March 31 at 5:06 PM And then there were eight. One of the nine people charged in relation to the destruction of the Plaza obelisk on Indigenous Peoples Day 2020 won t have to go to trial after prosecutors dismissed his misdemeanor charges in Municipal Court on Monday. Sean Sunderland, 24, completed 40 hours of community service chosen from the Municipal Court s approved list of community organizations, according to his lawyer, Kitren Fischer. The Santa Fe Police Department bungled his case twice SFPD Officer Jesse Campbell didn t appear for a hearing, resulting in its dismissal. Judge Donita Sena then put it back on the docket when it could not be determined whether the Santa Fe County Magistrate Court had properly notified Campbell of the hearing date.
COVID-19 by the numbers New Mexico health officials yesterday reported 277 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total so far to 191,652. The health department has designated 173,701 of those cases as recovered. Bernalillo County led with 125 new cases yesterday more than twice as many as Tuesday. Sandoval County had 41, followed by Doña Ana County with 23. Santa Fe County had 16 new cases. The state also announced five additional deaths; there have now been 3,937 fatalities. As of yesterday, 99 people were hospitalized with COVID-19. You can read all of SFR s COVID-19 coverage here. If you ve had experiences with COVID-19, we would like to hear from you.
January 27 The prosecutor in charge of seven of the eight cases flowing from the partial takedown of the Plaza obelisk on Indigenous Peoples Day wants to make sure everyone is on the same page. Assistant District Attorney Richard Wilson has called a meeting with the lawyers representing the eight defendants in this rare situation. Kitren Fischer, who represents one of the accused, tells SFR she originally suggested the meeting to give everyone access to the same information. There is no set date or time. Of course, every case is different, but they re almost exactly the same, and so it s just rare that we do that, Wilson tells SFR. Traditionally I would call up the attorneys anyway to talk about the cases prior…I wanted to make sure that I wasn t telling everybody different things. Specifically, I m not going to lie, I kind of forget who I told stuff and who I haven t and so we just wanted to set up a meeting with all counsel on the case.