APS will fight court ruling on wrestler

According to the deputy’s report, Chavez was charged with battery and larceny for taking $15 from the other boy’s wallet. The suspension would have precluded Chavez from participating in the state championship on Friday and Saturday.

Chavez had an undefeated season and is being looked at for athletic scholarships. An attorney for his family has downplayed what happened, saying the two teens were “engaging in horseplay.”

Nicholas Chavez, a senior at Rio Grande High, gets his medal for winning the 5A, 195 pound wrestling championship. Some spectators booed Chavez because of a bullying controversy. (roberto e. rosales/journal)

But APS Superintendent Winston Brooks on Tuesday characterized Chavez’s behavior as “bullying” and said the judge’s decision sets a bad precedent. Brooks said he fully supports the Rio Grande administrators who decided to suspend Chavez.

“We take a zero-tolerance position on bullying, and we certainly have given a lot of time and energy to the topic of bullying all this year,” Brooks said. “The school administration and the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s officer who witnessed this definitely thinks it’s bullying. The witnesses, including the victim, have now testified that it was definitely not horseplay: that the perpetrator was angry and he hit, and hit hard.”

Legal wrangling

Chavez’s family went to court Friday morning, and state District Court Judge Clay Campbell granted them a temporary restraining order that overruled the suspension and forced APS and the New Mexico Activities Association to allow Chavez to wrestle.

The incident has prompted an outpouring of letters to the Journal voicing disappointment that Chavez was allowed to wrestle, and Chavez faced some booing when he won the championship.

APS officials said Tuesday they plan to ask Campbell to set aside the order he granted Friday. It is unclear what effect this would have, if any, but Brooks said he wants to air the facts.

He said APS attorneys had to rush to court Friday morning with little time to prepare, and he wants to tell the district’s side of the story.

“Our motive as a district is to get all the facts on the record,” Brooks said. “I think some people thought that we maybe didn’t give this kid his due process rights – that’s absolutely not true – and that it was just horseplay. That absolutely is not true.”

Some new facts have come to light, such as a recording of a phone call Chavez made Thursday night to the teen he is accused of slapping. Brooks said the recording was provided to the school district by the victim’s mother and is not threatening, but in it, Chavez asked the victim to call Chavez’s attorney and say the incident was nothing more than horseplay.

Glenn Smith Valdez, attorney for the Chavez family, answered an emailed question about the phone call by saying Chavez and the victim are friends and spend most Saturday nights with a group of friends at a pizza restaurant.

He said the Chavez family believes the school administration should be able to punish horseplay “but in this instance they overreacted.”

Brooks said Rio Grande administrators also have screen captures of messages posted on Twitter after the incident, some of which are threatening toward the victim. Those tweets have since been taken down, and it is unclear who was making the threats.

Brooks said the district is investigating the tweets, and any student who made threats could face discipline.

Brooks also said administrators have since talked to other students who witnessed the incident, and their accounts confirm the deputy’s report: specifically, that Chavez hit the victim hard and in anger.

In the meantime, Chavez is now serving out his three-day, in-school suspension. Brooks also said the district is investigating why Chavez was at the Friday morning weigh-in for the wrestling tournament, when the judge’s order wasn’t signed until later that morning. APS and New Mexico Activities Association rules both preclude a suspended student from weighing in.

Brooks said he and Rio Grande Principal Yvonne Garcia will continue looking into why that happened.

Valdez said in an email that the petition was served to APS and the NMAA before weigh-in at 8 a.m. Friday, and that tournament officials were awaiting the ruling.

Rio Grande wrestling coach Loren Vigil referred all questions to the APS administration.

Politicians weigh in

Brooks also fielded calls last week from South Valley politicians, who avoided explicitly asking him to overturn the suspension but questioned whether it was fair.

County Commissioner Art De La Cruz called school board member Analee Maestas on Chavez’s behalf, and Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, called Brooks to inquire about the process.

“Everybody wants to stop bullying, unless it’s certain individuals, apparently,” Brooks said. “I am disappointed that there are folks in the community who want to second-guess our decision, and I wonder, if the kid would not have been an All-State wrestler, if there would have been as many questions.”

All three politicians said they just wanted to make sure the investigation was fair.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal