An Española Valley High School sophomore who allegedly beat up a younger student after class was arrested Sept. 11.
Freshman Santana Garcia was waiting to board a school bus home when Leonnette Martinez accused Garcia of “fooling around” with Martinez’s boyfriend and threatened to fight her, Garcia said in a written statement made to Española Police. Garcia said in the statement that she admitted to Martinez she had hung out with and kissed Martinez’s boyfriend but she was no longer interested in him.
“I told her what we had did but she kept on going on about it,” Garcia wrote. “And I told her I wasn’t even interested anymore and she just called me a whore.”
According to a police report, Martinez then grabbed Garcia by the hair and punched her in the face. Garcia hit back, and the students fell to the ground and “rolled on the ground off the curb fighting” until separated by security guards, the report states.
Officer Abinashi Khalsa wrote in the report that Martinez’s account of the incident matches Garcia’s statement. The fight left Garcia with a bleeding cut above her right eye and Martinez with smaller cuts on her left hand, likely “an offensive wound” from punching Garcia, Khalsa wrote in the report.
Martinez was reported to the Juvenile Probation Office and released to her father, according to documents. Both students received five-day suspensions.