Former deputy sentenced to 30 days for using stun gun on teen
Jan. 5—A former Rio Arriba County sheriff's deputy was sentenced Thursday to 30 days in prison and 17 months of supervised probation for striking a developmentally disabled high school student with a stun gun in 2019.
Jeremy Barnes was sentenced for one count of false imprisonment as part of a plea deal Dec. 2 with the state Attorney General's Office, which brought the charges.
Barnes also has agreed to relinquish any police certification he held and to never work in law enforcement again.
"Although we did not receive the 18 months in prison that we argued for, we are still satisfied that Mr. Barnes will be receiving jail time for his crime," Lauren Rodriguez, the attorney general's spokeswoman, wrote in an email.
State District Judge Jason Lidyard, who presided over the case, decided the sentencing.
Barnes' attorney, Tom Clark, didn't respond to a request for comment.
Barnes was initially charged with child abuse, false imprisonment, aggravated battery and violation of ethical principles of public service after he was seen on a widely circulated video repeatedly using an electronic weapon on then-15-year-old Abraham Martinez during a tussle at Española Valley High School in May 2019.
This incident led to Martinez receiving a $1.3 million settlement from Rio Arriba County and the Española school district.
Martinez now awaits trial on a charge of first-degree murder in connection with the 2021 shooting death of 19-year-old Isaiah Herrera in Nambé.
Had Barnes been convicted on all counts with which he was charged, he would have faced a maximum sentence of more than five years in prison.
The 2019 video shows Barnes enter a room where school security staff were questioning Martinez, who had been detained on suspicion of drug activity.
Barnes wrote in his report Martinez had been verbally uncooperative and would not allow security staff to search him.
While he was trying to restrain the boy after commanding him to stand up, the report said, the student "pulled away with force" then pushed Barnes away with a clenched fist and punched a security guard.
That prompted a struggle, during which Barnes said, "I'm going to [expletive] tase you."
Barnes fired the device into the teen's chest at close range, sending him to the floor, face down.
The security guard placed his knee on the back of Martinez's neck. Barnes inflicted two additional shocks as the boy lay screaming on the floor.
Barnes was fired later that year, just a week before the Attorney General's Office announced it was pursuing charges against him.
In the email, Rodriguez wrote that Barnes' law enforcement certification already has been revoked, and he'll never regain it.
"This specific incident was especially troubling considering that Barnes, who was at the time a school resource officer, decided to use excessive and unnecessary force against a student," Rodriguez wrote.
