Rio Arriba officials: Emergency funds crucial to support strained public safety resources

ESPAÑOLA — Police Sgt. Anthony Martinez knows every targeted business, condemned building and concrete hideaway in this community like the back of his hand. He calls them “hot spots,” and he recognizes many of the people who haunt these places day and night, generating call after call for local first responders.

“What’s happening, man?” Martinez called from his police cruiser to a man standing curbside the evening of Aug. 28 outside Dollar Tree in Española. “I think you’re trespassed from here, aren’t you? I don’t want to take you to jail, dude. We’ve told you how many times?”

For Martinez and the 27 other officers at the Española Police Department, this kind of firm yet neighborly admonishment is one of their most valuable tools for discouraging theft, drug dealing and overdose deaths in Española, one of several Rio Arriba County communities where officials say crime is on the rise.

This summer, officials from the city of Española, the Rio Arriba County Board of Commissioners and the Pueblos of Santa Clara and Ohkay Owingeh wrote letters to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham requesting emergency funds for what they’re calling a “public safety crisis.”

In response, the governor signed an emergency order Aug. 12 allocating up to $750,000 in emergency funding from the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management “for the resources and services necessary to avoid or minimize economic or physical harm until the situation becomes stabilized.”

Collectively, Española police, the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Office and Rio Arriba Central Dispatch have submitted requests well beyond that amount, with approximately $935,000 in combined asks for overtime pay, additional staffing, new vehicles, laptops, software and other purchases they say would make their agencies more efficient.

The order also contains a provision to deploy New Mexico National Guard members into service in Rio Arriba. However, Governor’s Office spokesman Michael Coleman told the Journal there are currently no plans to activate military support for the area.

“The Governor’s Office is working with local jurisdictions within the framework of the emergency order to get these communities the help they need without the assistance of the National Guard,” he said.

The statistics collected by the Journal bear out a drug overdose crisis in the area, but are tougher to quantify a “public safety crisis.”

Local crime: Tough to quantify

In her letter to Lujan Grisham, Mayor Pro-Tem Peggy Sue Martinez claimed calls for service in Española have doubled in the last two years, but Rio Arriba Central Dispatch Director Josh Archuleta said local calls for the city aren’t logged separately. Since people also dial 911 for medical emergencies, car crashes, fires and other noncriminal events, calls the dispatch center receives also don’t offer a clear view into crime itself, he added.

Records obtained by the Journal indicate a steady rise in 911 calls countywide in Rio Arriba, with 31,280 in 2022; 32,208 in 2023; and 32,755 in 2024. Data for 2025 was unavailable. The dispatch center also fields an average of 140,000 non-emergency calls annually, according to Archuleta.

Data from the 1st Judicial District Attorney’s Office shows that felony cases in Rio Arriba County have remained fairly steady the last four years, with 540 in 2022, 681 in 2023 and 564 in 2024. A total of 348 felony cases had been filed in the county this year as of Sept. 3. But even that data is not an accurate accounting as it does not include reported crimes in which an arrest was never made, a common occurrence, particularly with regard to property crimes.

Neither Española Police Chief Mizel Garcia, the Governor’s Office, nor any other official the Journal contacted for this story could give data on reported offenses to verify any changes to local crime. EPD also does not file crime statistics with the FBI, which collects such data under its National Incident-Based Reporting System. Violent incidents around the nation have, in fact, dropped since spiking during the pandemic.

But New Mexico law enforcement leaders have noted an increase in juvenile crime statewide, with officials in communities around the state calling for lawmakers to address the matter at next year’s legislative session.

In May, for example, a juvenile was found guilty of killing his friend in September 2024 during a reckless driving incident in downtown Española. He was sentenced to two years at the New Mexico Youth Diagnostic Development Center. The Journal also reported in July that police arrested two 15-year-olds who fired rifle rounds over the heads of residents at an Española homeless shelter.

So far this year, Sgt. Martinez said his department has responded to one homicide, also involving juvenile offenders.

Overtime reliance

Still, Rio Arriba first responders and their supervisors say their agencies are stretched to their limits.

Both Chief Garcia and Rio Arriba County Sheriff Lorenzo Aguilar told the Journal that overtime is commonplace among their officers — Garcia requested $75,000 toward overtime, Aguilar has asked for $50,000 and Archuleta requested $45,000 for dispatchers.

