By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
Special to the SUN

Prosecutors are asking a judge to hold a Santa Clara man without bail pending trial for spraying an Española police officer in the face with pepper spray, after the officer pulled a stun gun on him over a possible case of trespassing at Walmart.

Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Detective Matthew Jacobs charged David Jason Jordan Vigil, 29, with aggravated battery on an officer, attempt to commit a felony: unlawful taking of a vehicle; possession of drug paraphernalia, concealing identity, jaywalking and two counts of resisting arrest, on March 23.

Prosecutor Kent Wahlquist filed the motion on March 26, to have Vigil held without bail pending trial, writing in the motion that the evidence against him is strong, he “poses a significant danger of physical harm to random members of the community and responding officers” and was on probation at the time of his arrest.

“The Defendant has a long history of consistently committing crimes,” Wahlquist wrote.

A judge in Santa Fe previously found, last year, that Vigil was a danger to the community.

No hearing has been set in the case.

Jacobs wrote in a statement of probable cause that he took over the case because EPD Officer Andrew O’Hara was allegedly hurt by the pepper spray. O’Hara told him the incident began when Walmart security officers called him personally, complaining about two men. Jacobs did not write why, specifically, Walmart security officers called O’Hara to complain about the men.

Then, O’Hara said “multiple callers reported” the men harassing women and trying to get into their vehicles. When he approached them, they told him they were just talking to each other. He asked both for identification cards and a man wearing a yellow hat provided his. The man in black, later identified as Vigil, allegedly did not, and allegedly gave O’Hara someone else’s Social Security number, Jacobs wrote.

When Vigil asked if he was free to go, O’Hara told him he was not, as he waited for dispatchers to confirm that he was not trespassing on Walmart property. The man began to back away and O’Hara told him to stay. The man tried to run away, O’Hara grabbed his wrist, then pulled his stun gun and told him to stop running. Vigil then allegedly sprayed O’Hara in the face with pepper spray and the officer shot at him with the stun gun, apparently missing, Jacobs wrote.

It is not clear from Jacobs’s recounting the incident, if it took place on Walmart property.

Surveillance video from Walmart showed Vigil turning to flee from O’Hara, the officer pulling his stun gun and Vigil allegedly spraying O’Hara in the face, before running to the gas pumps at a nearby gas station and getting into the driver’s seat of a truck parked there, then jumping back out and running out of camera view, Jacobs wrote.

O’Hara saw that Vigil then ran “up to the middle pumps” at the Speedway gas station and O’Hara could hear someone say “get the (expletive) out of my car” and Vigil and another man began pushing each other. O’Hara saw Vigil stumble and run, Jacobs wrote.

When Jacobs first arrived on scene, O’Hara asked him for water for his eyes, and he could tell that O’Hara had been hit with pepper spray because “his eyes were watery and his face was red” and he was “in obvious pain,” he wrote.

According to medical studies, blurred vision is a problem after the first 10 minutes of pepper spray exposure that is “much improved” by the first hour.

Jacobs wrote, to underpin the jaywalking charge, that he knew from the investigation that Vigil crossed Riverside Drive and there are no crosswalks, as the closest one is 50 yards away.

O’Hara told Jacobs that he saw Vigil jump a fence across the road, he wrote.

Deputies located Vigil in a “water access hole” around Taco Bell and Game Stop. Inside the hole, they found a small commercial container of pepper spray and shoes. They also found a “burnt glass smoking device” which shattered when an unnamed person put it on the top of a patrol car and it rolled off, Jacobs wrote.

When Vigil was taken out of the hole by deputies, he allegedly “acknowledged” the rifle Jacobs had slung over his shoulder and told him that has “like 6.” Asked where he keeps them, he responded, “over there” and allegedly said “you can see it when you get shot with it next time I see you.”

Jacobs interrogated Vigil, who said he used the pepper spray in self defense because O’Hara was going to shoot him with the stun gun and he was afraid of getting shot. He reiterated that he was afraid O’Hara was going to “Tase him and attack him, so he pepper-sprayed him,” Jacobs wrote.

Jacobs wrote that Vigil said he was wanted on a probation violation warrant in a case where he “shot at the cops” a year ago.

In that case, Vigil pleaded guilty to aggravated assault on a peace officer and received a suspended 5-year sentence. A major violation report has been filed in that case, following the new arrest, but no new court dates have been set.

The only mention in the affidavit for an arrest warrant in the 2025 case, of shots fired, is a statement by two New Mexico State Police officers only identified as “Lopez” and “Green,” to the arresting deputies that Vigil “admitted to firing upon us with guns during our pursuit.”

In that case, the people in the car are noted as having thrown a wide variety of items out of their car, including glass bottles, a blanket, basketball shorts and two metal posts, at the deputies pursuing them, according to court documents.

Use of Force?

The Española Police Department appears to have two separate use of force policies. The policy effective since 2016 states that officers can use “less lethal force techniques” to protect themselves and others from harm, “restrain or subdue a resistant individual” and to bring “an unlawful situation safely and effectively under control.”

A second policy, 6.01, approved by Chief Mizel Garcia in 2021, is more expansive.

The newer policy states that officers can use force to arrest or detain someone, defend themselves or others, take someone into protective custody, prevent a crime, “overcome passive or active resistance to a lawful order” and “conduct a lawful search when an individual is actively resisting.”