Four Restored

Four of the people criminally charged in connection with the toppling of the Plaza obelisk on Indigenous Peoples Day in 2020 have completed a restorative justice program spearheaded by the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office, court records filed this week show.

That means the cases against Austin Schweitzer, Lily Schweitzer, Lauren Straily and Melissa Rose have been dismissed.

Last week, downtown gallery owner Stephen Fox pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of criminal destruction of property for his role in bringing down the obelisk in exchange for a 364-day deferred sentence, which he is court-ordered to spend on unsupervised probation.

Fox was the only one of nine defendants in the obelisk case who chose not to participate in DA Mary Carmack-Altwies’ alternative program.

The remaining three—Ryan Witt, Dawn Furlong, Zachary Young and Dylan Wrobel—are still completing the program, according to the DA’s office.

Carmack-Altwies has been criticized for an opaque, ill-defined process. It lacked transparency and left many, including people who disagreed with protesters’ actions in October 2020 to fell the obelisk, feeling unsatisfied.

The first-term, Democratic DA who oversees prosecutors in Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and Los Alamos counties, addressed those concerns in a statement posted to her website Tuesday.

“I had hoped the restorative justice process would have resulted in a more active reconciliation on behalf of the defendants and that the process would not have been veiled by confidentiality,” Carmack-Altwies wrote. “With that being said, I would encourage restorative justice practitioners to explore a model that can honor both the fidelity of the program and transparency for the public.”

Part of what shrouded the process in secrecy was an agreement Carmack-Altwies struck with a company called Common Ground Mediation Services, which led the effort to square what happened on the Plaza during a year of racial reckoning around the nation with the perspectives of Hispanic and other groups who valued the obelisk. (It was long a source of pain and indignation for Indigenous people, who pointed to an inscription on the monument to Union Civil War soldiers who “died in battle with savage Indians.”)

Common Ground operated behind closed doors, conducting meetings and listening sessions, for more than a year. On Tuesday, Carmack-Altwies posted the company’s final report on her website.

Among other revelations, the document lists the costs of the effort: $15,000 from the DA’s office; $19,891 from the nonprofit account set up by “persons of concern,” (meaning those charged with crimes); and another $9,750 in pro bono work by the company’s staff.

As for the process itself, another document filed in court Tuesday outlined the eight defendants’ community service efforts: 320 combined hours working with food banks, shelters, animal rescue operations and more.

The “Statement of the Defendants” also included a collective apology and several other thoughts from the eight who participated in the program.

“First, we express our apology for our actions to the larger community, including local Hispanic and Indigenous groups, whose work on historical reconciliation were negatively impacted or interrupted because of our actions on Indigenous People’s Day,” the statement reads. “We wish that the obelisk had been removed in a manner that included community involvement, that may have resulted in the monument being moved to a museum or to the cemetery as opposed to having been destroyed and contributing to the harm or risk of harm to others.”

It is not clear when officials expect Wrobel, Witt, Furlong and Young to complete the program.