Jan. 6—Santa Fe police allege Joaquin Archuleta, 49, shot another man in the kneecap outside a home on Camino del Bosque early Saturday morning after a fight broke out during a party.
Archuleta was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and resisting officers, and 13 others were accused of resisting or evading arrest after police raided the house in an hourslong operation.
Documents filed Monday in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court provide more details on the shooting, which prompted a SWAT team response.
Prosecutors on Monday requested Archuleta’s arraignment be delayed until Tuesday to allow more time to decide whether they will ask a judge to order him held in jail until his trial.
Officers went to the house early Saturday morning after the wounded man was taken to local hospital. Police wrote in a charging document officers knocked on the door and “the lights went off and there was no answer,” yet there was movement inside the house.
Officers found a bullet fragment on the road in front of the house, the affidavit says.
Police called out over loudspeakers for three hours Saturday morning, ordering anyone inside the house to come out, according to the affidavit. One man came out of the house after about an hour of announcements, but the others remained inside.
Officers obtained a search warrant for the home over the course of the standoff, and a SWAT team arrived, eventually using flash-bangs and other “distraction devices,” the affidavit says. Finally, 16 people, including two juveniles and Archuleta, came out of the home, police wrote.
“The [flash/sound diversionary device] was loud enough that I felt the vibration in my body as I stood in the back of the neighboring yard,” an officer wrote in a statement of probable cause filed with charges against those who eventually surrendered.
A witness told police Archuleta and the shooting victim had been arguing outside over Archuleta “disrespecting [the victim’s] friends,” when Archuleta pulled out a handgun and shot him in the kneecap, officers allege in the statement.
Most of those arrested outside the home were released from jail Monday, with the exception of Archuleta.
Santa Fe police Deputy Chief Thomas Grundler said an investigation into the case is ongoing, adding “it is a residence of interest that has been on our radar before.”
He said he did not have any further details about evidence collected at the scene or other suspected crimes at the house.