By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
Special to the SUN

Prosecutors are asking for a 19-year-old Española man to be held without bail after he allegedly shot at a house on North McCurdy Road as he drove by, hitting a man twice.

Española Police Detective David Jaramillo charged Peter Santiago Velarde on April 14 with aggravated battery, shooting at a building resulting in injury and shooting from a vehicle resulting in great bodily harm following the April 4 shooting.

Velarde allegedly confessed to the shooting on the Saturday after Good Friday, saying that he was angry when he fired the gun.

In a motion to hold Velarde without bail pending trial, as a danger to the community, prosecutor Kent Wahlquist wrote that the evidence against him is strong and that he “poses a danger of gun violence and physical harm.”

A combined preliminary and dangerousness hearing is set for April 28.

Jaramillo wrote in an affidavit for an arrest warrant that the case blew open on April 10, when he was walking through the Lucero Center following a meeting and peeked inside the weight room, where he saw Axel Tolano Lopez, whom he identified as a potential suspect. He marshaled three other officers and they took Lopez to the police station for questioning.

Lopez told Jaramillo that he was there when the shooting happened but Velarde was the shooter and he worked at Lowe’s, he wrote.

Officers then went to Lowe’s, detained him and took him to the police station. After reading his Miranda rights, including his right to remain silent, Velarde told them “rumors” were going around that he shot someone, Jaramillo wrote.

“I explained to Mr. Velarde that I had already spoken to others, in reference to the case and that I already knew everything that had happened and who was there,” he wrote. “I told him it was better if he just told the truth. I then asked Mr. Velarde if he was the shooter and Mr. Velarde advised ‘yes.’”

Velarde told Jaramillo that they had been driving around town earlier that day and at one point, he got into an argument with two men. Later one of them called him and said he wanted to fight, so he and his friends drove back to their house, Jaramillo wrote.

Justin Marshall, the man who was shot twice, made a derogatory comment about four people who died in a car crash. Velarde allegedly told Jaramillo that he was worried the man went back into his house to get a gun, so he pulled his own. Velarde and his friends got back into the car as he kept his gun pointed at Marshall, he wrote.

As the car drove away and Velarde had his gun pointed at Marshall, he told Velarde “shoot (expletive),” he wrote.

“He advised he became very angry at that point in time and began to shoot multiple rounds in the direction of Justin who was standing in front of the residence next to a vehicle,” Jaramillo wrote. “Mr. Velarde started he didn’t know Justin was actually struck but later learned Justin sustained two gunshot wounds one in the throat area where it touches the chest and the other to the back of the right shoulder.”