SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
Police reports and video show the following sequence of events during a March 10 incident in Santa Fe in which a police officer and two suspects were wounded with gunshots. One of the suspects later died:
♦ Santa Fe police receive a confidential tip around 1 p.m. alleging Ricky Chavez, a suspect with active arrest warrants, is at his father’s home on Don Quixote.
♦ A police drone camera captures Chavez in the backyard of his father’s house, prompting city and New Mexico State Police officers to move toward the location.
♦ Chavez gets in a Lexus SUV with a trailer and flees from officers on side streets and through parking lots. He strikes a state police vehicle and evades a Santa Fe officer’s attempt to stop him with a vehicle by driving over a berm, reports allege.
♦ A Santa Fe police supervisor approves a pursuit of Chavez, and five or more officers trail his SUV — with the trailer and tractor in tow — west on Rodeo Road.
♦ Spikes placed on Rodeo Road deflate Chavez’s tires, but he continues driving. Officers pursue him through a residential neighborhood and to Vereda de Encanto, where he stops.
♦ Meanwhile, officers wrote in reports, George Theragood pulls a black car out of his driveway nearby.
♦ Chavez gets out of the SUV and walks toward Theragood’s car carrying a handgun, officers wrote in reports.
♦ An officer yells, “He’s got a gun! Gun!” and three officers fire their weapons, including Santa Fe Officer Charles Ovalle, who is standing behind Chavez’s SUV.
♦ Chavez, Theragood and Ovalle are all struck by gunfire.
♦ A Santa Fe police dog is released in an attempt to apprehend Chavez, but the K-9 instead attacks Ovalle, biting his right arm close to where he had just suffered a gunshot wound.
♦ Chavez falls out of Theragood’s car and onto the road, covered in blood.
♦ Around 1:30 p.m., an officer helps Ovalle into a cruiser and drives him to a hospital, where he is treated for his injury.
♦ Officers struggle to detain Theragood. He is treated at a local hospital for a minor wound and then taken to jail.
♦ Chavez is hospitalized with critical injuries but is reported to be stable. Two days later, he dies from his injuries. Reports say his parents had asked to end their son’s medical care.