Judge orders pretrial detention for brother of University of New Mexico shooting victim - Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal
Zion Miera was under a judge’s order not to possess firearms or commit crimes at the time his brother was fatally shot in a University of New Mexico dorm room.
Miera, 19, violated those conditions in June when he and others gathered for a drug-fueled night at UNM that ended in the shooting death of 14-year-old Michael LaMotte, a judge ruled Wednesday.
State District Judge Emeterio Rudolfo ordered Miera to remain behind bars while awaiting trial on two counts of tampering with evidence and other charges connected with his brother’s death in June.
“He has demonstrated his inability to make safe decisions,” Rudolfo said of Miera at his pretrial detention hearing in 2nd Judicial District Court. “I don’t think we need federal cases or federal judges to tell us that mixing drugs and firearms is dangerous for anyone, especially someone so young.”
The case stems from a June 25 incident when Miera, his half-brother LaMotte, and two other teenagers met at UNM for what prosecutors describe as a night of heavy drug use, including LSD and cocaine.
Prosecutors allege that shortly after midnight, John Fuentes, 18, fatally shot LaMotte in the head and fired a second shot that grazed Daniel Archuleta, a provisional UNM student, in the back of the head.
Fuentes, who was treated and released at a hospital, was arrested soon after the July 25 killing and is awaiting trial on an open count of murder and lesser felonies.
Archuleta, 19, was arrested Tuesday on a charge of tampering with evidence and is scheduled for a pretrial detention hearing Friday.
Assistant District Attorney John Kloss argued Wednesday that Miera was charged in May for allegedly confronting a former girlfriend with an assault-style rifle during a handoff of the couple’s child.
Rio Rancho police arrested Miera on May 31 on a felony charge of false imprisonment and misdemeanor battery, according to a criminal complaint filed in Sandoval County Magistrate Court. Miera allegedly searched the woman’s apartment with the rifle looking for a male co-worker, the complaint said.
On June 2, about seven weeks before the fatal incident at UNM, a Sandoval County magistrate judge released Miera on his own recognizance but prohibited him from possessing firearms or committing additional crimes.
Those conditions remained in effect until Sept. 24, when Magistrate Judge Delilah Montano-Baca dismissed the charges. Rudolfo cited those conditions as a key reason for his decision to hold Miera in custody pending trial.
“While the case was ultimately dismissed, there was still an order in place for him to comply with conditions of release — no drugs, no firearms, no dangerous weapons,” Rudolfo said.
Miera’s attorney, Deirdre Ewing, argued that Miera has no criminal convictions because the charges against him were dropped. Nor has Miera been incarcerated before in his life, she said.
“We are not here on charges that Mr. Miera killed his brother,” Ewing told the judge. “Trying to paint Mr. Miera with Mr. Fuentes’ crimes in order to detain him is beyond the pale. Mr. Miera was shot at by Mr. Fuentes just as his brother was.”
Miera is charged with two counts of tampering with evidence for allegedly deleting evidence from his personal cellphone and removing a backpack from the dorm room where LaMotte was fatally shot. Miera also is charged with one count each of possession of cocaine and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
“So the offenses we’re actually dealing with are nonviolent — third- and fourth-degree felonies — the nature and circumstances of which do not point towards detention,” Ewing said.
Prosecutors allege that Miera had supplied LaMotte with drugs to sell to classmates with the understanding that they would “split the profits.”
Weeks before the shooting, Miera began talking about selling and trading guns with LaMotte, prosecutors allege. LaMotte’s mother told police she knew Miera kept multiple guns in his younger brother’s room.
Federal shutdown means fewer FAA inspectors at ABQ Balloon Fiesta - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The ongoing federal government shutdown means half the typical number of federal safety inspectors are on the field during the world’s biggest hot air balloon rally taking place in Albuquerque this week, according to a Fiesta spokesperson and a retired federal aviation official.
James Malarsie retired earlier this year in Albuquerque after nearly 30 years as an inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration, and worked the Fiesta with the FAA every year since 1995. That meant approving balloonist applications, doing equipment spot checks and roaming the launchfield with a team to search for blatant safety violations, among other duties.
He’s experienced several threatened, partial or full shutdowns during his long career, he told Source New Mexico on Wednesday. If this year’s ongoing federal government shutdown is anything like the one in 2013, the FAA will scrap certain tasks like in-depth crash investigations, last-minute pilot certifications and safety inspections outside the launchfield.
