Solomon Peña, a defeated candidate for the state legislature, paid people to fire on the houses of four Democratic office-holders, authorities say.
The arrest of a defeated candidate for the New Mexico legislature on charges that he orchestrated a plot to shoot up the homes of four Democratic officials in Albuquerque prompted widespread condemnation Tuesday as well as accusations that the stolen-election rhetoric among supporters of former president Donald Trump continues to incite violence.
Following the Monday arrest, new details emerged Tuesday about the alleged conspiracy, including how close a spray of bullets came to the sleeping 10-year-old daughter of a state senator. Albuquerque police said in charging documents released Tuesday that Solomon Peña, 39, who lost a state House seat in November by a nearly 2-1 margin but complained that his defeat was rigged, hatched the plot. Police accused him of conspiring with four accomplices to drive past the officials’ homes and fire at them.
Peña “provided firearms and cash payments and personally participated in at least one shooting,” the documents said. They alleged he intended to cause “serious injury or death” to the people inside their homes, the documents said. The group allegedly stole at least two cars used in the incidents, police said.
One of the targets of the attack said the shootings were part of a lineage of violence that stems from Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and that includes the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“You think it wouldn’t happen here, that someone would do this to local officials,” said former Bernalillo commissioner Debbie O’Malley, whose home was shot at Dec. 11. “There’s been this narrative for a long time: If you don’t get your way, it’s okay to be violent. The message came from the top. It came from Trump.”
According to the charging documents, the most recent incident occurred Jan. 3, when at least a dozen rounds were fired into the Albuquerque home of state Sen. Linda Lopez (D).
Lopez told police she had initially thought the loud bangs she heard just after midnight were fireworks. But in the middle of the night, her 10-year-old daughter awoke thinking a spider had crawled across her face and wondering why her bed felt like it was filled with sand.
At daybreak, Lopez noticed holes in the house that made her suspect gunfire. After realizing that it was drywall dust from bullet holes that had awakened her daughter, she called the authorities, according to the charging papers. The documents also allege that Peña personally participated in the Lopez shooting because he was displeased that prior shootings had aimed “so high up on the walls.”
Peña brought an automatic rifle to Lopez’s home, but it jammed during the incident and did not fire, according to the documents.
Police accused Peña of orchestrating similar attacks in December on the Albuquerque homes of New Mexico state Rep. Javier Martinez, Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa and O’Malley, who at the time was also a county commissioner. They did not say whether the gunfire at those homes came close to striking anyone. Lopez, Martinez and Barboa could not be reached for comment.
Before his run for office, Peña served nearly seven years in prison on convictions related to a smash-and-grab scheme that included burglary, larceny and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
