A Nambé Pueblo man pleaded down to misdemeanor shoplifting for stealing a $600 vacuum cleaner from Lowe’s Home Improvement and then allegedly fighting with officers.
Jacinto Garduño, 47, pleaded guilty to the step-down charge on Jan. 7 in Rio Arriba Magistrate Court. He was originally charged with shoplifting between $500 and $2,500, a fourth degree felony. He pleaded to the misdemeanor offense of shoplifting under $500.
Prosecutors dismissed two counts of resisting an officer and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia.
Garduño received a suspended 364-day sentence, to be spent on probation, with 20 hours of community service required and to be done within 90 days. Within 30 days, he must also enroll in and attend a mental health and substance abuse assessment and then complete the recommended counseling or treatment.
Española Police Officer Andrew O’Hara arrested Garduño on June 23, after he was sent to Lowe’s for a shoplifting call and told that a man wearing sunglasses, a gray T-shirt and blue jeans walked out of the store with the $600 vacuum cleaner and was standing at the bus stop, O’Hara wrote in a statement of probable cause for Garduño’s arrest.
O’Hara spotted Garduño at the bus stop and told him to walk toward him. The man then ran toward Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers and O’Hara threatened to shoot him with a stun gun if he didn’t stop and “had the male at taser point.” Garduño then turned around and faced O’Hara, who told him to get on the ground. When he turned away again, O’Hara threw him to the ground using an “arm bar takedown” and Garduño allegedly “tensed up” and was “refusing to comply.” He continued to tried to pull away as O’Hara tried to handcuff him, O’Hara wrote.