Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico

A week earlier, a federal grand jury charged Solomon Peña, 40, with crimes related to a spree of shootings targeting four elected officials in the Albuquerque area after his defeat in the Nov. 8, 2022 race for the District 14 seat in the lower chamber of the state Legislature.

The shootings happened at the homes of two Bernalillo County commissioners and two state lawmakers between Dec. 4, 2022 and Jan. 3, 2023. No one was physically harmed in the attacks, but police found bullet holes in the buildings.

According to the federal indictment, Demetrio Trujillo, 41, and his son Jose Louise Trujillo, 21, helped Peña obtain guns and cars they used to shoot at the officials’ homes and vehicles. ...

Former Republican Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin failed to explain to New Mexico’s highest court how he would challenge his removal from elected office, so the court threw out his appeal.

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a two-page order dismissing Griffin’s appeal of an earlier court ruling that removed him from his elected position and barred him for life from serving in elected federal and state positions.

The ruling marked the first time an elected official was unseated by court order as a result of participating in or supporting the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Tuesday’s dismissal affirms the ruling. ...

The Fire/Arson Investigation Division of Albuquerque Fire Rescue ruled the fire an accident, and discussed preliminary findings during a news conference on Friday.

It is extremely likely that the fire was caused by a Tri-Chamber Flameless Grenade thrown through a front window of the house, said Jason Ramirez, captain of the fire/arson investigation division.

The grenade emits CS gas, commonly known as tear gas. ...

A white supremacist militia under legal pressure from a local prosecutor in New Mexico is claiming protection under a 1958 court case that allowed the NAACP to keep its membership roster private from Alabama officials in order to protect members from violence and harassment.

The Bernalillo County District Attorney’s office, meanwhile, says the case is more like a 1987 one where a federal appeals court required the Ku Klux Klan to turn over membership records, albeit sealed from the public.

The dispute stems from a non-fatal shooting at a protest in Albuquerque in June 2020 at the statue depicting Juan de Oñate outside the Albuquerque Museum. Steven Ray Baca is charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm for the shooting, two counts of battery on two other protesters, and unlawful carrying of a weapon....

“The incarceration rates in every U.S. state are out of line with the entire world, and we found that this disparity is not explainable by differences in crime or 'violent crime,' " the researchers wrote. “In fact, there is little correlation between high rates of 'violent crime' and the rate at which the U.S. states lock people up in prisons and jails."

“Compared to our allies around the world, compared to other major democracies, the United States and every U.S. state is completely unparalleled when it comes to our rates of incarceration," said Wanda Bertram, a communications strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative.

The researchers collected prison data from every level of the criminal legal system including state prisons, local jails, people held by the U.S. Marshals Service, people detained for immigration offenses, sex offenders indefinitely detained or committed in “civil commitment centers" after completing a sentence, and those committed to psychiatric hospitals as a result of criminal charges or convictions....