Española City Police officers charged a Chimayó woman for allegedly trying to disarm a Santa Clara tribal police officer who was chasing her, after she was reported to be shoplifting.
Española Officer Andrew O’Hara wrote in a criminal complaint that on May 18, he charged Vanessa Trujillo, 37, with battery on an officer, disarming an officer, resisting arrest, concealing identity and shoplifting under $250.
Battery on an officer is a fourth-degree felony, disarming an officer is a third-degree felony and the rest of the charges were misdemeanors or petty misdemeanors.
O’Hara wrote that the woman was reported as walking south of Walgreens and Santa Clara Tribal Police Officer Manuel Abeyta-Ayala chased her through the swamp area on foot. She threw “her human species,” likely intended to be feces, at him, and then he shot her with his stun gun. She got up and tried to take his gun, pulling on the grip, but he stopped her and arrested her.
However, O’Hara charged her with disarming an officer, a charge that requires her to “knowingly remove a forearm or weapon” from an officer, according to the criminal complaint. That’s something that doesn’t appear to have happened.
O’Hara then tried to identify Trujillo and she gave him two different names and dates of birth that were not her own. He eventually figured out who she was. He also took the $95.93 worth of merchandise back to Walgreens.
He served her on a bench warrant for failure to appear in a misdemeanor larceny case.
Los Alamos Judge Catherine Taylor set her bail at a $5,000 unsecured bond. A status conference is set for June 25.
O’Hara was also recently involved in another recent arrest on charges for conduct that hadn’t happened yet.
In another case, he was with a fellow officer who arrested a woman for drunk driving, except, she hadn’t started driving or turned on her car yet, when officers arrested her.