A lockdown Oct. 6 at the Mesa Vista Middle and High School, caused by a note threatening a student, is suspected of being written and planted by the student who discovered it.
The student, only identified by the initials A.R., allegedly caused the lockdown when he told his teacher he found a death threat stuffed in his locker.
“Ms. Josephine (Garcia) handed me the note that read, ‘I’m going to kill you today at school, I have a gun,’” Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Deputy Craig Yazzie wrote in an incident report. “I confiscated the note for evidence at that time.”
Yazzie was dispatched to the school by fellow deputies Joseph Aquino, Leon Gallegos, Andy Gutierrez and Capt. Randy Sanches.
“I immediately responded as the school reported they were initiating a ‘Lock-down’ until law enforcement arrived,” Yazzie wrote.
Security officers escorted the deputies to the main office where A.R., 14, was waiting for them.
Sanches said they began interviewing key witnesses once they got on scene, in an effort to figure out what really happened.
“I could see that the entire school campus, including the elementary area, were (sic) completely barricaded and locked down,” Yazzie wrote. “All students were hiding. All doors were locked and I was only able to access doors with the assistance of school security who had the keys.”
A.R. told deputies that he was in his third period class when he asked to use the bathroom and, when coming back, stopped by his locker and found the note jammed between the locker door and frame.
A.R. said he believed it may have been his ex-girlfriend, identified only by her initials M.R. She is 13 years old.
“He said that because she felt that he got her into trouble and then suspended from school due to them sharing responsibility of possessing an electronic cigarette and marijuana in their lockers,” Yazzie wrote. “Mr. A.R. said that he felt that M.R. blamed him for their punishment.”
While they were suspended, they talked through Facebook and M.R. wanted to continue their relationship but A.R. said he wanted to end it.
“He said he believed that she retaliated by writing the note due to his response,” he wrote.
Yazzie then interviewed M.R. in the nurse’s office and said she did not know who wrote it, but did mention both of their suspensions for the marijuana.
“She said she believed Mr. A.R. did it to get back at her for getting him into trouble,” Yazzie wrote. “She mentioned that she had minimal contact with him through Facebook messaging.”
After he finished questioning her, he gave her over to the principal for “standard school punitive measures” and she was later released to her grandfather.
After questioning the two students, deputies and security guards cleared the building to make sure no one actually had a gun.
Yazzie and the other deputies then went to Rena Stone’s classroom, where A.R. had been before he found the note, and had Garcia point out the nearest bathroom to them. Garcia is an educational assistant.
“I looked into the only trashcan in the room and immediately spotted a single piece of crease-torn paper,” he wrote. “I could see that it was in a similar size, shape, color and rule (as the note).”
He took the piece of paper as evidence and checked the trashcans for the other classrooms A.R. was in, as well as other near-by boys’ bathrooms, but they did not find any more paper.
He then checked A.R.’s notebook and found the paper in the trashcan matched the last page ripped out it.
When Yazzie looked into the notebook further, he found the handwriting was extremely similar to the note.
Sanches said the case has been forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office for potential prosecution.
The case type, and potential charges, revolve around the filing of a false report.
The case has also been forwarded to the Juvenile Probation Office.
Testing the security
Sanches said after deputies confirmed there was no gun on the campus, he had a conversation with Superintendent Ernesto Valdez, about testing lockdown procedures.
Valdez did not return requests for comment.
Sanches sent two deputies to the Ojo Caliente Elementary School, which had also been placed on lockdown, to test the teachers and their response to a lockdown.
Deputies tried to cajole and convince teachers to open the doors for them.
“Nobody opened up,” Sanches said.
Had the teachers opened their classroom doors, without deputies knowing the password, they would have violated their security procedures.
“They followed their lockdown protocols to a T,” he said.