Special prosecutor clears VCSO deputy

A special prosecutor has determined a Valencia County Sheriff’s Office deputy, who shot and killed a Peralta man last year, should not be criminally charged.

A Nov. 11 decision letter from special prosecutor Sharon Walton to New Mexico State Police states “criminal charges should not be filed against Valencia County Sheriff’s deputy Lucas Chavez following the officer-involved shooting ... which resulted in the death of Michael Gabaldon.”

On Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, deputies responded to the home of Michael and Patricia Gabaldon on La Ladera three times due to the couples’ neighbor, Thomas Rodriguez, shooting a gun from his backyard and racing up and down the dirt road in front of their home, making derogatory hand gestures at Michael and throwing a rock, hitting the Gabaldon home.

The couple told deputies the issues with Rodriguez had been going on for years, and his mother reported he would stay awake for days after using drugs, then begin hallucinating, eventually shooting at the hallucinations.

Gabaldon, who was a VCSO deputy from September 1998 to September 2002, was shot by Chavez on the third response to the situation, at almost 10:30 p.m.

Chavez has been with the sheriff’s office since May 2021.

Valencia County Sheriff Denise Vigil said she is “grateful for the prompt response from the special prosecutor.”

Walton, a judge who retired from Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court in 2018 after 19 years on the bench, noted her legal analysis concludes no criminal charges are warranted as a result of the use of deadly force by the deputy.

To avoid a conflict of interest during the investigation of the case, 13th Judicial District Attorney Barbara Romo assigned the case to Walton.

“The way the 13th handles police-involved shooting investigations is we have contract attorneys who are willing to accept these type of cases for review,” Romo said. “There’s no requirement for any of us to conflict these cases out, but most DAs I know don’t keep them in house due to the appearance of impropriety. When your office works with one of these (law enforcement) agencies, it could cloud your judgment.”

The attorneys the 13th uses for these investigations are people known to the DAs office, Romo said, such as former judges and district attorneys.

“The administrative office of the district attorney has someone assigned as special council and sometimes we ask him to take cases,” the DA said. “But for officer-involved shootings, we have specific contract attorneys to look at those.”

To determine whether criminal charges should be brought against Chavez, Walton examined all available evidence including police reports, audio and video recordings of interviews with the deputy, suspects, family members and neighbors, evidence that was collected at the scene and analyzed, and dispatch call audio.

There are two state statutes and one piece of case law that govern justifiable use of force by a peace officer in New Mexico, according to Walton’s decision letter.

First is NMSA 30-2-7, which permits a peace officer to use force, including deadly force, when the officer reasonably believes the person poses a threat of serious harm or death to the officer or others.

NMSA 30-2-6, provides the standard for an officer’s justifiable use of deadly force, regardless of whether the individual survives.

Finally, in the 2007 case State v. Rodriguez, the New Mexico Supreme Court reiterated the proper application of the Graham v. Conner Standard, which focuses on the objective reasonableness test and notes the facts and circumstances of the particular case, including the severity of the crime, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight must be considered.

“The core legal question is whether Deputy Chavez had an objectively reasonable belief that he or others were in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm at the moment he discharged his firearm,” wrote Walton, who has been an attorney in New Mexico since 1987. “This is assessed based on the totality of the circumstances known to the deputy at that precise time.”

Walton summarized the incident deputies responded to on Sept. 29, the day Gabaldon was killed, as “an escalating dispute where shots had been exchanged between neighbors.”

She writes that Chavez was aware of Gabaldon’s prior actions, including “being armed, firing a warning shot, pointing his firearm and being highly agitated, profane and aggressive towards his neighbor, Thomas Rodriguez, and toward the deputies themselves during an earlier response.

“Deputy Chavez objectively believed Mr. Gabaldon wanted to fight and posed a potential threat.”

The second time deputies were called out to the La Ladera home, just before 8 p.m., there had been several calls about a confrontation between Gabaldon and Rodriguez in the road in front of their houses.

