting to have the data and have everyone agree, what’s on first, what’s on second, we’re just going to make sure that we’re ready to stand it up and invest immediately,” Lujan Grisham said.
Morgas Baca told Source New Mexico on Tuesday that jail staff will see how things go under the emergency order, and weigh how and whether to take the governor up on her offer. “Any changes made at MDC would be in conjunction with our medical partner, UNM Hospital, and in accordance with our requirements under the federal McClendon settlement,” she said.
The doctors in charge of medical care at the jail say they are not asking for help.
A spokesperson for UNM Hospital confirmed Tuesday they are not requesting assistance from the governor for health care staffing.
Since UNMH took over care at the jail, they “have made a significant number of hires and we continue to hire to ensure we are providing the high- quality care that UNM Hospital is known for,” said spokesperson Christopher Ramirez.
It would not be the first time that the New Mexico National Guard has been sent into the jail.
The Bernalillo County Commission asked for the Guard’s help in January 2022 after a psychiatric nurse warned that the medical and psychiatric staff shortage — compounded by a lack of correctional officers — is a “recipe for disaster.”
NEXT UP: THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE
The jail’s request comports with the governor’s yearslong push to keep more people behind bars before trial.
Changing the law to make it easier for prosecutors to hold people who are accused but not convicted of a crime in jail has been a top priority of Lujan Grisham, Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman and other prominent Democrats in the Roundhouse.
It has faced stiff opposition from lawmakers, public defenders and civil rights advocates who say it would overturn New Mexicans’ fundamental right to due process and the legal presumption in the U.S. that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
The criminal legal system in New Mexico is not very good at deciding who actually needs to be in jail, Baur said.
“The bureaucracy of arrests and processing is frankly broken,” he said. “There are so many people that are in jail that don’t need to be in jail.”
When Lujan Grisham first announced the new public health order, she said she will continue to push for this change in upcoming legislative sessions.
“I think, following the federal system, and having a rebuttable presumption — that if it’s a repeat, and violent offender — that those folks should have no ability to be released, pending that rebuttable debate about why they’re not too dangerous to be held until the trial,” she said. “I’ll ask for that again, and I have asked for any number of criminal penalty enhancements.”
Advocates for downwinders and uranium miners push House on radiation exposure compensation – Albuquerque Journal, NM Political Report
People affected by nuclear testing and uranium mining in New Mexico joined with advocates from around the country and members of Congress Wednesday in Washington, D.C. to push for an expanded Radiation and Exposure Compensation Act or RECA.
An amendment expanding RECA is in the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed in July. It would cover the downwinders who lived near the Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was exploded, and uranium miners who began work after 1971.
The Albuquerque Journal reports Senator Ben Ray Lujan and U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico joined Republican Senator Josh Hawley to call on the House to include the amendment in its version of the defense bill.
Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Association, says this is the closest advocates have ever come to RECA expansion. She is the fourth generation of her family to have cancer since 1945.
“There are generations standing behind us whose genes carry this legacy,” she said.
Navajo Nation Speaker Crystalyne Curley said nearly 300 million tons of uranium was extracted from the Navajo Nation, according to NM Political Report. That brought economic opportunity, but also illness and death. Senator Lujan said uranium workers weren’t warned of the dangers of bringing home their work clothes, covered with yellow cake uranium.
“When they shake that in a one room house with grandma and grandpa and with kids, who do you think was breathing that stuff in,” he said. “So not only were those uranium mine workers getting sick, but then it was spreading to families and countless others.”
So far the House version of the defense bill does not have the RECA amendment. But The Hill reports it does have numerous provisions that target LGBTQ rights, which has united Democrats against the bill.
Biologists look to expand suitable habitat for North America's largest and rarest tortoise — Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
While the average life span of North America's largest and most rare tortoise species is unknown, biologists have said it could span upward of a century.
So saving the endangered species is a long game — one that just got another nudge forward Friday as U.S. wildlife officials finalized an agreement with Ted Turner's Endangered Species Fund that clears the way for the release of more Bolson tortoises on the media mogul's ranch in central New Mexico.
It's a step toward one day releasing the tortoise more broadly in the Southwest as conservationists push the federal government to consider crafting a recovery plan for the species. The tortoise is just the latest example of a growing effort to find new homes for endangered species as climate change and other threats push them from their historic habitats.
Now found only in the grasslands of north-central Mexico, the tortoise once had a much larger range that included the southwestern United States. Fossil records also show it was once present it the southern Great Plains, including parts of Texas and Oklahoma.
The wild population in Mexico is thought to consist of fewer than 2,500 tortoises, and experts say threats to the animals are mounting as they are hunted for food and collected as pets. Their habitat also is shrinking as more desert grasslands are converted to farmland.
While it's been eons since the tortoises roamed wild in what is now New Mexico, Mike Phillips, director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, said it's time for biologists to reconsider what ecological reference points should matter most when talking about the recovery of an imperiled species.
Climate change is reshuffling the ecological deck and changing the importance of historical conditions in the recovery equation, Phillips said. He pointed to the case of the tortoise, noting that suitable habitat is moving north again as conditions in the Southwestern U.S. become drier and warmer.
Absent a willingness by wildlife managers to think more broadly, he said, species like the Bolson tortoise could have a bleak future.
"It would seem in a recovery context, historical range should be considered. Prehistoric range sometimes matters too," he said in an interview. "But most importantly, future range — because recovery is all about righting a wrong, it's about improving conditions. The future is what is of great relevance to recovery."
The question that biologists have been trying to answer is whether the Armendaris Ranch makes for a good home.
