Woman died at MDC after being booked on unsubstantiated charge

Court records show Albuquerque police arrested a woman on an unsubstantiated auto theft charge before she died on Christmas Day at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Olivia Martinez was booked into the jail on Dec. 21 after police say she was caught Downtown riding as a passenger on the back of a moped that had been reported stolen.

Within hours, the case was dismissed against the 32-year-old woman.

“The State has currently received insufficient evidence to proceed. Specifically, the State lacks evidence to establish that (Martinez) was ever in actual possession of the vehicle in question,” according to the dismissal document.

Martinez was kept at MDC due to a warrant on a petty misdemeanor from a March 2023 case, according to court records. Two in-custody hearings were set to clear the warrant, after which Martinez would have likely been released.

Court records show both hearings were reset — for unknown reasons — and Martinez died in a “medical emergency” at the facility on Monday morning. MDC officials have not given a cause of death or released additional details about the case.

Kate Thompson, Martinez’s attorney, said she should have been seen by the court within three days of her arrest. She said they were told Martinez was unavailable for the hearings due to “having a medical episode.”

Thompson said Martinez hadn’t gotten a notice for the petty misdemeanor hearing she was later issued a warrant for missing.

“A jail cell is a terrible place to live your last moments, and we are sad for Olivia and her family,” Thompson said in a statement. “We had been working for days to get her released from custody.”

Martinez was the 27th person to die or be fatally injured while being held at MDC since early 2020 and the ninth this year. Many of those who died had been detoxing at the time.

Kate Loewe, an attorney representing those incarcerated at MDC under a class-action settlement agreement, called it a “terrible, terrible pattern.”

“Like almost all of the other people who died, she was a young person who was potentially withdrawing, who was a few days into her incarceration,” Loewe told the Journal.

Loewe said she has heard from clients that, at the time of Martinez’s death, the area she was in had backed up toilets and lights that wouldn’t shut off.

“Not only is this death horrific, but hearing about the conditions on the pod, if accurate — backed up toilets, lights on for 24/7 — let alone that this is a mental health pod, I don’t understand what’s going on out there,” Loewe said. “Where’s the human decency and where’s the human decency around Christmastime?”

An MDC spokeswoman did not respond to several questions, including about the conditions in the area where Martinez was being held and why she wasn’t made available for in-custody hearings.

Martinez was also the second person who died after being booked into MDC on an unsubstantiated auto theft charge. Earlier this year, John Sanchez was booked into MDC on an auto theft charge that was soon dismissed for “insufficient evidence,” but he died after being slammed on his head by an MDC officer trying to restrain him.

In Martinez’s case, according to police, she was spotted riding on the back of a stolen moped. Police said Martinez initially told them she wasn’t on the moped and then said she had met the moped driver the day before and was just getting a ride to a nearby park.

In a GoFundMe page created by Martinez’s relatives, they said she died nine days after her birthday.

“Olivia had the biggest heart, and a beautiful smile that would light up any room, she would have given her shirt off her back to help anyone,” according to the GoFundMe post.

The family has hired attorney Taylor Smith for a wrongful death suit. He told the Journal the family “is reeling from the loss of Ms. Martinez.”

“We continue to see tragedy after tragedy within MDC that continues unabated,” Smith said. “We need accountability and we need the County to stop making MDC a death sentence.”

Martinez’s friends took to Facebook to mourn the loss.

“RIP (Olivia)! I’m so sorry that I’ve been so hard on you! I just really believed in you! I shall miss and love you always!” one person wrote.

Another commented, “I’ve known you for a long time Olivia Martinez wish you didn’t have to leave on Christmas... I’ll sure miss you beautiful Angel.”