By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Albuquerque Journal
An Albuquerque police officer faced surgery to repair a broken leg Monday, a day after he was dragged alongside a vehicle and run over while attempting to stop a suspected drunken driver, police said.
Police on Sunday arrested Benito Aragon, 36, of Albuquerque on felony charges including great bodily harm by vehicle and resisting arrest and evading an officer. Aragon was released from jail Monday on $25,000 bond and faces criminal arraignment today in Bernalillo County Metro Court, court personnel said.
APD bicycle officer Justin Montgomery was patrolling near Central and Third NW about 9:30 p.m. Sunday when he saw a white Subaru driving without headlights and ordered the driver to stop, according to a Metro Court criminal complaint.
As Montgomery approached the driver’s side window, the driver accelerated north on Third NW, an officer wrote on the criminal complaint. Montgomery grabbed onto the vehicle, the officer wrote.
Montgomery saw the driver veer toward some parked vehicles “so he punched the driver in order to get him to stop,” the complaint said.
When Montgomery “tried to detach himself from the vehicle, it continued to drag him a short ways,” the complaint said.
Montgomery was able to break free from the vehicle near Third and Copper NW, police said Monday in an emailed statement. The officer fell to the street and the car’s rear tire ran over his right leg, the statement said.
A second officer arrested Aragon near Broadway and Martin Luther King NE when Aragon’s vehicle was stopped in traffic, the complaint said. Officers said Aragon showed signs of intoxication, but results of a blood test were not available Monday.
Montgomery was transported to University of New Mexico Hospital with two broken bones in his leg, police spokeswoman Sgt. Trish Hoffman said.
In February, Montgomery fatally shot Andrew Lopez, 19, after a pursuit through southwest Albuquerque. Montgomery said he fired the shots after Lopez “turned in an aggressive manner with an object in his hand,” but police found no weapon at the scene.
A grand jury cleared Montgomery of any wrongdoing, but a judge in June awarded Lopez’s family $4.25 million and ruled that Montgomery had used excessive force.
Copyright 2011 Albuquerque Journal