When police arrived at Camino del Bosque near the intersection of Rodeo and Zia roads in the early hours of Jan. 4 to respond to a suspected shooting , residents of the neighborhood were awake and waiting.
One resident named Tetra, who declined to give her last name, tells SFR she woke up to the sound of “gunshots and screeching tires” at about 5:30 am, and estimated she saw police arrive “10 or 15 minutes later.” Then, she says, police made announcements from the street asking residents of a nearby house to come out with their hands up.
“It was really surprising, because I just moved here to Santa Fe…like, a week ago,” she says.
After watching the activity outside of her house for close to an hour, she went back to sleep. When she woke up at 9:30 am, police were still there, blocking off the road surrounding the area. As she left her house, she noticed the SWAT Team was there, along with a mobile crime lab. By the time she returned near 1 pm, they were gone.
“I’m not super shook by the whole incident, but I’m just like, ‘Well, that was an interesting thing to happen my first week here,” Tetra says. “I’ve never seen a SWAT raid before, especially not so close to my own house…I’m glad it seemed like the only person who was hurt in the whole process was the guy who originally got shot, so I think it sounds like they handled it.”
According to a press release from the Santa Fe Police Department, officers responded to a call at a local hospital near 5 am, which reported an adult man with a possible gunshot wound. The man’s injury was not life-threatening, and officers learned the incident likely occurred at the 2800 block of Camino del Bosque.
The press release says upon arrival, officers identified “what was believed to be evidence of the crime” at one house, and then attempted to contact occupants of the house, who did not respond. Officers then obtained a search warrant and called the SWAT Team to get occupants out of the house and execute the search warrant.
Sixteen occupants of the residence exited and were taken into custody “after several hours of call outs” over a public address system, according to the press release. In total, police arrested 14 people, including two minors and one man SFPD identified as the suspect of the shooting, Joaquin Chavez-Archuleta.
Chavez-Archuleta, 49, has been charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, as well as resisting, evading or obstructing an officer, and is being held at the county jail with no bond.
According to records from the New Mexico Courts website, Chavez-Archuleta has a criminal history dating back to 2002. In past federal and state cases, he has pled guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of a controlled substance, trafficking a controlled substance, driving under the influence of drugs, disorderly conduct and resisting, evading or obstructing an officer. He has also faced domestic violence, aggravated DWI and other drug charges in previous years, but those were all dismissed in court.
Santa Fe Police Chief Paul Joye says the information he was able to pull on Chavez-Archuleta on Saturday “wasn’t a lot,” and he has not had anyone “do a deeper dive” into Chavez-Archuleta’s history yet.
SFPD
Joaquin Chavez-Archuleta
Joye tells SFR that of the two minors arrested, one had a juvenile probation violation and was taken to Albuquerque’s juvenile detention center, and the other was released to the care of their grandmother. Joye adds the latter child’s mother was also taken into custody, and he is expecting the mother to receive “an additional charge of child endangerment for having the child at the house during the incident.”
As for the other 10 arrested, Joye tells SFR he believes since their arrests were “petty misdemeanors,” he expects they have since been released, though he was unable to confirm this by press time.
For residents who live nearby the house, the early morning SWAT raid was a long time coming.
One resident, who declined to be identified by name due to concerns about her safety, says while she’s lived in the neighborhood for 6 years, it’s only in the past year she noticed suspicious behavior at her neighbors’ house.
She said she was hesitant to call the police herself, as she feared retaliation from the people living there.
“I would have never known that there were that many people in the house, so I’m curious to find out what the heck was going on,” she said. “I’m glad they’re gone, because they needed to go.”
She also says as police searched the house, she noticed officers “loading a ton of stuff” from the house into white vans.
According to Joye, while there have not been any arrests at the house “to this level” in the past year, SFPD has received numerous calls to the area, and suspicion of those in the house having stolen goods is a complaint police have received before. He says he also believes police have “recovered stolen motor vehicles from that location before.”
“We have gotten calls on the area from people in the neighborhood, which we appreciate,” Joye said. “It helps us to identify nuisance houses…we can request for close patrols, which is just proactive, hopefully preventative, patrols in neighborhoods in their respective areas.”
Joye says calls into dispatch are the best way for residents to alert police to suspicious activity “in real time,” and those calling can ask to remain anonymous, even if dispatch asks for their identity.
Another resident, who also asked to not be identified by name because he fears potential retaliation from those at the residence, tells SFR he and his neighbors have seen suspicious activity at the house and have seen police patrolling and parking near the house for “months.” He says people constantly stop by the house by car and on foot, and he’s concerned about the residents’ cars still being in the driveway.
“We are very worried about it…[police] have known about this house for a long time, and there was no activity from the police, other than just coming and sitting and watching the activity,” he says. “I’m glad they acted on Saturday, because, of course, there was a shooting…and they did it without any further violence, so I was very appreciative of that. But why wasn’t that done a year ago, nine months ago? Why did it have to wait until there was actually a shooting, which we’ve all known could happen?”
The morning he heard the gunshots down the block, he took his kids from their bedrooms facing the street and had them move to the back of the house.
“This little house isn’t gonna stop bullets, you know,” he said. “We stayed inside for a long time. I feel for the police, because I realize it’s not an easy thing for them to do safely…I understand their hesitancy, but they’ve put us all at risk for months…It makes you afraid.”
