Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s deputies arrested a Lindrith woman after she admitted to trying to steal a car in Abiquiú because she couldn’t find a ride home.
Deputy Adam Archuleta arrested Mabel Garcia, 46, on one count each of attempt to commit unlawful taking of a vehicle, criminal damage to property over $1,000, criminal trespass and two counts of burglary of a vehicle, on Oct. 16.
After Garcia was taken to a holding cell, she allegedly broke her handcuffs, and the window to her holding cell, before she calmed down after being threatened with a stun gun.
Archuleta wrote in a statement of probable cause for Garcia’s arrest, that he was sent to Private Drive 1770.
The vehicle’s owner told him that a woman was rummaging through her car and she noticed it because her car alarm went off. Archuleta approached Garcia and asked her for her ID. She said she didn’t have one. He confirmed her identity with dispatchers and asked what she was doing.
“She stated she was looking for a ride to go home,” Archuleta wrote. “I asked Ms. Garcia what she was doing in (woman’s) vehicle. Ms. Garcia admitted to attempting to steal the vehicle, stating, ‘I was trying to go home.’ She repeated this admission multiple times during the interaction. Ms. Garcia also stated, ‘She just wanted to go to jail.’”
Garcia told Archuleta she had been dropped off nearby by a friend and walked to the property, trying to find a ride home, but then spotted the unlocked car and tried to use it.
While it appeared she rifled through the car and a truck on the property, nothing had been taken, Archuleta wrote.
While she was in a holding cell at the sheriff’s office, she became irate, started “screaming and yanking on her cuffs.” She told deputies “we need to feed her,” before she broke her handcuffs off of the bench and started breaking the holding cell window with the handcuffs, by punching it.
“I pulled out my duty issued Taser pointed it as Ms. Garcia and advised her to stop or I was going to Taser her,” Archuleta wrote. “Ms. Garcia retreated to the back of the cell so I grabbed the radio and called for additional units.”
When back-up arrived, they shackled her hands and feet to the bench.
Rio Arriba Magistrate Judge Joseph Madrid released her on her own recognizance on Oct. 17. He held a hearing on the conditions of her release, Oct. 20, after she picked up new charges in Chama Magistrate Court, where she admitted the violation, and it appears she is now being held without bail. A preliminary examination is set for Wednesday (10/29).
New charges
A day later, on Oct. 18, Garcia’s brother called police and said his sister broke into his house in Tierra Amarilla while he was gone, and started making food in the kitchen before walking down the street.
Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Deputy Alfonso Murillo charged Garcia with one count of breaking and entering.
He wrote in a statement of probable cause for her arrest that her brother thought she was still in the area when he arrived because he heard her yelling up the street. He found her walking along the road, carrying a can of Coors. He ordered her to put the beer down and her hands up, and while she put the beer down, she picked it back up and continued walking before Murillo handcuffed her.
Her brother had surveillance cameras which showed Garcia allegedly breaking the top glass on the door to the house with a wooden 2×4 and climbing into the house through the portion she broke.
Magistrate Judge Alexandra Naranjo released her on her own recognizance, with an order that she report to pre-trial services. A preliminary examination is set for Wednesday (10/29), the same day as it is set in her other case.