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Judge finds probable cause to charge Otero County deputy with murder
Otero County deputy Jacob Diaz-Austin’s dash camera shows Elijah Hadley dropping a BB gun before the deputy opened fire in June. Hadley was killed in the shooting.
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An Alamogordo judge on Friday found sufficient evidence to charge an Otero County sheriff’s deputy with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a boy outside Mescalero in June.
Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman earlier this month charged Jacob Diaz-Austin, 28, of Las Cruces, in the June 25 death of 17-year-old Elijah Hadley in a highway median near Mescalero.
District Judge Angie Schneider ordered the case bound over for trial in 12th Judicial District Court following a preliminary hearing on Thursday. Bregman and Chief Deputy District Attorney Natalie Lyon presented evidence during the hearing supporting the charge, including videos, photos and testimony, Bregman’s office said Friday in a statement.
Prosecutors in the 12th Judicial District had handed off the case to Bregman’s office to avoid a conflict of interest.
Diaz-Austin was placed on paid administrative leave. Otero County Sheriff David Black has said Diaz-Austin will remain in the agency’s employment unless he is convicted.
Diaz-Austin responded at 10:45 p.m. June 25 to a call for a welfare check about a teenager walking in the median of U.S. 70 west of Mescalero.
Hadley was holding an air-powered pellet gun when Diaz-Austin arrived at the scene and fired multiple gunshots, fatally injuring the teenager, according to a New Mexico State Police news release.
Hadley, a Mescalero Apache Tribe member, was holding “what appeared to be a firearm” when the deputy fired, the news release said. “Agents later learned the object that Hadley presented at the deputy was an airsoft gun,” or replica pellet gun.
Video captured by the dash camera of a patrol vehicle and widely viewed on social media showed the gun left Hadley’s hands before the deputy fired. The video shows that Hadley repeatedly shouted “It’s just a BB gun” after he was shot and fell to the ground.
Diaz-Austin’s attorney, Charles McElhinney, filed a motion in January seeking dismissal of the case, arguing that prosecutors filed a criminal information “completely devoid of identification of any witnesses” as required by state law. That motion was denied Feb. 19.