“Our staffing levels have always been difficult to maintain,” Garcia said, though he acknowledged that overtime can lead to burnout and turnover as flow-on effects.

Aguilar said he’s also worried about overtime wearing out his staff, but with nearly 6,000 square miles of jurisdiction to cover, he sees no alternative without a larger staff.

As of his Aug. 28 patrol, Sgt. Martinez had accumulated 20 hours of overtime. He said he and other officers at the Española Police Department commonly log 27 extra hours in a single pay period.

“Different shifts fluctuate,” he said, “but at most, we’ll usually have three officers and the sergeant on patrol. Unfortunately, it’d be nice if we had some more help around here.”

Martinez is also one of a majority of EPD officers who don’t reside in Española.

Garcia estimated that as many as 80% of his officers do not live within city limits, resulting in greater wear and tear on police units used during long commutes. Garcia has requested $160,000 from the emergency funds to purchase two new vehicles.

Martinez wakes up between 4:30 and 5 a.m. every day at his family’s ranch in Cebolla before driving an hour south to Española. Each 12-hour shift is marked by a variety of calls for service, from armed robberies to property crimes.

When he’s not patrolling in his police unit, he’s at the office doing paperwork for cases often involving familiar offenders, some going back to when he started as a jailer at the Rio Arriba County Adult Detention Facility in 2012.

“I know exactly who they are,” he said as he patrolled the Lowe’s parking lot in Española. “I know their names. Right now, I’m not really seeing them do any criminal activity, but if you stay around here, something will happen.”

The evening of Aug. 28 was mellow for EPD, but Martinez knows that can change in an instant. Last October, he shot and killed the driver of a stolen vehicle after the driver put the car in reverse during a felony stop and struck Martinez, dragging him.

“I’m not gonna go into too much details about the incident itself,” he said, “but the guys that I work with, they were able to bring me back, keep me level, and so I wouldn’t go and take that anxiety, that hardship, home to my family.”

Overdose deaths on the rise

Narcotics frequently lie at the root of many of the calls that crackle across Martinez’s radio. His supply of Narcan — an overdose reversal nasal spray — is one of the tools he turns to most in the course of duty.

“I have it on me at all times,” he said, “and I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve used it. It’s a lifesaver. Everyone in the department carries it, is trained on it. They’ve all used it.”

Despite the best efforts of police, fire and EMS, drug overdose deaths have increased in Rio Arriba County in recent years, according to New Mexico Department of Social Services data the Governor’s Office shared with the Journal.

A total of 83 fatal overdoses have been recorded in Rio Arriba this year, with a majority concentrated in Española and nearby areas, where deaths from drugs have nearly doubled — rising from 11 in 2024 to 20 so far in 2025.

“Many people suffer from complications of substance use. Compounded with homelessness, for many, the barriers are too large to recuperate,” said Kathy Sutherland-Brauw, the founder and executive director of Inside Out Recovery, an addiction nonprofit on Riverside Drive in Española.

Fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid, continues to play an outsized role in drug overdose deaths and related crimes in New Mexico and across the U.S. According to the New Mexico Department of Social Services, the drug has been involved in more than 65% of overdose deaths in New Mexico so far in 2025, up from 54% last year.

Dena Moscola, executive director of Española Pathways Shelter, the only homeless shelter in the city, attributed the rise in crime, fatal overdoses and homelessness to the city’s lack of affordable housing.

“It’s been like that for decades, and it just continues,” she said. “Especially over the past five years, people don’t have a place to go, and that’s the biggest challenge.”

In his letter to the governor, Santa Clara Pueblo Gov. James Naranjo said there has been a “three-fold increase in Pueblo members seeking help from the Pueblo’s Substance Abuse Program in the last two years, with four months left in the current fiscal year.”

When he worked as a police officer in northern New Mexico from the 1980s until the late 2000s, Naranjo said it was always clear that substance abuse was the starting point for many community woes. But he says fentanyl addiction has changed the game, creating a greater need for support in towns and Native lands across the state.

“We need the assistance,” he said. “We can’t do it alone. As Pueblos, we need that partnership with the state and the feds and the city and the county to at least try to put a dent in this, in this epidemic, and break this cycle.”