Wrestling for court date
Still no court date for matter involving athlete suspended by NMAA
A father of a Santa Fe High Demons wrestler suspended for punching a rival is struggling to get restraining order heard before final tournament.
The saga of a Santa Fe High wrestler’s attempt at competing in the state tournament this weekend has stalled, and that concerns the attorney representing his family.
Jerry Archuleta said no court date has been set to hear the temporary restraining order application filed last week by the father of Demons wrestler Isaac Beltran.
Gustavo Beltran filed the application Feb. 12 asking the First Judicial District Court to grant a restraining order against the New Mexico Activities Association, its executive director Sally Marquez, Santa Fe Public Schools superintendent Veronica García and district athletic director Larry Chavez to allow his son to compete in the state tournament that begins Friday.
The NMAA suspended Isaac Beltran for the rest of the season Jan. 25 after he punched Albuquerque Academy’s Jackson Taylor during a second-round match at the Joe Vivian Classic in Albuquerque on Jan. 18. At the time, the 132-pound Beltran was undefeated and a contender for the Class 5A title in his weight class.
Other than a request for interpreters for the Beltran family, the only action taken came in the form of a response from the NMAA requesting a hearing rather than a decision from Judge Raymond Ortiz.
“It’s in a holding pattern because of the judges,” said Jerry Archuleta, the attorney for Gustavo Beltran. “I’ve doubleand triple-checked, and we have everything on our end completed. There is nothing else we need to file. It’s just, nothing’s been done with it.”
Time is of the essence because weigh-ins for the competition are set for Thursday, although Beltran did not compete in the District 5-5A individual tournament Saturday — a requirement for wrestlers to compete in the state tournament.
Archuleta said part of the argument he and fellow lawyer Les Romaine will make is that, while Beltran was punished for his actions, Taylor did not receive any discipline. He also criticized the referee for not stopping the match sooner after Santa Fe High coaches argued that Taylor pulled Beltran’s hair just before Beltran retaliated.
“There were things done completely wrong in this case,” Archuleta said. “Even though we are asking a young man to act differently than an adult would act when he’s being attacked, he accepts that he made a mistake and paid the punishment for that. And it is a fact that [Marquez] did not punish the other wrestler, who you can clearly see pulled on his hair and elbowed him in the face. Why
hasn’t be been punished?”
The Albuquerque Journal reported Jan. 30 it received two videos of the incident, one of which appeared to showed Taylor grabbing at Beltran’s hair while the two grappled.
Another video focusing on the match next to the Beltran-Taylor match appeared to show Taylor throwing an elbow at Isaac Beltran in the background, and the Santa Fe High junior responded with three punches to Taylor’s head before an Academy coach tackled him.
The application states it is seeking relief from the suspension because “the Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm if such relief is not granted” and that the Beltran’s “threatened injury out- weighs any harm that might be caused to the to the Defendants as a result of granting such relief.”
It states that the NMAA violated Beltran’s right to due process when it suspended him for the rest of the season and argued that Marquez never cited a bylaw in the NMAA handbook to support her decision, only referring to Beltran’s punches to Taylor and did not mention Taylor’s actions.
It also states that Chavez and Garcia denied Beltran’s request to file an appeal, presumably to the organization’s board of directors.
“My problem is that if Sally went and looked at the video and determined that the punishment was appropriate for Issac, she had to see on the other videos that the other kid was attacking Isaac,” Archuleta said. “And why didn’t Dr. Garcia and or Larry Chavez, after receiving the video, say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, why did he accept this punishment?’ There was something inherently wrong anyway.”