Matt Andazola
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE — It was an inspiring story.
A man who was incarcerated for assault as a teenager found work in the juvenile justice system as an adult, a youth care specialist at the Youth Diagnostic and Detention Center in Albuquerque.
But that all came to an end Saturday night, as Eddie Pablo Aragon, 29, allegedly held an incarcerated 14-year-old boy down by the neck, then punched the teen in the face. He was arrested Sunday on charges of child abuse.
Aragon, who was still on the six-month probation for new employees, was fired immediately by the state Children Youth and Families Department, which operates the facility, said spokesman Enrique C. Knell.
At about 7:15 p.m. Saturday, a supervisor heard commotion from an area of YDDC, according to the arrest warrant. Aragon was there and yelled at the teens to be quiet, then rushed into one teen’s room.
The supervisor followed Aragon into the room, where he saw Aragon grab the teen by the neck and pin him to the bed. The supervisor pushed Aragon off the teen, but when the teen sat up, Aragon struck the boy’s face with a closed fist, according to the complaint.
There’s no evidence the teen was being vio- lent or making a disturbance other than being loud, and it’s unknown what could have prompted the altercation, Knell said.
When it was over, the supervisor escorted Aragon from the room and called in State Police to investigate the incident. Aragon then left YDDC.
State Police investigators arrived not long after that. They spoke to a second teen who said Aragon had hit him on the shoulder earlier the same day.
Aragon had been working at YDDC for about two months after two months of training, Knell said. During that training, YDDC youth care specialists are taught how to safely restrain YDDC’s teen clients when the clients are being violent. Only in life or death situations are workers allowed to strike clients.
While he was in training in December, Aragon was featured in a Journal article with the headline “Back in the System, But in a Different Way.” In that story, he detailed his prior incarceration for aggravated assault when he was 15 years old, and how he believed his experience would give him special insight into YDDC clients’ lives.
“I’m able to reach out to a kid in a different way,” Aragon told the Journal at the time. “I can relate to them.
“Basically, I wanted to show the kids that even though you made a mistake when you were younger, you can come back.”
Between his teen years and finding the job at YDDC, Aragon had been arrested at least once on unrelated charges, but he was not prosecuted. The state Criminal Offender Employment Act prohibits making hiring decisions based on charges that don’t end in conviction.
Aragon’s bond Sunday was set at $25,000, which he posted, and he was released Monday.