The Native American activist shot during the 2023 protest over the placement of the Juan de Oñate statue at the Rio Arriba County complex is suing the Sheriff’s Office and the county for failing to protect the people there.
Jacob Johns filed the lawsuit on May 12, through his attorney Mariel Nanasi. Nanasi filed a second lawsuit the same day on behalf of another protester, Malaya Corrine Peixinho, 23. The two lawsuit complaints are mostly identical, with differences for the individual claims for damages being made by Johns and Peixinho.
Nanasi is the executive director of New Energy Economy, a nonprofit that advocates for renewable energy, and filed the lawsuit as part of her law firm, Nanasi & Haas.
Ryan Martinez, 24, pleaded no contest in October 2024 to shooting Johns in the stomach and threatening Peixinho with a gun. Per the plea deal, he received a four year sentence.
In the lawsuits, Nanasi also named each county commissioner as a defendant as well as the late Sheriff Billy Merrifield, “Undersheriff John Doe” and County Manager Jeremy Maestas.
The undersheriff at the time was, and continues to be, Monica Salazar, appointed in 2022, as detailed by the Rio Grande SUN at the time.
The lawsuit comes from the “failure and refusal” of the county and the Sheriff’s Office to provide a police presence at the Sept. 28, 2023 protest even though there was “a clear and present danger of violence at a peaceful demonstration,” Nanasi wrote.
Both Johns and Peixinho are suing on 10 grounds: violation of their rights under the New Mexico Civil Rights act including for violation of the rights to religion and to life, to be free from harm, to be free from bodily injury, a breach of a standard of reasonable care, breached duty of officers to ensure safety of others, breached duty to investigate, breached duty to monitor and supervise, breached duty to control and maintain a safe area and a duty to exercise ordinary care.
Johns told Searchlight New Mexico that one of the reasons he filed the lawsuit is to hold officers accountable and “see police do their job.”
“I was lying there, bleeding out in their parking lot for 10 minutes, and it wasn’t even the sheriff’s office that apprehended the shooter — it was tribal police,” Johns told Searchlight New Mexico.
Johns previously sued, and reached a settlement with, Martinez and his family for an undisclosed sum.
Evidence outlined
The county and Sheriff’s Office were well aware of the chance of violence at the protest, as the SUN previously reported, and was outlined in communications Merrifield sent the county, including one attached to the lawsuit.
Merrifield wanted the commissioners to know that the re-installation of the statue could turn violent, into a riot, or protesters could try to take down the statue.
“There are many scenarios that you can attribute which can turn into use of force situations, to include deadly force, which can turn into legal liability/tort claims for the County,” Merrifield wrote, and is quoted in the lawsuit as saying. “I want to do everything possible to prevent any situation from occurring, including to prevent any use of force scenarios.”
Martinez, the shooter, had been exchanging emails with Maestas, and expressed that the statue was taken down the last time “due to mob rule” and that the Sheriff’s Office should have been there the last time to protect it.
“On September 27, 2023, Martinez again wrote to Rio Arriba County Manager Maestas, ‘Has the ceremony been canceled tomorrow morning?? My statue won’t return!?’ ” Nanasi wrote.
During the protest, one deputy, Steve Binns, told Martinez that he needed to leave after seeing him swear at the crowd and deputies, as Nanasi wrote, “disruptive, antagonistic and provocative behavior.”
“However, shortly thereafter, Defendant Undersheriff John Doe with the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Department overruled Deputy Binns and told Martinez that he could stay,” Nanasi wrote. “Yet, after allowing Martinez to return to the scene, deputies with the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Department left the scene.”
Salazar, the unnamed and misgendered “John Doe,” is the first female undersheriff in Rio Arriba County’s history.
When deputies left the scene, they did so with “knowledge of a substantial risk of serious harm and were deliberately indifferent when they left the demonstration knowing that imminent danger and injury was foreseeable to Plaintiff, who was individually or as part of a discrete class of foreseeable victims,” Nanasi wrote.
It took 10 minutes for emergency medical personnel to arrive and Martinez was arrested by Pojoaque police as he fled to Albuquerque, she wrote.
Nanasi quoted from the SUN, where Merrifield talked about Martinez’s plea deal, saying the shooting never should have happened because the statute should have never been put up.
All the damages
Johns’s immune system has been permanently impaired following the shooting. He lost his spleen and other internal organs were severely damaged by the hollow point bullet. He had two drains implanted in his body for six months following the surgery and his torso remains “severely disfigured,” Nanasi wrote.
“(Johns) experienced extreme pain and suffering, damages and mental anguish which continue to this day due to the actions and inactions of Defendants and their failure to protect him from a man, Martinez, from whom they suspected violence,” she wrote.
Peixinho suffers from “emotional anguish” and experienced extreme anxiety, problems sleeping and a loss of faith following the shooting, as well as a post traumatic stress disorder diagnosis.
“Plaintiff could not work temporarily and then had to relocate given her fear, which led to the permanent loss of her employment,” Nanasi wrote.
Being called to testify at Martinez’s detention hearing by prosecutors gave Peixinho “significant distress and anxiety,” she wrote.