In years when the federal government is functional, 12 FAA inspectors are on the ground at the Fiesta each day, according to Malarsie and Tom Garrity, a Fiesta spokesperson. Six inspectors are on the ground during the Fiesta this year, Garrity told Source on Wednesday afternoon.
One typical duty for the inspectors is to divide the launchpad each day into a grid, Malarsie said. Inspectors then claim a square on the grid and fan out to see balloon crews are making safety errors. Some of the hazards FAA inspectors key in on are whether balloons are tethered to trucks during static displays; if a person is safely manning the dangerous inflation fans; and ensuring no one is smoking cigarettes at an event that runs on highly explosive propane.
“This year, it’s going to be pretty sparsened,” he said of the FAA inspections. “They’re going to look at it as, ‘What is the minimum we can get away with?’”
Still, Malarsie emphasized that Fiesta-goers should be confident about safety this year, despite the shutdown and mass furloughs of federal aviation employees. He said the Fiesta administrators and pilots themselves take safety seriously, and he described the FAA’s role as important but not the first line of defense in keeping the public and passengers safe.
“It’s not like the FAA is the magic component to make it work. We’re like a speed camera on the side of the road. We do our best to catch the flagrant,” he said. “For the most part, the balloonists are willing and able” to keep themselves, their passengers and the public safe.
The FAA did not respond to Source’s request for comment about the potential impacts of the shutdown on the Fiesta. According to an auto-reply email, administration is unable to respond to news media requests due to the shutdown, and the FAA office in Albuquerque is unstaffed, according to a pre-recorded voicemail message.
Tom Garrity also told Source the decreased number of inspectors won’t influence the event’s safety.
The biggest impact of the reduction is on “ramp checks,” Garrity said, which the FAA inspectors and Fiesta officials conduct each year to ensure pilots have the necessary documents to fly, such as safety inspections, federal airworthiness certificates, medical clearances and other necessary approvals.
“If you and I were going to a checkpoint, they would be asking for a driver’s license. Can I see your insurance?” he said. “That would be the equivalent.”
Fiesta officials have all the necessary training to do the checks without the FAA, Garrity said. So he thinks they’re still being conducted sufficiently to ensure pilots are safe to fly.
“Safety is the first and foremost priority for Balloon Fiesta,” he said.
Because the Fiesta occurs each year in early October, it sometimes coincides with threatened or real shutdowns, Malarsie said. The federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1 and carries a deadline for Congress to pass a spending package to fund the government.
In 2013, the last time the government fully shut down in October, no FAA inspectors were on the field, he said. While Malarsie recalls that the event went off without a hitch, he said the federal Transportation Department in subsequent years developed a better plan to ensure the most vital FAA functions remain unaltered if a shutdown and the Fiesta coincide.
“As time progressed and the agency got more used to dealing with the politics of a shutdown, it kind of made a determination of what was ‘essential,’” he said.
That means, in 2025, a “small cadre of inspectors” flew in from another FAA field offices, likely from Lubbock, Texas, he said, based on a recent conversation with a current FAA official. They’re here to shore up a short-staffed local field office and will be dedicated solely to “safety oversight.”
“All they’re doing is direct surveillance of the event,” he said.
Also, in typical years, the FAA is sometimes the first on the scene to investigate hot air balloon crashes, because the National Transportation Safety Board delegates some investigatory steps to the FAA. But during other shutdowns, Malarsie recalls investigations being delayed because the FAA could not immediately start examining the causes of crashes.
Two hot air balloons have struck powerlines during the Fiesta this year, according to media reports, though no one was injured.
Malarsie abruptly retired early this year just shy of his 30th Fiesta, he said, due to a conflict over whether he’d be granted time to go on a “once-in-a-lifetime” oryx hunt in White Sands. But he said he misses being at what would have been his 30th Fiesta. He’s quoted in an FAA article about the Fiesta last year:
“You can feel the heat from the burners on each balloon, hear the roar of the flames, see the balloons inflate, and hear the crowd cheer, as lifeless balloons awaken in the early morning and evening hours,” he said.
Vasquez leads letter urging vote on pay for military during shutdown - Source New Mexico
On the eighth day of the federal government shutdown, U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a New Mexico Democrat representing the state’s southern 2nd Congressional District, led a letter to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) highlighting the looming threat of missed paychecks for military personnel.
