DA still reviewing shooting death
Child died 18 months ago after Santa Fe police officer’s gun was fired in family’s Rio Rancho home; Harmon remains on ‘alternate duty status’
Eighteen months after the unintentional shooting death of a Santa Fe police officer’s 2-yearold son with the officer’s off-duty handgun, the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office has yet to decide whether to file criminal charges.
The Attorney General’s Office, which took over the case last year while Hector Balderas was at the helm, said in May 2022 it was awaiting the outcome of an independent legal review.
But no decision was made before Balderas, who is now serving as president of Northern New Mexico College, left the agency in December after serving two terms in office.
The case “was reviewed by the prior administration,” Lauren Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the current attorney general, wrote in a statement.
“However, Attorney General Raúl Torrez has asked the Special Prosecutions team to re-review a number of reports, this one included,” she wrote.
Balderas said in a statement cases involving children require special care.
“During an ongoing investigation involving the death of a child, it is vital to gather and evaluate all the evidence, and as I directed as I left office, the Legislature needed to take action on gun safety for children and the attorney general’s office should continue to investigate this matter to ensure justice for the child,” he said.
Meanwhile, the deceased child’s father, Jonathan Harmon, remains on “alternate duty status” at the Santa Fe Police Department.
“Alternate duty status is nonfield work conducting administrative tasks,” Deputy Chief Ben Valdez wrote in an email.
Valdez reiterated the Santa Fe Police Department plans to conduct an “administrative investigation” after the investigation into the fatal shooting is complete.
The shooting happened in the family’s Rio Rancho home one early morning in December 2021.
A report says Rio Rancho police believe Lincoln Harmon’s 4-year-old brother discovered their father’s off-duty handgun in a kitchen cabinet while looking for bubble gum and unintentionally fired it, killing his little brother.
“I said, ‘Why were you messing with his gun?’ ” the boys’ mother, Courtney Harmon, told investigators. “And he said he was trying to put it on his daddy’s belt because he wants to be just like his dad.”
According to a police report, Lincoln and his older brother woke up before their parents and went into the kitchen by themselves that morning.
Their mother was in the master bedroom with her newborn infant, and their father was in another bedroom struggling to wake up.
The 4-year-old pushed a kitchen chair to a countertop and climbed up “in an effort to get chewing gum” in a cabinet where his father occasionally would store his off-duty handgun.
Because the gun was hidden and on the top shelf, Jonathan Harmon believed “it was out of reach of the children,” the report states.
“The gun is kept loaded to full capacity (6 rounds), and Jonathan probably had a round in the chamber,” the report states.
After finding the gun, the older boy “either ‘pulled it up’ (possibly pulling it out of the holster) or ‘pointed it up,’ (possibly at Lincoln) and unintentionally fired the gun, resulting in a fatal wound to Lincoln,” the report states.
The shooting happened in the family’s home one morning in December 2021.