Year in review: COVID-19 had heavy influence on Roosevelt in 2022

As 2022 began the COVID-19 pandemic was still very much part of the news in Roosevelt County.

The Roosevelt County Chamber of Commerce opted to move the annual banquet from Jan. 20 to March 3 over coronavirus concerns.

The first three weeks of January, Roosevelt County reported the highest number of new cases in any month since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Kaye Green, the chief executive officer of Roosevelt General Hospital, in January said the hospital’s clinic handling COVID-19 cases is seeing roughly 150 patients a day. The operation, Green said, was probably built for 50.

When the figures came in for January as February began officials said Roosevelt County reported 1,105 COVID-19 cases in January. The previous record for a single month in that county was 514 in November 2020.

Statistics compiled and released by the New Mexico Human Services Department in February showed Roosevelt County had good performance in basic economic measures and scored in the middle among state counties in measures of poverty.

Roosevelt County recorded a per capita income higher than the state average in 2020.

Roosevelt County recorded a per capita income of $46,999, which was 1% higher than the state’s average, ranking Roosevelt at No. 12 among state counties. The state’s per capita income in 2020 was $46,338.

Unemployment in Roosevelt County was well below state averages. Roosevelt ranked seventh lowest in the state with 4.2% unemployed in October.

The state’s average unemployment at the same times was 6.5%, the fifth highest in the nation.

Roosevelt County’s proportion of residents age 65 and older was 15%, the fifth-lowest in the state.

Ninth Judicial District Attorney Andrea Reeb, Roosevelt and Curry counties first female district attorney, retired at the end of February. She worked for the Ninth Judicial District Attorney’s office 25 years, was appointed lead DA in 2014 and was then elected to the position twice.

Later in the year she announced she would seek the District 64 legislative seat that opened up with the retirement of Randal Crowder. She would win that seat in November’s election over longtime Clovis mayor David Lansford.

In March, Initium, a public benefit health care company based in Denver, held a meeting in Clovis that was attended by Roosevelt County representatives as well as representatives from governments and agencies in the four-county area.

Initium held the meeting as part of a feasibility study to learn if and how a central behavioral health facility can be established to serve the four-county area.

In March, Shayla Ramsey accepted the position of detention administrator for the Roosevelt County Detention Center.

Ramsey served as the jail’s interim director since the departure of the center’s previous administrator Justin Porter in 2021.

A news release from Roosevelt County Manager Amber Hamilton said Ramsey worked her way through the ranks of the detention center’s staff since 2014.

In April Roosevelt County Commissioners voted to pass a resolution objecting to the state’s recent congressional redistricting.

Two weeks earlier the commissioners voted to join a lawsuit with Lea and Chaves counties against the redistricting but discovered an obstacle.

“We could not find a good-faith point to enter the lawsuit,” county attorney Randy Knudson told the commissioners. “There are not enough facts to go forward with a legal challenge.”

There were a number of range fires in the area in the spring of 2022.

A range fire March 29 scorched about 1,000 acres along U. S. 70 northwest of Portales, destroying the former Blackwater Draw Museum building, a shed full of memorabilia belonging to the Los Huracanes family of musicians, and other structures in the vicinity.

Another notable blaze was a wind-driven wildfire that started northwest of Portales April 21 and burned through about 2,500 acres, according to an estimate from Portales Fire Chief T.J. Cathey, who was the incident commander.

Roosevelt County’s Sheriff Malin Parker did not run for re-election in 2022 as he reached his two-term limit.

Winning the sheriff’s post in the November election was Javier Sanchez who had served as a lieutenant in Parker’s sheriff’s department.

Portales attorney Randy Knudson tendered his resignation as county attorney for the Roosevelt County government June 13.

Knudson’s resignation letter was submitted to Roosevelt County Manager Amber Hamilton the same day as a regular county commission meeting in which two county commissioners, Rodney Savage and Tina Dixon, voted against renewing Knudson’s contract for another year.

County attorney services are now provided by Michael Garcia of Albuquerque.

Members of a “quiet, unassuming” Roosevelt County family got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in September.

The family makes up one of the most popular Norteño bands in the American southwest and northern Mexico, Los Huracanes Del Norte’.

Members of the band live around Midway and Elida. Over the years they have released over 900 songs.

As the year ended the Roosevelt County Commission is set to vote on a proposed anti-abortion ordinance for the county.

The Roosevelt County ordinance differs from one passed in Hobbs and another tabled in Clovis in that any action against violators would have to be spearheaded through civil action by citizens.

The commission will vote on the matter Jan. 10.

In legal and criminal matters in Roosevelt County in 2022:

Iin February it was announced the New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled a wrongful death lawsuit against Roosevelt County officials could go to trial.

The suit alleges Roosevelt County Sheriff Parker “chased” a crime suspect in an unmarked vehicle on rain-slick roads, which resulted in a crash that claimed the life of Irisema Hernandez, 33.

“The Court of Appeals issued a formal opinion … ruling that the plaintiff could proceed to trial on a lawsuit despite an earlier ruling in federal court dismissing the federal civil rights claim,” Hernandez-family attorney Eric Dixon wrote in an email to The Eastern New Mexico News.

County officials have previously stated in court filings that “Sheriff Parker acted reasonably, i.e. he did not employ unconstitutionally excessive force” in the Aug. 31, 2016, pursuit that ended in the death of Hernandez.

Monday, Dixon said the jury trial in the matter is set for Jan. 9, 2024, before Judge Fred Van Solen. Dixon said the suit is seeking damages for Hernandez’s three surviving children.

While other homicides took place in Portales in 2022, Roosevelt County’s only homicide case of 2022 developed after a Carlsbad woman died in a Roswell hospital after telling Roosevelt County deputies she had been held at a house and repeatedly beaten over days.

A Roosevelt County man was arrested March 1 and charged with murder in connection with the death of Subrina Calderon.

Thomas Ray Lopez, 40, was arrested according to 9th Judicial District Attorney Brian Stover. Lopez is charged with murder in the first degree, kidnapping, resisting an officer and a number of other charges in relation to the incident in late February at a house in rural Roosevelt County.

According to an affidavit for arrest, two Roosevelt County deputies interviewed Calderon at Roosevelt General Hospital on Feb. 23 after she had been battered.

Calderon went on to tell the deputies the alleged abuse had been going on for “the past month” in a house in rural Roosevelt County where she was kept in a room without being allowed to leave and not allowed to use the bathroom.

Calderon told the deputies she was unable to defend herself because Lopez overpowered her.

Calderon alleged that at one point she and Lopez went out to a barn where he tied her to a chair and hit her several times “full force” with a golf club.

Calderon managed to get home to Carlsbad where sometime before or on Feb. 28 Calderon’s father took her to the emergency room at the hospital in Carlsbad. From there she was airlifted to the hospital in Roswell where she died of injuries authorities said related to the beatings.

In March it was announced a former Portales man, shot while fleeing law enforcement in a stolen farm vehicle in 2018, will receive $3.75 million in a lawsuit settlement with Roosevelt County and Sheriff Parker.

James McFarlin, who now lives in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., was accused of stealing a front-end loader from a dairy, using it to damage his estranged wife’s car, then driving away.

When McFarlin refused to stop the vehicle, law officers attempted to shoot its tires, but were not successful in disabling it. Parker then shot out the rear window of the front loader, inflicting head and neck wounds on McFarlin, records show.

Terms of the settlement were not made public in court filings, but County Attorney Scott Hatcher confirmed the amount.