'Nobody came to his aid:' Grieving mother wants to know why her son died inside MDC

An Albuquerque mother is looking for answers after her 26-year-old son died while behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center over the weekend.

Pete Salazar was the 28th person to die or be fatally injured after being booked into MDC since early 2020 and the 10th in the past year. Many of those who died were detoxing at the time.

Salazar’s death was the first at the facility this year .

Albuquerque Ambulance and Bernalillo County Fire and Rescue responded to a medical emergency notification just after 10 a.m. on Saturday, MDC spokeswoman Candace Hopkins said.

They tried to revive Salazar but were unsuccessful, she said.

Salazar’s mother, Valentina Munoz, told the Journal on Tuesday she is not sure MDC did all it could to save her son.

She said a pathologist told her that he died Friday night — hours before anyone reportedly came to his aid — and another inmate Munoz knew said her son was “crying for help.”

“He was yelling for help, he was yelling for help, he was yelling for help,” she said. “And nobody came to his aid.”

Because the incident is under investigation, Hopkins said she could not comment on whether Salazar died before Saturday morning, nor could she disclose whether his cell was being checked during the incident.

Staffing vacancies have been an ongoing issue at the facility and, in previous inmate deaths, were found to have contributed to a lack of cell checks.

Hopkins did not mention how many MDC officers were watching the pod Salazar was in. However, she said the number of officers staffed in a pod differs based on the situation.

Hopkins said that one officer can watch up to 64 inmates in “general population,” which is the max allowed in a pod. But, in other areas of the jail, such as the Restricted Housing Unit, Psychiatric Acute Care Unit or medical unit, there are inmates that require increased supervision.

“This includes inmates on watches like a suicide watch or a detox,” she said.

The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator is investigating Salazar’s cause of death, Hopkins said. She did not provide additional information and said she wouldn’t have any updates until the OMI’s report was finished.

“My son is not the only victim,” Munoz said, pointing out the poor conditions, i.e., backed-up toilets, that inmate Olivia Martinez reportedly dealt with before her death at MDC on Christmas Day.

‘We will hold MDC accountable’

Munoz said her son had been getting his life together over the past several months before he was arrested Jan. 18 and charged with trafficking drugs, being a felon with a firearm and trespassing.

According to a criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court, police found 772 fentanyl pills and about $4,800 in cash on him inside a tent in Northeast Albuquerque.

Munoz said before that incident, Salazar had been recovering from a fentanyl addiction that played a role in his March 2022 arrest for possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute.

Munoz said Salazar went to rehab after he was released from jail in May 2023. All he wanted to do was become a barber, she said, adding that he cut inmates’ hair when he was in MDC and for those at the rehab facility.

He was looking forward to going to school to become a barber like his brother, Munoz said.

But now, she said, Salazar won’t be pursuing those dreams or spending time with his mom.

“We were just like two peas in a pod,” she said.

Munoz said she has hired an attorney to address the conditions at the MDC. She said she wants something done so incidents like what happened to Salazar won’t happen again.

“We will hold MDC accountable,” she said.