By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
Special to the SUN

Prosecutors are asking for a judge to hold an Española man without bail pending trial after he allegedly reversed his truck toward a deputy’s car that tried to pull him over, then engaged deputies in a slow-speed chase, ending in the hills off State Road 399.

Deputy Alfonso Murillo arrested Anthony Martinez, 43, on attempt to commit aggravated assault on an officer, aggravated fleeing an officer, resisting arrest, reckless driving, improper evidence of registration, illegible registration plate, no insurance and failure to register a vehicle on March 1.

Murillo wrote in a statement of probable cause for Martinez’s arrest that he tried to pull the man over, in an old Ford with an “unreadable” license plate, and it stopped at the entrance to Private Drive 1311 in La Mesilla. As Murillo prepared to get out of his car, the truck backed up, and he avoided his car getting hit by reversing and pulling to the right. The truck then headed down State Road 399, going 21 mph.

The truck continued the slow chase, going between 12 to 22 mph, he wrote.

“The occupant appeared to be struggling to control the vehicle as it traveled north on New Mexico 399,” Murillo wrote. “The vehicle turned onto the frontage road off 399, continuing at approximately 22 miles per hour.”

Then the truck went into the hills before coming to a stop as the driver tried to put it back into drive. Murillo got out and saw Martinez allegedly trying to roll up his window, so he broke it with his stun gun, then shot Martinez with the stun gun, before dragging him out of the truck. With the help of another deputy, Murillo arrested him.

Deputies found Martinez was wanted on a failure to appear bench warrant for a traffic case from 2024, for failure to have insurance and registration and he allegedly told them the plates on his truck belonged to his mother’s car.

Prosecutor Kent Wahlquist wrote that as evidence of Martinez possibly committing new crimes if released, he failed to appear for his traffic case, and that he “poses a danger of physical harm to responding officers and the motoring public.”

Martinez’s criminal history is mostly drug charges, with a burglary case dismissed earlier this year.

A combined preliminary and dangerousness hearing is set for March 16, where a judge will decide what charges will go forward and if he is a danger or can be released pending trial.