By Amanda Martinez amartinez@sfnewmexican.com Former Rio Arriba sheriff’s deputy faces charges of battery, false imprisonment

A former Rio Arriba County Sheriff ’s Office deputy has been charged with battery and false imprisonment in connection with a March 2019 incident at the Family Dollar in Chimayó.

Joseph Aquino is accused of pushing and fighting with a store employee before arresting him on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest — despite having no lawful authority to do so, according to a criminal complaint New Mexico State Police filed March 16 in Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court.

Aquino, 44, told an investigator he felt threatened by the employee because of the way the worker looked at him, according to the complaint. While Aquino wrote in his report the man had hit him with his elbow, Aquino never mentioned that to a supervisor who came to the scene.

Betsy Salcedo, Aquino’s attorney, said in an interview that Sheriff James Lujan had fired Aquino in June because of the incident, several months after Aquino had been cleared of any wrongdoing.

Salcedo also is representing Aquino in a lawsuit against Lujan and Rio Arriba County over his termination.

The Family Dollar incident began when Aquino was arresting another man in the store’s parking lot. He noticed the employee walking toward him and later peeking out the front door, the criminal complaint said. When Aquino went in the store to find a woman who was with the man he had arrested, he confronted the employee.

Video shows Aquino pushing the employee in the shoulder before the two began fighting inside and outside the store, the complaint said.

The man “told Mr. Aquino several times during this scu±e he was an employee of the Family Dollar, and it was his job to see what was going [on] at his place of work,” the complaint said.

Salcedo said state police Officer Diego Mendoza selectively chose which details to include in the complaint and failed to mention video showing the employee elbowing Aquino in the torso.

After Aquino called dispatch, his supervisor, Sgt. Robert Salazar, arrived at the store and separated the two men.

He placed the employee in his squad car, the complaint said. But after speaking to the man’s co-workers, Salazar did not feel comfortable arresting the employee and released him at the scene.

According to the complaint, Aquino told an investigator he was concerned for his safety during the incident and went on “full alert” because he knew there was a history of criminal activity at the store.

Aquino said he decided to go inside because he believed a crime was being committed, but he never saw the employee committing a crime, according to the complaint. “Mr. Aquino had no lawful authority to identify [the employee], to use force or arrest him,” the criminal complaint said. “Mr. Aquino could not establish reasonable suspicion or probable cause; interaction would only be a consensual encounter based on the facts Mr. Aquino knew.”