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The man convicted of firing the first shot into a New Mexico State Police officer during the June 5, 1967 Rio Arriba County Courthouse "raid" in Tierra Amarilla, has died, August 25, 2012, of complications following two recent heart attacks.
Born May 25, 1938,
Juan Valdez was 74.
I photographed
Valdez, right, with back to camera, talking with Attorney Edwin L.
Felter Jr., center, and Geronimo Bournda, left, during a recess in the trial of
the shooting of Officer Nick Saiz, below right.
Valdez, a rancher
from Canjilon, participated in the raid on the Northern New Mexico County courthouse,
as a member of the Alianza Federal de Mercedes, also known as, the Alianza
Federal de los Pueblos Libres, which translated means, the Alliance of free
City States, a land grant movement, led by Reies Lopez Tijerina.
Upon entering the
courthouse, Valdez was confronted by Saiz. Though Valdez pleaded not guilty,
his friend, Bournda, testified he was the actual shooter, Valdez was convicted,
but did not serve a state prison term, because he was pardoned by Gov. Bruce King. Valdez
later admitted, in a book, Trespassers on
Our Own Land, based on his
family’s oral history, "It came down to, I shoot him or he was going to
shoot me — so I pulled the trigger," Valdez. "Lucky for both of us,
he didn't die."
The raid was an
attempt to free other members of the Alianza, arrested a few days earlier at a
gathering, declared illegal by New Mexico’s First Judicial District Attorney
Alfonso Sanchez. The group also wanted to make a citizen's arrest on Sanchez,
but did not locate him in the courthouse, where he was hidden.
The jailed members
were freed during a court hearing held shortly before a group of about eight
raiders, according to Valdez, or up to 30 by others, arrived at the courthouse.
Lt. Gov. E Lee
Francis called out the National Guard to hunt down Alianza members. Francis was
acting Governor because Dave Cargo was out of the state visiting in Michigan.
In 1970, Cargo was also visiting Michigan when Francis called out the National
Guard to retake a virtually empty Student Union Building on the University of
New Mexico Campus after a protest in support of four Kent State students
killed by Ohio National Guard, May 4, 1970. Twelve people were bayoneted and
over 150 protestors arrested at UNM. Francis’ two calls for National Guard
deployment are considered some of the most excessive uses of force in the state’s
history.
The raid became international news and would have been an even bigger story had it not coincided with the Six-Day War, or the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Tijerina was charged
with shooting and injuring Jailer Eulogio Salazar and false imprisonment of
others in the courthouse, including Deputy Sheriff Daniel Rivera, who was badly
beaten. Salazar was murdered before the trial began. Tijerina was eliminated as
a suspect in the killing, which has never been solved.
New Mexico State
Police Criminal Intelligence Unit Officer Robert J. Gilliland, left, who was
the lead investigator of the courthouse raid, speaks with Special Prosecutor Jack Love during a break in the Valdez trial, in front of the
Bernalillo County District Court.
Felter, now Senior
Administrative Law Judge, Colorado Office of Administrative Courts, did not
respond to a request for a comment, and former New Mexico District Court Judge
Jack Love, could not be located. However, he posted a story on his site, "New Mexico Law and Society," June 07, 2005, “Convicted Courthouse Raiders Pardoned by Governors King and Apodaca.”
