By Jennifer Garcia
jgarcia@riograndesun.com
Managing Editor

A La Mesilla man is facing several charges after Española City Police officers responded to a call for a domestic violence incident in progress on Carr Lane.

Officer Andrew O’Hara was dispatched at 8:17 pm. Feb. 12 after the Española/Rio Arriba County E911 Center received a call from a woman who said she was hiding and a man was drunk. O’Hara arrived and told an unidentified woman walking up the street that he was trying to find a man and woman fighting. She pointed him in the direction of a camper that was behind a mobile home, he wrote in his incident report.

“Officer Daniel Aragon and I located and approached the camper and could hear a male yelling inside of it as we approached,” he wrote.

They knocked on a back window and identified themselves as Española police, then asked for the man, later identified as Arthur Gonzales, 39, to come out and speak with them. Instead, Gonzales started arguing and throwing things, then told them to “come in and try.”

The officers continued trying to speak with him, but O’Hara wrote that Gonzales became loud and agitated. He finally opened the door, leaned out and said, “Come in here and see what happens, try me.” When asked if there was anyone else in the trailer with him, Gonzales said, “My dog and three little friends in my hand.”

O’Hara and Aragon continued to try and talk to Gonzales who said he didn’t want police to shoot him, but if they tired, he would shoot them. After continued threats, O’Hara and Aragon took cover and requested a sergeant report to the scene.

Ohkay Owingeh Tribal Police Officer Adrian Moya and Sgt. Travis Vigil arrived, along with EPD Officer Francisco Lovato and several New Mexico State Police officers, O’Hara wrote.

They tried for several minutes to get Gonzales to come out, but he still refused. A dispatcher told them that the woman Gonzales was fighting with was at Murphy’s gas station. Aragon went there to speak with her and she said she was the only other person in the camper with Gonzales. She said he dragged her into the camper by her hair and put his hands around her neck, making it hard for her to breathe and refused to let her leave, O’Hara wrote.

The woman was able to sneak away and call for help. She gave officers permission to enter her camper trailer and said she wanted Gonzales removed.

“While Officer Aragon was obtaining the statement from the victim, Arthur punched through the back window of the camper with his hand,” O’Hara wrote. “Arthur continued to refuse to exit the camper and was throwing stuff inside the camper.”

He was given several commands to exit but refused. EPD Sgt. Anthony Martinez arrived on scene and was briefed. He told the officers to deploy pepper spray into the broken window. Gonzales continued to argue even after it was deployed, so the officers used a crowbar to pry open the camper door and Moya removed Gonzales.

The man was handcuffed, arrested and read the Miranda Warning, then taken by ambulance to the Española Hospital for an evaluation and a medical clearance to be booked.

Gonzales was charged with two counts of aggravated assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon, one charge of attempt to commit a felony, to wit: aggravated battery against a household member, one count of false imprisonment, one count of resisting, evading or obstructing an officer and one count of criminal damage to the property of a household member. According to court records, a felony status conference on March 11 was canceled for “other” reasons, but it’s not clear why.