Santa Fe man arrested for pointing gun at elderly woman in food pick-up line
Santa Fe April 16 2020 A man was arrested during a drive-thru meal pickup Saturday at Capital High School on suspicion of pulling a gun on an elderly woman he accused of trying to cut in line in front of him.
Damian Vasquez, 19, has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, according to a Santa Fe police report.
Vasquez told officers the woman attempted to cut into the line of cars waiting to pick up food at the school, the report said. But the woman told police it was her turn to get in line and that Vasquez had cut her off.
“She said he pulled a large black handgun out from the driver side door of the Jeep, and pointed it directly at her face,” said a criminal complaint filed Monday in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court.
Because the school was surrounded by gridlocked traffic due to the number of people waiting to pick up meals, the police report said, officers approached Vasquez’s Jeep on foot while a security guard stopped all incoming traffic.
Officers had their weapons drawn, the report said, but did not open fire during the arrest.
When officers told Vasquez to put his hands up and get out of the Jeep, he told them his firearm was just a BB gun, the report said. Officers later verified it was an airsoft gun but looked “exactly like a Smith & Wesson M&P semi-automatic handgun.”
Vasquez’s mother, who was in the Jeep with him, told officers that before her son had flashed the gun, he rolled down his window to ask the woman what she wanted, and she began yelling at them. When Vasquez drove away, his mother said, the vehicles’ mirrors collided. She also said the elderly woman had reached out of her vehicle and hit the side of the Jeep and had tried to ram the Jeep with her vehicle.
Officers concluded that was unlikely and that there was no damage to either vehicle at the scene.
About three hours after Vasquez was arrested, his mother called the Santa Fe Regional Emergency Communications Center to report damage to her son’s vehicle.
Vasquez was booked into the Santa Fe County jail and later released on a $2,500 unsecured appearance bond. He is scheduled to appear Wednesday in Magistrate Court.
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