Grove of Santa Fe church’s trailer stolen

A trailer filled with audiovisual equipment was stolen Saturday from the Grove of Santa Fe church.

Eric Montoya, the church’s lead pastor, told deputies with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office the trailer was taken from the church grounds sometime between 2 and 5 p.m. Saturday, and that it contained about $15,000 worth of equipment, according to an incident report.

The gray, single-axle trailer was worth $4,000, Montoya said. It belonged to the church and featured the church’s name and logo on its side.

The Grove of Santa Fe, 2235 Henry Lynch Road in Agua Fría, has security cameras, but they were not operating at the time, Montoya told deputies, the report said.

A deputy searched the church’s parking lot but did not find any evidence, according to the report.

On Monday, the church posted photos and a video on its Facebook page from a security camera next door that show a light-colored pickup speeding off with what appears to be the trailer.

The post states, “This is the vehicle used to take our trailer and equipment.” The time stamp on the images is 4:21 p.m.

Montoya said in an interview the church has around 200 members and used to host Sunday services at a Regal movie theater. The church would set up the lights and sound equipment for its weekly service, and stored them in the trailer during the week.

When the movie theater shut down due to the pandemic about 14 months ago, the church moved to its current location. “So all of our equipment [from] the theater was in that trailer,” Montoya said.