When they arrived, deputies found Gabaldon in the road, armed and pointing a handgun towards the home of Rodriguez, where he lived with his mother. Deputies gave numerous commands to Gabaldon to drop the gun, but he didn’t comply.

“He postured himself in a fighting stance and challenged deputies, asking if we wanted to fight,” reads the criminal complaint. “He continued to walk to deputies in an aggressive manner still egging the deputies on.”

On body camera video provided by VCSO, Gabaldon can be heard saying, “Do you want to go?” as he refuses to drop his gun. Deputies are seen backing away from him while ordering him to drop his gun as they have their own guns trained on him.

Gabaldon eventually puts the handgun in his waistband at the small of his back and climbs over a locked gate back into his yard.

When they were able to speak to Gabaldon, he told deputies Rodriguez had been driving up and down the street, and threw a rock at their home. Gabaldon armed himself with a handgun and went out into his yard, inside his fence, to confront his neighbor.

He said Rodriguez drove at him in a threatening manner, so he fired a shot in the air. Concerned Rodriguez was armed as well, Gabaldon jumped his fence to get into the road and keep his home from being in the potential line of fire from Rodriguez. He told deputies he didn’t see Rodriguez with a gun during that encounter. Earlier in the day, Gabaldon told deputies he’d seen the other man out in his backyard with a gun.

In the decision letter, Walton writes when Chavez responded to the third call about an exchange of gunfire between Gabaldon and Rodriguez, he saw Gabaldon “appear to see him” and then run toward the fence near Rodriguez’s home.

“Mr. Gabaldon then took what witnesses described as a shooting stance and fired his weapon toward Mr. Rodriguez’s occupied home in the presence of the deputies,” she wrote.

Chavez and other deputies ordered Gabaldon to drop his gun, to which is responded with profanity and didn’t comply, “despite warnings that he would be shot. The factual evidence indicates Mr. Gabaldon then turned slowly.”

Walton states that turning movement, which followed the shot fired by Gabaldon and his refusal to drop the weapon, as Gabaldon “either preparing to fire on the responding deputies or continuing to fire at Mr. Rodriguez. Deputy Chavez then discharged his firearm, fatally wounding Mr. Gabaldon in the back/torso.”

In her legal analysis and conclusion, Walton writes the shooting of Gabaldon was justified pursuant to NMSA 30-2-7.

“The critical factor is the objective reasonableness of the officer’s perception of the threat at the moment the shot was fired,” she writes.

Walton continues, writing it was Chavez’s belief that he and others were in imminent danger was reasonable given the totality of the circumstances — Gabaldon had just fired his weapon toward a neighbor, he failed to comply with repeated direct orders to drop his weapon, he was actively armed and maintaining a shooting stance, and he then made a turning movement toward the deputies.

“Given the rapidly unfolding, high-stress situation, including Mr. Gabaldon’s recent discharge of a firearm, his non-compliance with orders, and his immediate turning movement toward deputies, Deputy Chavez reasonably perceived an imminent, deadly threat,” the letter reads. “Deputy Chavez’s actions must be reviewed with necessary perspective for judging deadly force in high-stress, dynamic situations using an objective standard viewed from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, ‘rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.’”

In October 2025, the family received a $1.5 million settlement from the New Mexico County Insurance Authority in the wrongful death suit brought on behalf of Gabaldon’s estate.

Documents pertaining to the investigation provided to the News-Bulletin by the New Mexico State Police, show a representative from Standard Insurance Company reached out to NMSP Officer Everson Cruz while adjudicating a group life insurance claim for Gabaldon in October 2024.

The benefits analyst had two questions for Cruz.

1. Was Michael Gabaldon committing a felony at the time of his death. In other words, had he survived would he have been charged with a felony?

2. Has his spouse, Patricia Gabaldon, been ruled out as a suspect in his murder?

On Nov. 5, 2024, Cruz responded “yes” to both questions.