Watch a New Mexico Sheriff's Deputy Jovially Hurl a Baby Rabbit to Its Death As His Supervisors Laugh
Deputy Alejandro Gomez, who is accused of repeatedly harassing a colleague, faces one charge of extreme animal cruelty and four charges of aggravated assault on a police officer.
My friend Willow likes to kill baby rabbits. So does Alejandro Gomez. One important difference is that Willow, who also likes to eat baby rabbits, is half Border Collie and half Australian Shepherd, while Gomez is a human employed as a sheriff's deputy in Grant County, New Mexico.
A recently revealed cellphone video shows Gomez demanding that another deputy, Marcus Salas, let him hold a baby rabbit that Salas found in the middle of a dirt road while working a night shift near Hachita, New Mexico, last August along with Gomez, Sgt. Brandon Reese, and Cpl. Cesar Torres. Gomez is persistent and at one point threatens Salas with a taser. Salas does not want to hand over the rabbit because he is worried that Gomez will kill it, which is precisely what Gomez does by hurling it against a patrol vehicle after Salas, trying to de-escalate the situation, finally gives in under pressure from Reese and Torres as well as Gomez. The two supervisors, who can be heard laughing hard in the video, evidently thought the whole thing was hilarious.
That disturbing incident is part of a criminal complaint against Gomez that includes one charge of extreme cruelty to animals and four charges of aggravated assault on a police officer—i.e., Salas, who says he was repeatedly harassed by Gomez, including incidents in which Gomez drew his taser and his gun. New Mexico State Police Agent Justin Blacklock, who investigated Salas' complaints after an internal review seemed to go nowhere, filed those charges on February 14. But like the video, which Blacklock says Reese recorded, the charges came to light only recently.
On the face of it, Gomez's alleged gunplay, which involves a human victim, is more alarming than his vicious treatment of the baby rabbit. But combined, the allegations make you wonder what sort of people Grant County is trusting with guns and badges. It is especially worrisome that two supervisors not only saw nothing wrong with the behavior that one of them jovially documented but actually egged on Gomez as he sought to torment Salas with the sort of casual cruelty that is usually seen as a marker of dangerously antisocial tendencies.
Salas says the rabbit incident was part of a pattern that began early in the morning on August 5, 2024. According to an arrest affidavit that Blacklock filed along with the criminal complaint, Salas was working on his computer at the Grant County Sheriff's Office in Silver City when he took out his cellphone to text a relative. "Deputy Gomez came up from behind Deputy Salas and snatched the unlocked cell phone," says the affidavit, which summarizes the account that Salas gave in an interview. "Deputy Gomez then proceeded to run through the office with Deputy Salas's unlocked cellular device."
After Salas, who did not want Gomez to "have access to his personal data," chased after the phone snatcher, Gomez "suddenly turned around, unholstered his taser, and pointed it directly at Deputy Salas's body," Blacklock writes. "Deputy Salas smacked the taser away and told Deputy Gomez to stop horseplaying."
A few moments later, after Gomez took off the vest that held his taser, Salas "picked up Deputy Gomez's vest and told him that he was not so tough without his taser," the affidavit says. Gomez then "unholstered his duty weapon and pointed it directly" at Salas, telling him "he was tough with the firearm." Salas reported that he was "shocked and scared at the firearm deployment." Although "he did not believe" Gomez would intentionally tase or shoot him, Salas worried that Gomez's "reckless behavior" could result in a "negligent discharge."
According to the affidavit, Torres "witnessed Deputy Gomez threatening Deputy Salas with the firearm," "scolded him for it," and told him to "put his gun away." Salas left the office at that point. "Later that night," Blacklock says, "Deputy Salas complained to Corporal Torres about Deputy Gomez's conduct and asked him to do something to correct the behavior, but nothing was done."
The rabbit incident happened 11 days later, on August 16. Salas, while working an "overtime shift" with Gomez, Torres, and Reese, "saw a baby rabbit on the roadway and stopped before running it over," the affidavit says. "He got out of his patrol vehicle and approached the baby rabbit to scare it off the roadway. The rabbit did not move because it was afraid. Deputy Salas was able to walk up [to] the rabbit and pick it up in his hands."
