Prosecutors want an Española man held without bail after he allegedly shot at a woman during an alleged road rage incident in the middle of the city on April 2.
Española City Police officers charged David Soberanez, 46, with shooting at or from a vehicle and reckless driving the day of the incident and two days later, prosecutors moved his case to district court, asked he be held without bail as a danger to the community and charged him instead with shooting at or from a vehicle, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm by a felon.
A combined preliminary hearing and dangerousness hearing is set for April 16.
Soberanez’s case is the 11th in Rio Arriba County, this year, where prosecutors have asked a judge to hold someone without bail as a danger to the community. Among the other 11 cases filed this year were three murder cases involving Raymond Romero, Steven Dobberowsky and Cesar Garcia.
As evidence of why Soberanez should be held without bail, First Judicial District Deputy District Attorney Kent Wahlquist wrote that Soberanez has a history of domestic violence, threats, drunk driving and weapons possession and that he allegedly fired a pistol toward another vehicle on a crowded street, “placing everyone in the area at risk.”
The incident
EPD Public Safety Aide Rick Trujillo wrote in an incident report, copied into an affidavit for a search warrant for Soberanez’s car, that he was on Riverside Drive when a woman pulled into the center lane, honking her horn and yelling for help.
Brigid Martinez told Trujillo that a white car was chasing her, someone pointed a gun at her, and then a man, later identified as Soberanez, pulled up alongside in a white Audi. He got out and starting yelling at her, while she yelled that he had a gun and shot at her. Soberanez allegedly admitted he had a gun.
“While I was attempting to calm Mr. Soberanez, Ms. Martinez drove South at a high rate of speed,” Trujillo wrote.
Soberanez told Trujillo he was driving on Fairview Lane when Martinez was “driving erratically and struck his vehicle” and he turned around because he knew where police were to report the incident.
“Mr. Soberanez said he didn’t want to shoot anybody and he didn’t shoot until Mr. (sic) Martinez threatened him,” Trujilo wrote. “According to Mr. Soberanez, he shot in the air not at Ms. Martinez.”
Officer David Jaramillo wrote in a criminal complaint that he pulled over Bridgid Martinez after she fled from the scene with Soberanez and Trujillo and she told him that Soberanez allegedly shot at her, that she heard two or three pops and when she looked up, she saw him pointing a gun at her. Then she made a U-turn, drove south, and started following him so that the police could identify him.
Jaramillo described what Soberanez allegedly told Trujillo as an “excited utterance” where he admitted to firing the gun “at the woman,” which contradicts Trujillo’s own account that Soberanez only admitted to shooting in the air.
A witness told officers that she saw two vehicles “driving crazy” that looked like road rage and she saw the occupant of one shoot at the other, Jaramillo wrote.
“She advised the vehicles had stopped and the vehicles started heading back towards her direction when she stopped and began recording,” Jaramillo wrote.
Bad behavior
Wahlquist, the prosecutor, wrote in the motion to have Soberanez held without bail pending trial that he has a history of allegedly violent behavior dating back at least to 2007, including:
• In 2007, he allegedly opened a window to the house of a 7-months-pregnant woman, who had just gotten a restraining order against him, grabbed and knife and chased her around the house, in front of her 7- and 10-year-old children, threatening to kill her, and only stopped when officers arrived. While the case was bound over to district court, the charges were later dismissed
• In 2013, he was arrested while driving his brother’s car that had been reported stolen. The case was dismissed.
• In 2014, he was charged for allegedly driving a stolen truck while drunk. The case was dismissed.
• In 2015, he allegedly stole his uncle’s truck and left it on the side of the road with a flat tire. When a friend tried to change the tire and drive it back, he stopped the friend and later fled from police on a stolen all-terrain vehicle. In that case, he pleaded guilty to attempted unlawful taking of a vehicle.
• In 2024, he was allegedly driving up and down the street, drunk, throwing glass bottles out of his car, hit a trash can and broke the window of his neighbor’s car. When officers arrived, he was in his yard, swinging an ax, with dried blood on his face. The case was dismissed.