A 71-year-old wheelchair-bound Vallecitos man is facing a charge of aggravated battery after he allegedly stabbed a man with a 3-inch knife at the Mesa Vista High School in Ojo Caliente Saturday during a graduation party.
Prosecutors are contemplating whether they will ask to have Aron Martinez Jr. held without bail pending trial, after filing a motion for a continuance in the case on Monday (6/15), following his arrest that day.
Martinez is accused of stabbing Gabriel Rodella in the stomach during an argument at the school, though it’s unclear what the two were arguing about,.
Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cedric Patterson filed the affidavit for an arrest warrant for Martinez on the single charge. He wrote that Rodella went into surgery for his stab wound and received a blood transfusion and plasma because he lost so much blood.
When Patterson got to the high school, he learned that Martinez, whom multiple people identified as the person who stabbed Rodella, had already fled the scene. Dispatchers later got a call from Martinez’s daughter who told them that her dad was mentally unstable, “armed ‘like the apocalypse’” and that deputies should use caution when trying to arrest him, he wrote.
A woman told Patterson that Aron Martinez III, Martinez Jr.’s son, was talking to Rodella when he called to his dad. She said Martinez III became “visibly upset, describing his face as turning red,” and then Martinez Jr. appeared to hit Rodella in the stomach, he wrote.
“(Woman) stated Rodella immediately backed away, and she observed blood coming from Rodella,” he wrote.
Rodella’s stepfather told Patterson that there had been multiple incidents with Martinez Jr. throughout the evening. Earlier, a group of children were playing with a ball, kicking it around, when several came inside and told them that Martinez Jr. “was encouraging younger girls to kick the boys in their private areas,” Patterson wrote.
Rodella’s mother told Patterson that her son had approached Martinez Jr. and told him he respected him and “understood he was disabled” and Martinez Jr. responded by saying he had no respect for Rodella and later called him a “piece of (expletive)” in Spanish, he wrote.
The stepfather said Martinez III approached Rodella and asked him to apologize, although it’s unclear for what, and a man at the party tried to calm everyone down, Patterson wrote.
“And then, in his words, ‘all hell broke loose,” Patterson wrote.
Rodella’s stepmother told Patterson that Martinez Jr. had a knife hanging around his neck, with a 3-inch blade.
The man at the party told Patterson that Martinez III approached Rodella and asked “What’s going on with my dad?” which led to the argument where Martinez Jr. stabbed Rodella in the stomach. He demonstrated the stabbing with an upward swing of his hand, Patterson wrote.
Inside the cafeteria, Patterson saw “a large amount of apparent blood” near the far end of the cafeteria, with shoe impressions in it. A blood trail extended for 20 feet across the floor, he wrote.