My buddy Willow likes to kill child rabbits. So does Alejandro Gomez. One necessary distinction is that Willow, who additionally likes to eat child rabbits, is half Border Collie and half Australian Shepherd, whereas Gomez is a human employed as a sheriff’s deputy in Grant County, New Mexico.
A not too long ago revealed cellphone video exhibits Gomez demanding that one other deputy, Marcus Salas, let him maintain a child rabbit that Salas discovered in the midst of a dust street whereas working an evening shift close to Hachita, New Mexico, final August together with Gomez, Sgt. Brandon Reese, and Cpl. Cesar Torres. Gomez is persistent and at one level threatens Salas with a taser. Salas doesn’t wish to hand over the rabbit as a result of he’s anxious that Gomez will kill it, which is exactly what Gomez does by hurling it in opposition to a patrol automobile after Salas, making an attempt to de-escalate the state of affairs, lastly provides in below stress from Reese and Torres in addition to Gomez. The 2 supervisors, who might be heard laughing arduous within the video, evidently thought the entire thing was hilarious.
That disturbing incident is a part of a legal criticism in opposition to Gomez that features one cost of utmost cruelty to animals and 4 prices of aggravated assault on a police officer—i.e., Salas, who says he was repeatedly harassed by Gomez, together with incidents wherein Gomez drew his taser and his gun. New Mexico State Police Agent Justin Blacklock, who investigated Salas’ complaints after an inner evaluate appeared to go nowhere, filed these prices on February 14. However just like the video, which Blacklock says Reese recorded, the fees got here to gentle solely not too long ago.
On the face of it, Gomez’s alleged gunplay, which includes a human sufferer, is extra alarming than his vicious remedy of the child rabbit. However mixed, the allegations make you marvel what kind of individuals Grant County is trusting with weapons and badges. It’s particularly worrisome that two supervisors not solely noticed nothing mistaken with the habits that considered one of them jovially documented however truly egged on Gomez as he sought to torment Salas with the form of informal cruelty that’s normally seen as a marker of dangerously delinquent tendencies.
Salas says the rabbit incident was a part of a sample that started early within the morning on August 5, 2024. Based on an arrest affidavit that Blacklock filed together with the legal criticism, Salas was engaged on his laptop on the Grant County Sheriff’s Workplace in Silver Metropolis when he took out his cellphone to textual content a relative. “Deputy Gomez got here up from behind Deputy Salas and snatched the unlocked mobile phone,” says the affidavit, which summarizes the account that Salas gave in an interview. “Deputy Gomez then proceeded to run by the workplace with Deputy Salas’s unlocked mobile machine.”
After Salas, who didn’t need Gomez to “have entry to his private knowledge,” chased after the cellphone snatcher, Gomez “immediately circled, unholstered his taser, and pointed it instantly at Deputy Salas’s physique,” Blacklock writes. “Deputy Salas smacked the taser away and instructed Deputy Gomez to cease horseplaying.”
Just a few moments later, after Gomez took off the vest that held his taser, Salas “picked up Deputy Gomez’s vest and instructed him that he was not so robust with out his taser,” the affidavit says. Gomez then “unholstered his responsibility weapon and pointed it instantly” at Salas, telling him “he was robust with the firearm.” Salas reported that he was “shocked and scared on the firearm deployment.” Though “he didn’t consider” Gomez would deliberately tase or shoot him, Salas anxious that Gomez’s “reckless habits” might lead to a “negligent discharge.”
Based on the affidavit, Torres “witnessed Deputy Gomez threatening Deputy Salas with the firearm,” “scolded him for it,” and instructed him to “put his gun away.” Salas left the workplace at that time. “Later that night time,” Blacklock says, “Deputy Salas complained to Corporal Torres about Deputy Gomez’s conduct and requested him to do one thing to appropriate the habits, however nothing was achieved.”
The rabbit incident occurred 11 days later, on August 16. Salas, whereas working an “time beyond regulation shift” with Gomez, Torres, and Reese, “noticed a child rabbit on the roadway and stopped earlier than operating it over,” the affidavit says. “He received out of his patrol automobile and approached the child rabbit to scare it off the roadway. The rabbit didn’t transfer as a result of it was afraid. Deputy Salas was in a position to stroll up [to] the rabbit and choose it up in his arms.”