The letter, co-led by U.S. Rep. Derek Tran (D-CA) and co-signed by 75 other House Democrats, notes that if Congress doesn’t act by Oct. 15, “nearly three million military families will miss their next paycheck. That’s unacceptable — our military families and troops deserve better.” That includes 22,000 active duty and reserve personnel in New Mexico, according to a news release from Vasquez’s office.
In a statement, Vasquez said that the country’s “troops selflessly serve and defend our country every single day, and they deserve to be paid on time for their work. I’m calling on Speaker Johnson to do what’s right for our military families and get Republicans back to Washington to vote to pay our servicemen and women. There’s no excuse for inaction, because when it comes to paying our troops, there is no room for partisan politics.”
The bipartisan Pay Our Troops Act would ensure services members, along with civilian employees and contractors, receive pay during the shutdown. Vasquez’s letter notes that that Congress passed a similar bill during the 2013 shutdown. Doing so, the letter says, shows “Congress can come together for the benefit of our service members even while disagreeing on other matters.”
Johnson, however, on Wednesday rejected voting on a stand-alone bill to provide paychecks to active duty military members during the shutdown, and said if Democrats want to ensure salaries for federal workers, they should vote to advance the stopgap spending bill.
“They live with that vote. They made that decision. The House is done,” Johnson said at a morning press conference. “The ball is now in the Senate’s court. It does us no good to be here dithering on show votes. We did it. We sent the product over.”
President Donald Trump, however, in comments from the White House later in the day, indicated he supported a stand-alone bill to provide pay for military members during the shutdown, saying: “Yeah, that probably will happen.
Election: MRGCD board that oversees irrigation, flood control in Middle Rio Grande gets new member - Cathy Cook, Albuquerque Journal
A board that oversees irrigation releases and flood prevention for the Middle Rio Grande will have one new member after a Tuesday election.
Three incumbent board members were reelected, and one new member, J. Chris Lopez, will fill the Socorro seat being left vacant by Glen Duggins. All four were running unopposed, making the outcome predictable.
People who own property within the conservancy district’s benefited area are eligible to vote in MRGCD elections. According to unofficial election results, the candidates each received fewer than 80 votes.
Board members serve four-year terms, so they will be in office until 2029.
The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District offers irrigation, flood control and water conservation services to farmers and irrigators in the Middle Rio Grande Valley. An elected board of seven directors oversees the entity.
In the coming year, the board will take on issues like upgrading aging infrastructure and trying to reduce New Mexico’s water debt to Texas so river water can be stored, which can help farmers during times of drought.
The election results are scheduled to be certified Friday, and board members will be sworn in for their new terms on Oct. 14.
On Tuesday afternoon, Lopez was working on his 700-acre family farm south of Socorro, gathering chile from the fields. Lopez’s grandfather started farming in the area in the 1950s, and his father, brother, one daughter and young grandsons still farm.
Lopez already serves on the Socorro Soil and Water Conservation District but wanted to run for the MRGCD board to be a voice for farmers.
“I’m worried about our water. I’m worried about our farmers. Farming and ranching are slowly dying off,” Lopez said.
Meanwhile, Karen Dunning won reelection to one of the Bernalillo County positions after serving on the board for 16 years. One of the big issues she expects the board to grapple with in the coming year is insurance.
Many people in the North Valley area particularly like to walk on irrigation ditches, but since MRGCD is not insured for recreation, that’s not an activity it can encourage.
“That’s a really big deal, because right now, our private insurers have all dropped us, and so we have to use the state,” she said. MRGCD does not have the resources to be self-insured.
MRGCD is turning 100 this year, and much of the infrastructure it manages needs to be upgraded.
The board is looking at rebuilding the Corrales siphon, part of irrigation infrastructure in the Corrales area, which at the high end could cost $15 million, Dunning said.
“We’ve been really good about writing grants and getting grants, or low-interest loans. But a lot of those have come from the federal government, and I think that spigot is going to dry up,” Dunning said.
Occupational therapist and the board’s present vice chair, Colin Baugh was reelected to Position 4, also representing Bernalillo County. Baugh helped reestablish an acequia association in the North Valley in 2008 and was mayordomo for the Pierce Lateral Acequia Association in 2019.
The Sandoval County seat will continue to be filled by the former governor of the San Felipe Pueblo, Michael Sandoval. Sandoval has worked as a water resources specialist for the pueblo and as a civil engineering technician for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The other board members are John Kelly, who also represents Bernalillo County; at-large Director Stephanie Russo Baca; and Valencia County Director Brian Jiron. Their terms run through 2027.