Salas "was very excited about holding a wild baby rabbit, so he began taking photographs to send to his family," Blacklock writes. "His intention was to move the animal away from the roadway and release it after he took photographs." The other deputies "stopped behind him and exited their patrol vehicles to see what was going on. The deputies hovered around him and began laughing loudly. They also took photographs/videos with their phones." Reese's video shows what happened next.
At the beginning of the one-minute video, Torres is holding the rabbit. Reese repeatedly tells Torres to let Gomez hold the rabbit. Torres instead hands the rabbit to Salas, who says, "Don't throw it." One of the supervisors (it is unclear which) says Salas should let Gomez hold the rabbit. As Gomez asks to hold the rabbit, Reese reiterates that Salas should let him. "You're going to fucking kill it," Salas says. "I won't throw it," Gomez says. "I swear." Torres, who is laughing, says, "Let it go."
When Gomez walks away from the road and starts to put the rabbit down so it can escape, Gomez draws his taser and points it at Salas, saying, "Give it to me right now." Salas is still smiling at this point (perhaps nervously), so it's not clear how seriously he took that threat. But according to the affidavit, "the taser was armed with the light/laser fixed on Deputy Salas's body," and Salas thought Gomez might actually use the weapon.
Four seconds later, Reese, who is "laughing hysterically" (as Blacklock puts it), tells Salas to "let him hold it." Salas is about to capitulate, but he again wants Gomez to promise that he won't hurt the rabbit.
"Are you going to kill it?" Salas says. "I won't," Gomez assures him. "Don't fucking kill it," Salas says. "I won't kill it," Gomez responds. "You better not kill it," Salas reiterates. "I won't kill it," Gomez says again. But a few seconds after Salas hands over the rabbit, Gomez smiles broadly at Reese's phone camera and throws the rabbit against a patrol truck, causing an audible thud. "Damn," Salas says. Reese and Torres are still laughing.
Gomez "threw the animal with such force that it fatally wounded the animal," Blacklock writes. Gomez "said he dispatched the animal as it lay on the ground dying so that it would not suffer."
According to the affidavit, Gomez was not through messing with Salas. A few hours later, Blacklock says, Salas "realized his flashlight was running out of battery," so "he decided to draw his duty handgun and see if his weapon mounted light had power." Salas "aimed the weapon in the opposite direction of the other deputies and tested his weapon mounted light." Then he "holstered his weapon and turned back toward the other deputies," at which point he saw that Gomez "was pointing his duty handgun directly at Deputy Salas's face" from about three feet away.
Salas, who "was frightened and thought he could be shot in the face…jumped back and told Deputy Gomez to stop," Blacklock writes. "Deputy Gomez told Deputy Salas that he was only testing his duty mounted light like Deputy Salas was. Deputy Salas told us that Deputy Gomez didn't have a weapon mounted light during this encounter so that explanation did not make sense."
Salas was "upset about the incidents which took place during the overtime shift," the affidavit says, and "he was even more upset about the fact that these incidents were witnessed by two supervisors," who "did nothing to intervene." When "a few weeks passed and nothing was done about these incidents," Salas "decided to officially file a complaint so that an administrative investigation could be completed." He "went above his chain of command and reported the incidents to Captain Stephen Gallegos" on September 23. The ensuing internal affairs investigation "seemed to result
in very little disciplinary action being taken."
During these incidents, Blacklock says, Reese and Torres "failed to intervene as required by New Mexico Statute." He says they and Gomez, who has been placed on leave pending the resolution of his case, declined to be interviewed as part of the state police investigation "without an attorney present."
Grant County Sheriff Raul Villanueva declined to comment on the case. "Unfortunately, there is an ongoing criminal prosecution of one of my deputies, a county employee," he told The Grant County Beat. "He is entitled to due process. Therefore, the County cannot comment on either the pending litigation or the personnel matters."
Gary Mitchell, Gomez's lawyer, was a bit more forthcoming. "We don't think he did anything wrong, obviously," Mitchell told the Albuquerque Journal on Thursday. "We're waiting to see what evidence the state has.…But it sounds like an [intra]-office situation that should not have turned into a criminal case."
