By Jennifer Garcia
jgarcia@riograndesun.com
Managing Editor

A woman was shot in the leg Feb. 27 in the Goodwill parking lot after a man and woman approached the car she was in and said “give me everything you got.”

Española Police Sgt. Richard Martinez told Detective David Jaramillo that a gunshot wound call was aired out by Española/Rio Arriba E911 at 5:11 p.m. He said the woman, later identified as Yessenia Evans, 32, of Glorieta, was at the Los Alamos Medical Center emergency room and Los Alamos Police were on scene, according Jaramillo’s incident report. Martinez said the shooting happened around 7 a.m.

Jaramillo went to the emergency room and spoke with LAPD Officer Adam Archuleta, who was parked next to the car that Evans and her boyfriend, later identified as Brandon Rodarte, 37, of Santa Fe, arrived in. Archuleta then took Jaramillo into the hospital room where the couple was waiting for Evans to be seen. Jaramillo introduced himself and read them both the Miranda Warning before questioning them.

Evans told the officer that she and Rodarte were at Allsups prior to going to Goodwill, where they planned to meet with a caseworker, Jaramillo wrote. They arrived early, so they parked and were waiting for the caseworker. Two other vehicles were parked along the fence, near the trailer: a BMW and a Subaru. Evans said she was sitting in the backseat, while Rodarte was the driver.

“She explained while they were waiting, they were approached by a male that came out of the Silver Subaru,” Jaramillo wrote.

The man asked them if they wanted to buy anything and Evans said they didn’t, so the man walked away. She said soon after, the man got out of the Subaru again and an unknown woman got out of the BMW and walked up to the car again; the woman walked to the passenger’s side and the man walked to the driver’s side.

“Yessenia advised she heard the woman say, ‘give me everything you got’ and stuck a dark in color long gun through the small portion of the open window,” Jaramillo wrote. “She advised at the same time the male attempted to reach into the vehicle and take the keys out of the ignition.”

Rodarte stopped the man from getting the keys and started the car, then drove off. As they fled, she heard a shot. Rodarte said he didn’t think the gun was real because it had tape on it; he thought it was a BB gun or a Co2 gun since the shot was not loud. As he was driving, he kept looking back to check on Evans and at that point, she grabbed her leg and showed him that she was bleeding, the report said.

“Yessenia said the two other vehicles left the parking lot and headed East on Highway 76,” Jaramillo wrote.

Evans and Rodarte drove toward the Española Hospital and parked, but never went in. While Jaramillo was interviewing the couple, hospital staff walked in to speak with them, so the officer went outside to seal off the car they arrived in. He ran the vehicle identification number and learned that the car was registered to Zubia Zapien. He asked dispatch to call a tow truck to transport the car, then walked back toward the hospital to finish his interviews with Evans and Rodarte, he wrote.

However, as he was walking back, he saw the couple coming out of the hospital and asked why they were leaving. Rodarte said they had to figure out how to get home, since Jaramillo had the car towed.

“I advised that there was an incident that occurred in the vehicle and it needed to be documented,” Jaramillo wrote.

They told him they understood but said he wasn’t helping them because they use the car to pick up their children from school and get their daily doses of methadone, the report said.

“Yessenia said she wouldn’t have come here if she knew we would’ve taken the car,” Jaramillo wrote. “She stated that’s why they didn’t come to the hospital right away.”

When Jaramillo asked what took them so long to go to the hospital, Evans said they didn’t think she was shot by a real gun but a “BB gun or something.”

“She explained even when they got here to the hospital that they stopped and parked then would leave about three times until she finally decided to go in,” Jaramillo wrote.

There is no additional information in the report regarding suspects in the case or whether any arrests were made.