By Robert Nott
The Santa Fe New Mexican
SANTA FE, N.M. — An inmate sued the New Mexico Corrections Department on Wednesday, claiming he was shot in the left foot by prison officers who engaged in target practice near cells.
Prisoner Robert Vasquez filed the suit in state District Court in Santa Fe. He alleges that administrators at the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility in Grants conducted a training exercise for officers with targets taped to the wall and floor of a building next to cells.
“The guards intentionally pointed their weapons and fired at the cells of various inmates,” Vasquez’s lawsuit says.
Their shotguns were loaded with bean-bag pellets.
In addition to the department, Vasquez is suing Gregg Marcantel, Cabinet secretary of the Corrections Department.
Alex Tomlin, spokeswoman for the department, said prison officials held a “nonlethal training exercise” at the Grants prison about the time Vasquez cites in his complaint, late July of 2013.
She said inmates had the option of leaving the area or staying in their cells. Vasquez chose to stay, she said.
Tomlin said Vasquez “was in his cell with the door closed. There is no indication that anything got into his cell, that anything got into any other inmates’ cells. The inmate did say afterward that something happened to his foot. He didn’t say he got shot.
“We maintain that he wasn’t injured in this incident.”
Still, Tomlin said, afterward the department issued new training protocols mandating removal of inmates from areas where training exercises are held.
Vasquez, 30, has an account far different from Tomlin’s.
In his lawsuit, he said inmates were forced into a lockdown situation and could not leave their cells during the officers’ training exercise. He said he was shot in the foot, cried out in pain and asked for help.
Prison employees simply moved him to the shower area, he said. He also alleges that officers then searched his cell and removed any evidence of the shooting.
Vasquez claims the shooting “constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.” He is asking for compensatory damages for emotional distress, pain and suffering. He also is seeking punitive damages.
Vasquez pleaded guilty in 2008 to armed robbery with a deadly weapon, assault with the intention to commit a violent felony and assault with the intention to commit a violent felony upon a peace officer, among other charges.
He has been housed in four of the state’s prisons and at least two of its county jails since 2008, according to records maintained by the state Corrections Department.
The Western New Mexico prison has a capacity of 428 inmates, Tomlin said. It currently houses 329 prisoners.
Vasquez is no longer an inmate there. He was transferred to another prison after refusing to take a drug test and after attempting to break the locks on some security items in the summer of 2013, Tomlin said.