Police: Man stabbed self in confrontation
Report says officers stunned, fired beanbag rounds at 20-year-old with known mental illness
Police say a young man who has been known to struggle with homelessness and a mental illness stabbed himself in the chest Friday on Rosario Hill near downtown following a confrontation in which officers had stunned him with a Taser and fired beanbag rounds.
Santa Fe police Lt. Paul Joye said officers responding to calls of a man threatening people with a knife found Nazareth Jiron, 20, a man with a history of run-ins with law enforcement, walking on Paseo de Peralta toward the downtown area around 9 p.m. Friday.
Jiron became confrontational with the officers, Joye said, even after they used the weapons, and then he stabbed himself with a knife. He was transported to a hospital in Albuquerque, the lieutenant said.
Because Jiron was hospitalized, Joye said, police issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest.
People close to Jiron, who said they were at the hospital with him, declined to comment when reached by phone. His condition was unclear.
Court and jail records show Jiron, arrested at least six times in just over a year before Friday’s incident, has been juggled by a criminal justice system that is often ill-equipped to address the needs of peo-
ple suffering from mental illness and chronic homelessness.
In some cases, Jiron was jailed for failing to attend a hearing. Other cases involve fighting in public and battery on a peace officer. Police reports and court records depict a man who is quick to become agitated and confused. But none involved the level of violence of Friday’s incident, and there didn’t appear to be concerns that Jiron may be suicidal.
Officers in recent months have found success in calming down people in crisis who are threatening to kill themselves, Joye said. But, he said, police had no chance to use such negotiation tactics during Friday’s incident because Jiron was threatening civilians and officers in a rapidly escalating situation that forced police to close a section of Paseo de Peralta.
“The situation’s going to dictate the response,” Joye said.
Earlier this year, Jiron spoke with The New Mexican for a story about a program that was sheltering homeless youth at local churches and temples on the cold nights of the winter and early spring months. Jiron, one of the young people in the temporary shelter program, organized by the nonprofit YouthWorks, spoke about a series of run-ins with police and other troubles he had faced, which left him with an injured foot and back.
“I want to work, but I can’t because of how I’m functioning right now,” he said during the April interview, explaining that his injuries were a barrier, but he also had a mental disability that made it hard to hold a job.
He spoke about being jailed on various charges. “The police were picking on me a lot because I was homeless,” he said.
He mentioned an arrest in late June 2016 at Skylight Santa Fe, a downtown club on West San Francisco Street.
According to a criminal complaint, police responded to a report of a fight with a security guard at the club. When officers arrived, the guard was restraining a “very agitated” Jiron. The guard told police Jiron had bit his forearm, and only released the bite after the guard choked him until he passed out.
Santa Fe County Magistrate Donita Sena eventually dismissed the case. But she ordered Jiron to complete community service.
An employee of YouthWorks, which offers job training and other services to young people, wrote a letter to the court in October, saying Jiron had showed “a good attitude and good work ethic” as he completed 80 hours of community service last summer.
Police arrested Jiron again in October, this time on charges of battery on a peace officer and resisting arrest.
A Santa Fe police officer wrote in a criminal complaint that Jiron was “singing loudly while using profanity” on the downtown Plaza. He became confrontational with an officer who told him to stop, the complaint said.
Jiron began to walk away, the police report said, but an officer moved to arrest him when he again started yelling profanities. Jiron pushed the officer and the two fell to the ground, the report said.
Prosecutors eventually dropped the charges, but Jiron spent several days in jail for missing an arraignment and owed $2,600 in bond and warrant fees.
In April, Jacklyn Bujold, a transition coordinator with the state Children, Youth and Families Department, sent a letter to a county magistrate, asking the court to waive the fees. “This young man is currently homeless, suffers from mental illness, and has no income to pay the warrant and bond fees,” Bujold wrote, adding that he had missed a court date because he was jailed in Albuquerque on other charges. The judge waived the fees.
Jiron was arrested in early February in Albuquerque at the home of a local pastor who reported a disturbance involving a knife, a criminal complaint said.
The pastor told police Jiron was visiting his home when other friends, a couple engaged to be married, had come by to watch the Super Bowl.
Jiron had threatened the man with a knife, the couple told police.
Jiron told an officer that while he was in another room, he thought he heard the couple get into a fight, so he armed himself with a screwdriver to protect the woman.