Man shot during Juan de Oñate statue rally in Española

Sep. 28—Activists held banners reading "Do Not! Resurrect Oñate." They broke out into chants of "Land Back." And several, including Jennifer Marley of San Ildefonso Pueblo gave speeches with a wired microphone denouncing colonialism.

They were there to celebrate Rio Arriba County officials' decision to postpone plans to relocate a controversial statue of conquistador Juan de Oñate just outside the County Annex building Thursday morning in Española.

But as Marley, an organizer for the Native American advocacy group The Red Nation, continued to speak, a scuffle broke out behind the people watching her. Someone called for all the children attending the rally to gather in the middle for their protection.

Several men were grappling with another man, wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat, who activists later said was trying to make his way to an altar set up on a pedestal where the Oñate was to be erected. Authorities later identified the man as 23-year-old Ryan Martinez of Sandia Park.

As people watching the scuffle yelled at the men to stop, Martinez broke free, hopped over a half-wall, pulled a handgun from his waistband and fired one shot, hitting a Native American man in the torso. Onlookers screamed and sprinted in the other direction.

Authorities have not yet publicly identified the man who was shot, but he was whisked away in an ambulance. Three Sisters Collective co-founder Christina Castro, a friend of the man who was shot, said later Thursday afternoon that he'd been taken to University of New Mexico Hospital to remove the bullet and was in stable condition.

Castro said that when the shooting happened, she immediately took off running with the women and children, past the building and down a hill. But when she heard it was her friend who was shot, she went back to be with him, where others had already begun treating his wound with gauze from a first aid kit.

"I went immediately, or as soon as I could compose myself, because we were all panicking," she said. "I went over there and I held him until the police came."

New Mexico State Police spokesman Ray Wilson said Martinez was immediately taken into custody shortly after fleeing in a white Tesla. The sheriff's office said he's being held, but it is unclear if he has been charged.

A Facebook profile apparently belonging to Martinez showed him wearing a MAGA hat standing near a Tesla and, in another photo, with a handgun holstered in his pants. The profile said he went to Los Lunas High School and the bio read, "(expletive) The Chinese Communist Party and (expletive) Joe Biden. TRUMP WON. (pre-law major)."

The posts pushed election fraud claims and included a no-context picture of Trump with Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea. The profile once reviewed the Sandoval County Sheriff's Office saying "defund these guys, they do nothing anyways" and liked pages on American history, MyPillow and a Chihuahua pretending to be a construction worker.

In the past week, the profile shared news stories about the Oñate statue being resurrected in Española, adding American flag emojis to the post.

Deputies were not on the scene of the shooting when it happened, Rio Arriba County Sheriff's Office Major Lorenzo Aguilar said, adding that while there were still people out there, police had no lingering concerns. He said the shooting played out just outside the sheriff's office, and deputies responded quickly when the shot was fired.

A Journal photographer who was at the scene said deputies initially ran Martinez off after he argued with activists, but that he came back. The deputies left more than an hour before the shooting. The photographer said it took 10 to 15 minutes for deputies to respond after gunfire erupted.

About 60 people attended the rally, which was billed as a victory celebration by activists in the wake of the county postponing the statue's relocation outside the County Annex building.

The statue was originally taken down in 2020 from a spot in Alcalde, also in Rio Arriba County. But the statue has been a source of controversy since it was first erected almost three decades ago, with many seeing Oñate as a killer and enslaver of Pueblo peoples.

"He stood for violence, for genocide, for rape," Marley said in an interview Thursday afternoon. "That point was proven today."

In 1997, someone cut one foot off the statue, an act that harkened back to Oñate, following a revolt, having one foot of Acoma Pueblo men 25 or older cut off and sentencing them to two decades of "personal servitude," according to the Office of the State Historian's website.

This is the second time shooting has erupted at a rally related to an Oñate statue in New Mexico.

In June 2020, Steven Ray Baca shot and injured Scott Williams as protesters and counter-protesters clashed during a rally to remove the Oñate statue at Old Town in Albuquerque. Baca had gotten into back-to-back altercations, using Mace on some and physically assaulting others, before he shot Williams, who was holding a skateboard.

Baca initially was charged with aggravated battery with great bodily harm in that incident, but court records show prosecutors offered him a deal — dismissing that charge. Baca pleaded no contest to aggravated battery for pulling a protester down by her hair and unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon.

The leadup

The statue of Oñate has been sitting in a garage maintained by Rio Arriba County since it was taken down in 2020.

County officials had originally planned to put up the statue Thursday morning, an administrative decision County Manager Jeremy Maestas said he made in consultation with county commissioners after receiving several requests from constituents to put it back up.

But Wednesday evening, county officials postponed the ceremony "due to unforeseen circumstances and in the interest of public safety."

Maestas declined to elaborate on why the ceremony was postponed. In a letter sent to county commissioners on Tuesday, Rio Arriba County Sheriff Billy Merrifield raised concerns with the statue's relocation.

Maestas said there are currently no plans for when the statue may go up.

"I'm very, very concerned with what's transpired here today," Maestas said. "The county as a whole definitely supports people expressing their opinions through their First Amendment right, but we do not by any means condone people expressing that when they're causing hurt or harm to other people physically."

Rio Arriba County Commissioner Alex Naranjo said he'd been talking about getting the statue back up for months, and that its relocation was finally scheduled to recognize National Hispanic Heritage Month.

He dismissed criticism of the statue as "agitators from the outside," and referred to Oñate as "one of our founding fathers."

"It was Oñate, through the settlers, (who was) able to help these Pueblos survive ... in my opinion," he said.

Marley said that interpretation is "nonsense" and "revisionist history."

"Anyone who claims this is about heritage or religion is misguided," she said. "This is not about tensions between Natives and Hispanos."

Safety concerns

During a Thursday afternoon news conference, Merrifield said he told county commissioners that he "disagreed with them moving this statue at the current time."

In the letter, shared with the Journal, Merrifield wrote he was "in full support of your decision to put the statue back up" but did not "believe it was appropriate or safe" to have it in front of the County Annex.

"The Oñate statue belongs at its original location, and can be properly, and safely kept upright ... where visitors can appreciate the history and by continuing to further heritage awareness," he wrote.

Merrifield said, in the letter, that "none of us have a crystal ball." But he said the sheriff's office had received "alleged intelligence" that a possible riot may occur by protesters who "plan on spoiling such relocation and the event as a whole."

In the letter, he said the possibility of protesters trying to bring down the statue could force deputies to "act accordingly" and possibly use force, "to include deadly force which can turn into a legal liability/tort claims for the County."

"We do not want to bring any negativity to the County of Rio Arriba," Merrifield wrote.

Merrifield, in the briefing, said he was grateful for the two commissioners "that stood up and made the decision" to stop the rededication. Merrifield did not identify those commissioners.

"Once again, the saddest part about this is we have another incident with gun violence," he said.

Reactions

Law enforcement officials were quick to react to Thursday's shooting.

"Our office's prosecutors and personnel are shocked and saddened by the shooting that occurred this afternoon in Española outside of our office at the Rio Arriba County Annex Building," 1st Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said in a written statement. "It is disheartening to see ongoing cultural tensions in our state boil over and result in violence."

The state's top cop, Attorney General Raúl Torrez, condemned the violence in a written statement, and said there is "no excuse and no place for political violence in America.

"Regardless of our diverse political views we must remain committed to the rule of law and the right of every citizen to express themselves without fear," he said.