Dinged door said to have led to shooting of woman in Española

Jul. 20—A trip to the grocery store led to an emergency room visit for a 50-year-old Española woman who was allegedly shot last month during a dispute with a teen over a dinged car door.

"Right now, I live in fear," Tina Juarez said Tuesday. "I'm scared that they might come back and finish me off."

She said she still has a bullet lodged in her neck.

"The doctors are scared to remove it," she said. "They're waiting to see if it moves because they're scared if they remove it that it'll go straight to my main artery and kill me."

As she continues to recover from her painful wounds, Juarez also is struggling to understand why the alleged shooter, 18-year-old Angel Chavez of Albuquerque, was released on house arrest.

"I am upset — I'm furious, actually — that this judge let this individual out on house arrest after he almost killed me," she said.

Juarez went shopping at Center Market on North Riverside Drive in Española the afternoon of June 21. When she returned to her car, she said, a black Mazda was parked so close she had to squeeze into her driver's seat sideways.

"The individual that was in the back seat [of the Mazda] on the passenger side put his window down and told me, 'You dinged my door.' I said, 'I'm sorry. It was an accident. I apologize,' " Juarez said.

But Chavez refused to accept her apology, she said.

"He kept saying, 'You dinged my door.' "

She had a gut feeling "something bad was going to happen," she said. She felt danger in the tone in his voice and his facial expression.

"It was like the devil was in him," she said.

Chavez opened the back passenger door of the Mazda, preventing her from backing out of her parking spot, Juarez said. When the driver and another passenger returned from the store, she said, she apologized to the driver, later identified as Derick Martinez.

"I said, 'I'm sorry. I accidentally dinged your door. But could you please tell him to close the door. He won't let me leave.' "

She said Martinez asked Chavez to close the door, but he refused.

"Do you feel like dying today? Because I can make that happen," Chavez is said to have told her, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

In a matter of moments, she said, he pulled out a small-caliber handgun and shot her, striking her first in the wrist as she put her left arm up in defense. The bullet went through her wrist and struck her neck.

After the shooting, Martinez drove off with Chavez and his sisters Rayann and Alisha Martinez, the affidavit says.

"They drove off like nothing happened," Juarez said. "They had the audacity to drive away not caring and left me there like a dog. I could've bled to death. I could've died, and I have two daughters and a granddaughter."

Derick Martinez told police as he was getting ready to reverse, he heard a loud bang from inside his car and saw Chavez holding a gun.

"Mr. Martinez stated [he] saw the lady next to him in the white car was holding her neck, screaming that she was shot," the affidavit says. "Mr. Martinez stated he freaked out of what just happened and [Chavez] was telling him to leave and go."

Rayann Martinez, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, told police she heard a "loud bang pop" inside the vehicle before also seeing Juarez holding her neck and screaming.

The affidavit does not include a statement from Alisha Martinez, who was sitting in the backseat with Chavez. The document identifies her as Chavez's girlfriend.

After driving away, Derick Martinez dropped Chavez off at a nearby auto parts store. Rayann Martinez told police she had asked her brother to stop the car and tell Chavez to get out, according to the affidavit.

Española police had asked for the public's help finding Chavez, who turned himself in a few days later.

He was arrested on suspicion of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, shooting at or from a motor vehicle resulting in great bodily harm, assault with intent to commit a violent felony with intent to kill and unlawful possession of a handgun by a person younger than 19. Chavez will turn 19 next month.

According to court documents, prosecutors filed a motion June 30 seeking pretrial detention for Chavez. They argued no conditions of release would "reasonably protect" the community's safety from him.

State District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer denied the state's petition, however. She wrote in her order the state had failed to prove Chavez presented too great a danger to be released.

Juarez said she can't believe the suspected shooter isn't behind bars while awaiting his trial.

"This judge, how dare she," Juarez said. "The system has failed me."

Marlowe Sommer did not return a message seeking comment.

Court documents show Chavez is under house arrest and was released to the custody of his mother, Monique Chavez. Conditions of his release include electronic monitoring and GPS tracking.

Reached by phone at her home in Albuquerque, Monique Chavez declined to comment.

"I'm not too sure if I want to say anything right now without our lawyer present," she said.

Angel Chavez's attorney, William Waggoner, declined to comment about the case but said there's more to the story.

"While you may have an affidavit and this or that from [Juarez], there are always two sides to the story, and as we proceed further through discovery, I think we'll see some other sides of this story," he said.

Asked why his client was carrying a gun, Waggoner said the question was based on assumptions, not facts.

"You're assuming that he shot her — you don't know that," he said. "There's a lot of ocean between here and the shore."

Juarez, who suffers from fibromyalgia and had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety before the shooting, said she is in "excruciating pain" from her bullet wounds. She said her boyfriend had to take a month off work to take care of her, including driving her to Albuquerque for doctors' appointments two to three times a week.

"When I get in the vehicle [to go to Albuquerque], I don't look to the sides," she said. "Who's to say the next person in the other vehicle might have a gun and shoot me? So, I go all the way praying and all the way coming back praying.

"I fear for my safety. I fear for my life."

Phaedra Haywood and Nathan Lederman of The New Mexican contributed to this report.

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.