Attack on Alexander Ortiz (Second Judicial District Court Bernalillo County).
Surveillance footage shows two men rushing up to a murder defendant in the middle of an Albuquerque court on Friday. It quickly devolved into a chaotic brawl.
According to authorities out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of them, Carlos Lucero, made the motivation very clear.
“In excited utterance, he stated, ‘He killed my niece like a coward,’ and ‘it was worth every moment,”” Bernalillo County deputies wrote in court documents.
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Now, he and co-defendant Pete Ysasi are both charged with attacking the murder defendant as well as hurting a law enforcement officer who intervened. Charges are battery upon a peace officer and “unlawful assault on a jail.”
Alexander Ortiz, the alleged killer at the center of it all, is charged with fatally shooting ex-girlfriend, Alianna J. Farfan, 20, in her bedroom.
In footage, a man in dark-colored clothes (ostensibly Lucero) got up from the second row of the gallery, jumped the partition, and sprinted at Ortiz. They and a law enforcement officer fell out of frame due to the attacker’s momentum. Another man (ostensibly Ysasi) followed, making his way through the gate and joining that mess. Authorities say both men punched Ortiz and all three sustained lacerations.
Much of the incident initially happened just offscreen. Even so, it is clear that it immediately devolved into a chaotic clash of tangled-up bodies and punches thrown.
A third man joined the melee. Authorities identified him as Ortiz’s father, who “was trying to ‘break up the fight.’”
Jail records show that authorities released Lucero on Saturday. They let Ysasi go on Sunday. Online records are available for his case; a status conference is set for March 5.
