Felony battery charge filed against BCSO sergeant
Incident in March allegedly left suspect with broken facial bone
A Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office sergeant was charged Friday with felony battery for allegedly kicking a suspect in the face and breaking a bone, which required hospitalization.
Sgt. David Priemazon, 48, has been placed on administrative leave, the Sheriff’s Office said earlier this week.
The charge was expected, after Sheriff Manuel Gonzales said Wednesday that he had been told by the District Attorney’s Office that a criminal complaint charging Priemazon with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm was going to be filed. The document was filed by the DA’s Office in Metropolitan Court on Friday afternoon, according to court documents.
The incident happened March 19 after deputies saw Christopher Lucero, 34, driving a car with a license plate that belonged to another car. A car chase ensued, before deputies used a pursuit intervention technique, and Lucero crashed near Coors and Gonzales SW, according to a criminal complaint filed against Lucero.
Lucero ran from the scene of the crash and fell onto the road on Airport SW. The complaint against him said that deputies used “softening techniques” to get him into handcuffs.
But the complaint against Priemazon says that the kick to Lucero’s “face and the physical force was not for purposes of lawful arrest, search of confinement.” He suffered a medial orbital wall fracture, according to the complaint.
News reports of Lucero’s making his first appearance showed him in a neck brace and with a swollen face.
Gonzales, in a news release earlier this week, said that the day after Lucero’s arrest, a deputy came forward to report Priemazon for excessive force. An internal affairs investigation was launched two days later, but once it became apparent that criminal charges could be filed, the case was turned over to New Mexico State Police, according to a Sheriff’s Office news release.
The warrant for Priemazon’s arrests says that he will have to post $500 cash-only bail.
Michael Patrick, a spokesman for the District Attorney’s Office, said that prosecutors have reached out to Priemazon’s attorney, and it is likely that Priemazon will be booked and released from jail if he turns himself in at a police substation.
Priemazon will then make a felony first appearance, followed by a preliminary hearing, which hasn’t been scheduled.