Oct. 4—In the coming weeks, a jury is expected to consider an attempted murder case against a Sandia Park man in a shooting that rocked Española amid protests over the resurrection of a controversial Spanish conquistador statue more than a year ago.
The outcome of the case could reverberate around the country, providing an example for prosecution against what many see as escalating incidents of political violence.
The defendant, Ryan Martinez, 24, faces an attempted murder charge and other felony counts in a trial scheduled to begin Tuesday at a courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, the remote county seat of Rio Arriba County.
Martinez was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” cap on Sept. 28, 2023, when he disrupted a protest by several Native American groups against the reinstallation of a statue of Juan de Oñate outside a county building in Española. Videos of the incident that swirled around social media in the days afterward showed Martinez charging into protesters — several of whom blocked him from accessing an area outside the building that contained the pedestal for the would-be statue — before he pulled a handgun from his waistband and fired a single shot into the crowd.
Jacob Johns of Spokane, Wash., a Native American artist and environmental activist, suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen.
Martinez faces counts of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and reckless driving.
Prosecutors allege Martinez had pointed the handgun at another protester before shooting Johns and then speeding away in a white Tesla. He was arrested by police on the interstate south of Española, and he has been held at Rio Arriba County jail in Tierra Amarilla since the incident.
Martinez could face a sentence of more than 24 years in prison if he is convicted on the charges.
Albuquerque-based attorneys Nicole Moss and Marshall Ray are representing Martinez in the case. The two are expected to mount a self-defense argument for Martinez, having acknowledged in past interviews that their client fired a shot at the protest and struck Johns.
Moss and Ray have argued in court filings Martinez “feared for his life” in the incident, calling Johns an “out-of-state agitator.”
Their defense appears set to include a retired police officer testifying as an expert witness on self-defense. Prosecutors objected to the use of former Albuquerque police Sgt. Damon Fay, arguing in a motion “the problem with his testimony is that his training and experience deal entirely with law enforcement officers” while Martinez is a civilian.
District Judge Jason Lidyard recently ruled Fay could testify, however, along with many who were present during the shooting and who will testify for the state. Prosecutors’ list of potential witnesses for the trial includes Johns, some of the other protesters, Española police Chief Mizel Garcia and Albuquerque Journal photographer Eddie Moore. Among those on the defense attorneys’ witness list is Rio Arriba County Sheriff Billy Merrifield as well as several men listed with Española post office boxes.
First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altweis and Chief Deputy District Attorney Tony Long are prosecuting the case and are expected to argue the case in court.
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys declined to comment on the case ahead of the trial.
Jury selection is set to begin Monday, with the trial running from Tuesday to Friday and then Oct. 16 to Oct. 18.
Johns has spoken out since the shooting, both on national outlets such as the broadcast program Democracy Now as well as in Santa Fe. Johns and others have referred to the incident as an example of “colonial violence” faced by Indigenous people for centuries.
The Native American artist held an exhibition this summer in Santa Fe that featured paintings of several photos from the shooting as well as renderings of Martinez. One of Johns’ paintings showed Martinez in tears, an image from the suspected shooter’s pretrial detention hearing late last year.
“What happened to me was awful, traumatic — the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,” Johns told The New Mexican in July. “The people who witnessed what happened were really distraught — the idea is to find healing not just for myself, but also for the community.”
A lawsuit against Martinez and his parents related to the incident was settled earlier this year.
Johns alleged in the civil complaint Martinez “was motivated by hatred, bias and prejudice against Indigenous people” and that the suspect’s parents were aware he was “obsessed with guns and firearms and that he routinely engaged in dangerous and exceptionally disturbing behavior while living with them.”
Santa Fe attorney John Day — who represented Johns in the lawsuit — confirmed in a phone call Friday that the case was settled, but he declined to comment further on the settlement.
Since the protests against the statue and the subsequent shooting more than a year ago, the county-owned Oñate statue has remained in storage at an undisclosed place.
The incident spurred an effort to recall Rio Arriba County Commissioner Alex Naranjo, who has been blamed by some community members and public officials for an ill-considered initiative to resurrect the highly-controversial statue, which had been removed from its previous location in 2020 partially due to fears of violence at protests.
Antonio “Ike” DeVargas, who spearheaded the recall effort and was present at the protest in 2023, died in recent months.
