Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s deputies charged two women with child abuse, and one of them with drunk driving, following a crash on Oct. 14.
Deputy Daniel Martinez arrested and charged Esperanza San Juan, 22, of Dixon, with drunk driving and child abuse; and Taliyah Bird, 21, of Santa Fe, with child abuse.
According to the criminal complaint for San Juan’s arrest, Martinez was called to a crash on State Road 68. Once there, he saw a white sedan with front-end damage and San Juan, who allegedly admitted to driving. He noted bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, a smell of alcohol coming from her and an open yellow box with a Twisted Tea logo in the car. Further away, Bird was holding her crying infant, he wrote.
San Juan denied drinking, then admitted drinking, and he arrested her, then had her conduct a series of field sobriety tests, which she allegedly failed.
Later, at the sheriff’s office, she blew a 0.15, indicating her blood-alcohol level, which was nearly twice the presumptive limit of 0.08, Martinez wrote.
The deputy did not describe how the crash happened, what the sedan crashed into or who reported it.
The criminal complaint Martinez wrote for Bird’s arrest contained four paragraphs of narrative, nearly all of which appeared in the complaint for San Juan’s arrest, including that she looked and smelled drunk and that Bird was standing away from the car following the crash, holding her child.
Deputy Hansel Felix “conducted a welfare check on the child, where he placed Ms. Bird under arrest,” he wrote.
The criminal complaint for Bird and San Juan’s arrests on the child abuse charge still contains the instructions for officers filling out the form, which requires them to “describe situation briefly” to explain the dangerous situation the child was put in.
That section was never filled out for either arrest and instead, states that they placed the child in a situation that may endanger the child’s health, “to wit: (describe situation briefly).”
The specifics of the charge against Bird are unclear, including if she and the child were in the car when it crashed, what their relation to San Juan is, and what dangerous situation the infant was placed in that formed the basis of the charge.
Bird was released on her own recognizance on Oct. 16 and a status conference is set for Nov. 12.
San Juan was also released on Oct. 16, but with orders to report to pre-trial services, and her status conference is also set for Nov. 12.