Salas “was very enthusiastic about holding a wild child rabbit, so he started taking images to ship to his household,” Blacklock writes. “His intention was to maneuver the animal away from the roadway and launch it after he took images.” The opposite deputies “stopped behind him and exited their patrol automobiles to see what was occurring. The deputies hovered round him and started laughing loudly. In addition they took images/movies with their telephones.” Reese’s video exhibits what occurred subsequent.
Originally of the one-minute video, Torres is holding the rabbit. Reese repeatedly tells Torres to let Gomez maintain the rabbit. Torres as a substitute arms the rabbit to Salas, who says, “Do not throw it.” One of many supervisors (it’s unclear which) says Salas ought to let Gomez maintain the rabbit. As Gomez asks to carry the rabbit, Reese reiterates that Salas ought to let him. “You are going to fucking kill it,” Salas says. “I will not throw it,” Gomez says. “I swear.” Torres, who’s laughing, says, “Let it go.”
When Gomez walks away from the street and begins to place the rabbit down so it could possibly escape, Gomez attracts his taser and factors it at Salas, saying, “Give it to me proper now.” Salas continues to be smiling at this level (maybe nervously), so it isn’t clear how critically he took that risk. However in keeping with the affidavit, “the taser was armed with the sunshine/laser fastened on Deputy Salas’s physique,” and Salas thought Gomez would possibly truly use the weapon.
4 seconds later, Reese, who’s “laughing hysterically” (as Blacklock places it), tells Salas to “let him maintain it.” Salas is about to capitulate, however he once more needs Gomez to vow that he will not damage the rabbit.
“Are you going to kill it?” Salas says. “I will not,” Gomez assures him. “Do not fucking kill it,” Salas says. “I will not kill it,” Gomez responds. “You higher not kill it,” Salas reiterates. “I will not kill it,” Gomez says once more. However just a few seconds after Salas arms over the rabbit, Gomez smiles broadly at Reese’s cellphone digicam and throws the rabbit in opposition to a patrol truck, inflicting an audible thud. “Rattling,” Salas says. Reese and Torres are nonetheless laughing.
Gomez “threw the animal with such pressure that it fatally wounded the animal,” Blacklock writes. Gomez “stated he dispatched the animal because it lay on the bottom dying in order that it will not undergo.”
Based on the affidavit, Gomez was not by messing with Salas. Just a few hours later, Blacklock says, Salas “realized his flashlight was operating out of battery,” so “he determined to attract his responsibility handgun and see if his weapon mounted gentle had energy.” Salas “aimed the weapon in the other way of the opposite deputies and examined his weapon mounted gentle.” Then he “holstered his weapon and turned again towards the opposite deputies,” at which level he noticed that Gomez “was pointing his responsibility handgun instantly at Deputy Salas’s face” from about three ft away.
Salas, who “was frightened and thought he may very well be shot within the face…jumped again and instructed Deputy Gomez to cease,” Blacklock writes. “Deputy Gomez instructed Deputy Salas that he was solely testing his responsibility mounted gentle like Deputy Salas was. Deputy Salas instructed us that Deputy Gomez did not have a weapon mounted gentle throughout this encounter in order that rationalization didn’t make sense.”
Salas was “upset concerning the incidents which befell through the time beyond regulation shift,” the affidavit says, and “he was much more upset about the truth that these incidents had been witnessed by two supervisors,” who “did nothing to intervene.” When “just a few weeks handed and nothing was achieved about these incidents,” Salas “determined to formally file a criticism in order that an administrative investigation may very well be accomplished.” He “went above his chain of command and reported the incidents to Captain Stephen Gallegos” on September 23. The following inner affairs investigation “appeared to outcome
in little or no disciplinary motion being taken.”
Throughout these incidents, Blacklock says, Reese and Torres “didn’t intervene as required by New Mexico Statute.” He says they and Gomez, who has been positioned on go away pending the decision of his case, declined to be interviewed as a part of the state police investigation “with out an legal professional current.”
Grant County Sheriff Raul Villanueva declined to touch upon the case. “Sadly, there’s an ongoing legal prosecution of considered one of my deputies, a county worker,” he instructed The Grant County Beat. “He’s entitled to due course of. Subsequently, the County can not touch upon both the pending litigation or the personnel issues.”
Gary Mitchell, Gomez’s lawyer, was a bit extra forthcoming. “We do not suppose he did something mistaken, clearly,” Mitchell instructed the Albuquerque Journal on Thursday. “We’re ready to see what proof the state has.…But it surely appears like an [intra]-office state of affairs that ought to not have became a legal case.”