So far the ranch, spanning more than 560 square miles (1,450 square kilometers) is proving to be an ideal spot. The landscape is similar to that where the tortoises are found in Mexico, and work done on the ranch and at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Carlsbad has resulted in more than 400 tortoises being hatched since 2006.
Depending on weather conditions and forage availability, it can take a few years or more for a hatchling to reach just over 4 inches (110 millimeters) long. They can eventually grow to about 14.5 inches (370 millimeters).
The species was unknown to science until the late 1950s and has never been extensively studied.
"Each and every day we're learning more and more about the Bolson tortoise's natural history," Phillips said.
The goal is to build a robust captive population that can be used as a source for future releases into the wild. That work will include getting state and federal permits to release tortoises outside of the enclosures on Turner lands.
Republican lawmakers move to impeach the governor over gun ban – Santa Fe New Mexican
Two Republican lawmakers are making a push to impeach Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham in response to her public health executive order related to gun violence.
The order called for suspension of open and concealed carry of firearms in Bernalillo County, which she walked back after it was challenged in court.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that Representatives John Block of Alamogordo and Stefani Lord of Sandia Park launched a certificate form calling for an extraordinary session and are looking for signatures from other lawmakers.
Democrats control both chambers of the state Legislature, meaning the effort isn’t likely to succeed.
A spokesperson for Senate Democrats told the New Mexican that Senate Democratic leaders aren't supporting it, while a spokesperson for House Democrats called it a distraction and waste of taxpayer money.
Weapons charges dropped in 2018 raid on family compound in desert that turned up child's remains - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
Two firearms charges were dismissed Thursday amid preparations for a trial against an extended family arrested in a 2018 law enforcement raid on a ramshackle desert compound in northern New Mexico and the discovery of a young boy's decomposed body.
The changes narrow the case to terrorism and kidnapping charges against five defendants in a trial scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection at U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.
Authorities had been searching for a sickly 3-year-old who had been reported missing by his mother in Georgia when, in August 2018, they burst into a ramshackle encampment in the remote desert surrounded by berms of used tires with an adjacent firing range.
Sheriff's deputies and state agents initially found 11 hungry children and a small arsenal of ammunition and guns. After days of searching, they recovered the decomposed remains of the 3-year-old in an underground tunnel.
The trail was delayed repeatedly amid the logistical challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, examinations regarding the mental competency of defendants to stand trial and decisions by two defendants to serve as their own counsel with some access to legal assistance. All defendants currently maintain their innocence.
Authorities have said the deceased child, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, suffered from untreated disabilities as father Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and his partner Jany Leveille performed daily prayer rituals over the boy — even as he cried and foamed at the mouth. Authorities also said Leveille believed medication suppressed the group's Muslim beliefs.
Forensic specialists determined the child died several months prior to the recovery of his body.
All five defendants — including Subhanah Wahhaj, sister Hujrah Wahhaj and Lucas Morton — are charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, providing material support to each other as potential terrorists and conspiracy to kill U.S. government personnel amid tactical drills at the New Mexico compound.
Kidnapping charges are pending against four of the defendants but not Siraj Wahhaj because of his legal status as the father of the deceased boy. Morton also plans to act as his own legal counsel at trial.
A grand jury indictment alleges Leveille, a Haitian national, and her partner instructed people at the compound to be prepared to engage in jihad and die as martyrs, and that another relative was invited to bring money and firearms.
Biden deal with tribes promises $200M for Columbia River salmon reintroduction - Associated Press
The Biden administration has pledged over $200 million toward reintroducing salmon in the Upper Columbia River Basin in an agreement with tribes that includes a stay on litigation for 20 years.
The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and Spokane Tribe of Indians signed the deal with federal officials on Thursday, The Seattle Times reported.
The funds from the Bonneville Power Administration will be paid over 20 years to implement a plan led by the tribes to restore salmon and steelhead in the basin.
Constructing the Grand Coulee Dam about 80 years ago in eastern Washington, and Chief Joseph Dam downstream, stopped salmon from migrating into the basin and through tribal lands, cutting off tribal access to the fish, which leaders say has caused devastating cultural harm.
Salmon runs in the Upper Columbia had been abundant for thousands of years and were a mainstay of tribal cultures and trade.
The Upper Columbia United Tribes, which includes tribes in Washington and Idaho, have been working on the reintroduction plan. Now in the second of four stages, it includes research over the next two decades to establish sources of donor and brood salmon stocks for reintroduction, test biological assumptions, develop interim hatchery and passage facilities, and evaluate how the program is working.
"In 1940, Tribes from around the Northwest gathered at Kettle Falls for a Ceremony of Tears to mourn the loss of salmon at their ancestral fishing grounds," Jarred-Michael Erickson, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, said in a statement from the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "The federal government is taking a major step toward righting that historic wrong. … The Colville Tribes (look) forward to our children celebrating a Ceremony of Joy when salmon are permanently restored to their ancestral waters."
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation additionally is committing $8 million in federal money toward juvenile salmon outmigration studies, genetic sampling and fish passage design development.
Northwest RiverPartners, which represents users of the Columbia and Lower Snake rivers, including barge operators and utilities, has been against dam removal on the Lower Snake for salmon recovery but supports this effort, which leaves dams intact.
"Taking this next step in studying salmon reintroduction above these blocked areas is the right thing to do and lays the foundation for the possibility of sustainable salmon runs in the upper Columbia River Basin," executive director Kurt Miller said in a statement. "Reintroduction has the potential to create hundreds of miles of upstream habitat for salmon, responds to important Tribal commitments, and does so without negatively impacting the hydropower our region relies on."