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New information has been released in the case against a former New Mexico state legislative candidate who was booked into jail Tuesday in connection with a series of shootings at Democratic elected officials’ homes.
A criminal complaint provided to USA TODAY reveals frightening details about the shootings linked to the Republican candidate. Bullets fired into one of the lawmaker’s homes caused sheetrock and dust to land in the face of the 10-year-old daughter as she slept in bed, according to the complaint.
The complaint also reveals suspect Solomon Peña was “upset he had not won the election for public office,” adding that he encouraged accomplices to shoot at the homes during waking hours and “intended to (seriously injure) or cause death.”
Peña, arrested Monday in connection to the recent spate of drive-by shootings at four local lawmakers’ homes, was booked into the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center Tuesday at 12:26 a.m. local time, jail records show.
Peña, who lost his bid for a state house seat in November, is accused of conspiring with, and paying four other men to shoot at the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators.
During a news conference Monday night, Albuquerque Police Department Chief Harold Medina identified Peña as the “mastermind suspect” in the shootings.
No one was injured in the shootings, police said.
Previously: Former candidate arrested in drive-by shooting case that targeted Democrats’ homes in New Mexico
Florida shooting: 8 injured, 1 seriously, during shooting at Martin Luther King Jr. event in FloridaGunshots flew through 10-year-old girl’s bedroom, per new court documents
Court documents show Peña, 38, is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, four counts of shooting into an occupied dwelling, four counts of shooting at or from a moving vehicle, one count of attempted aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, four counts of conspiracy and criminal solicitation.
The most recent attack took place at state Senator Linda Lopez’s home on Jan. 3. According to the complaint, on the lawmaker told police she heard loud bangs at her home the night of the shooting, but dismissed them as fireworks. At the same time, her 10-year-old daughter woke up and told her mother she that she believed a spider crawled over her face in bed.
“Linda went to sleep with her daughter in bed. While in bed, Linda’s daughter asked what it felt like there was sand in the bed,” the complaint reads.
The next morning, Lopez noticed there were holes in her house from gunfire and called police, the complaint continues. A preliminary investigation at the home found “sheet rock and dust was blown on Linda’s daughter‘s face in bed, resulting from firearm projectiles, passing inside her bedroom overhead.”
Officers also found 12 impacts to her home, presumably from gunfire, and one projectile inside of a parked vehicle in the driveway.
Two days after the shooting, a police detective obtained a Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office report detailing a traffic stop initiated the night of the shooting near the lawmaker’s home.
