By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
Special to the SUN

Prosecutors are asking a district judge to hold a Chimayó man without bail pending trial after New Mexico State Police officers charged him for fleeing from police in his car, following a domestic violence call.

Officer Jackson Rodgers charged Jose Martinez, 47, with aggravated assault on an officer, aggravated feeling an officer, resisting arrest and reckless driving for the March 9 chase.

Martinez is set for a combined dangerousness and preliminary hearing on March 24.

Rodgers wrote in a criminal complaint that he was sent to find Martinez, who was reported to be driving erratically, that he needed psychological services and that he had been involved in a domestic moments prior.

Martinez’s wife told dispatchers that he was driving west on Route 76 toward Española and another caller said he was pulling into McDonald’s.

Two officers found him in the drive-thru lane and tried to get him to get out of the car. He did and spoke to the officer just outside of his driver’s door, got back in and “when attempting to flee, nearly struck Ofc. Sanchez,” Rodgers wrote.

Police then started to chase him on Riverside Drive. He ran through an intersection and nearly hit multiple cars before an officer rammed his car. Officers then ordered him out of his car at gun-point, calling it a “high-risk stop.” He got out but refused to walk toward officers and one shot him with his stun gun. While he was being taken to a patrol car, he didn’t follow their commands and had to be lifted into a patrol car, Rodgers wrote.

Martinez’s wife told officers that he had been acting erratically over the past few days after leaving the hospital in Albuquerque without being discharged, he refused to listen to her and “left the house in an erratic manner.”

“(She) stated that she was adamant about keeping her children away from Jose and the vehicle,” Rodgers wrote. “While Jose was yelling at them to get into his vehicle, (wife) blocked his access and directed the children toward her vehicle instead.”

She left the house in her car and said she was afraid for her safety and for the safety of her children.

Aside from him yelling, Rodgers did not describe any behavior other than him being “erratic” as a basis for the fear.

Rio Arriba Magistrate Judge Joseph Madrid set Martinez’s bail at $2,500, cash-only, on March 10, and ordered that if he is released, it would be on the highest level of pre-trial monitoring, which is usually house arrest. Prosecutors immediately filed for a time extension before filing to have him held without bail.

Prosecutor Kent Wahlquist wrote in the motion to have Martinez held without bail that he poses “a danger of physical harm to the motoring public and responding officers” and that he was on conditions of release in an Albuquerque case where he was charged with false imprisonment, battery on a household member and resisting arrest.

In that case, the wife told officers that after his cousin died recently, he took on “a secondary personality that (she) labeled Demonic” and that day, started yelling that no one was going anywhere as they prepared to leave for an appointment with the children. He allegedly blocked the door and wouldn’t let her leave, according to court documents.