RRHS JV baseball player did not commit crime for urinating in team jug, DA says

RIO RANCHO — Prosecutors won’t pursue more than a dozen battery charges against a Rio Rancho High School junior varsity baseball player accused of urinating in an opposing team’s water jug during a home game earlier this year because they concluded what he did was not a crime.

The 13th Judicial District Attorney’s Office made the decision this past month after acting on a preliminary inquiry from Juvenile Probation and Parole-Youth and Families Department, which got the case following the Rio Rancho Police Department’s investigation into the March 25 home game against La Cueva High School. Police believed the player “demonstrated a clear disregard for the well-being” of the La Cueva baseball team, and his conduct met the criteria battery, according to an investigative report obtained by the Observer. Police recommended 15 counts, one for each person who drank from the spoiled jug.

But in an email to the Observer Friday, Jessica Martinez, chief deputy district attorney, wrote that “after careful research, it was determined the actions alleged did not amount to any crime as written in our statutes.”

New Mexico law defines “battery” as the “unlawful, intentional, touching or application of force (to) another when done in a rude, insolent or angry manner,” and the state “does not have a law that addresses this specific set of facts,” Martinez wrote.

Rio Rancho Public Schools spokesperson Wyndham Kemsley wrote in an email Monday that the district cannot comment on the D.A.’s decision or disclose the disciplinary actions imposed on students. The district previously said that discipline against any student found responsible for the spoiled water jug would be “severe.”

Albuquerque Public Schools spokesperson Martin Salazar wrote in an email Monday that the district had no comment.

The D.A.’s decision caps a case that resulted in the entire JV baseball team’s suspension from playing, which lasted the rest of the season and school year.

Initially what La Cueva school administrators heard of as rumors about a RRHS student urinating in the water jug that some of its team members drank from led to the Rio Rancho Police Department recommending charges against the 16-year-old juvenile, whose name was not released publicly.

That report contained quotes from the accused JV baseball player, who told investigators he urinated in the water jug “to be funny” and had “no intention” to seek revenge from any previous incidents or games.

The teen’s father, an RRPS employee, told police that his son is “not vengeful and made a mistake,” according to the report. The father also told them he hoped his son’s life isn’t “ruined” by the incident, a feeling echoed by other parents interviewed in the report.