Latest news with #ChristopherHerrera
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Yahoo
A new path forward: One man's journey out of the juvenile justice system to mentorship
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Juvenile crime continues to dominate headlines, with many young offenders caught in a cycle of arrests, court appearances, and incarceration. But for 21-year-old Christopher Herrera, that cycle is finally breaking. Story continues below Trending: Remains found in Santa Fe National Forest identified as 1950s wrestler, actor Don't Miss: Santa Fe teacher, principal, and school counselor put on administrative leave Entertainment: Which Santa Fe spots did Guy Fieri visit on 'Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives'? Herrera's name has appeared in the news before, most recently after he accepted a plea deal related to a violent incident nearly four years ago. At just 18, he was charged with kidnapping his girlfriend and firing shots at her home. It was the latest in a string of run-ins with the law that began when he was 15. 'There's a lot of things I wish I never had done,' Herrera said. 'A lot of things to this day I feel embarrassed about.' Growing up in a violent environment and to a single mother trying to make ends meet, Herrera said he lacked the guidance and support he needed to make better choices. 'It was hard for me to live out here and be young with all this violence going on around me,' he said. 'Ever since I was young, I've experienced violence.' But Herrera's story is now taking a different turn, thanks in large part to La Plazita Institute, a local nonprofit that works with at-risk youth. The organization provides mentorship, community support, and alternatives to incarceration for young people who they say often feel abandoned by the system. 'They're going to get out eventually,' said Erik Rivera with La Plazita, 'So making people whole and taking care of everyone involved is how we make our community safer.' La Plazita's programs focus on healing and accountability. Youth are encouraged to give back through food drives, art projects, and community service. The goal is to build a network of support that helps them stay out of trouble—and feel safe doing so. 'That's why they trust us,' said Xuiy Soto, a mentor at La Plazita. 'That's why they come back. Because community is here all the time. And we look like them. That's the biggest thing. I look like the youth I'm serving. They know our struggles are similar.' La Plazita also partners with Justice4Youth, a coalition of more than 20 organizations working together to provide alternatives to incarceration and promote long-term success for young people. 'How can we all continually work together to provide alternatives for our youth?' Soto said. 'So they don't have to go to systems anymore, and they can come to their community where we can provide healing and success for them Today, Herrera is not only a participant in the program—he's also a mentor. He now works at La Plazita, helping guide others through the same challenges he once faced. His motivation? His 2½-year-old son. 'For me, the most important thing is to be present for my son,' Herrera said. 'I've done everything that was asked of me because I don't want my son growing up seeing his father in prison.' For more information on La Plazita Institute, click this link. For more information on Justice4Youth, you can click this link. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Yahoo
No jail time for man in Albuquerque house shooting incident
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A man who admitted to taking his ex-girlfriend and firing shots at her house won't spend any additional time behind bars after successfully completing Young Adult Court. New Mexico woman and son indicted on first-degree murder charges In December 2021, Christopher Herrera showed up at his ex's home near Isleta Blvd. and Pajarito Road, where he started firing shots and demanding to know where his ex was. When she arrived, she was forced into Herrera's car, and he took off. He was arrested at a home near Manuel Blvd. and Juan Tabo Blvd. The woman was found safe. Christopher Herrera pled guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and more. Judge Cindy Leos gave Herrera a conditional discharge after he completed the two-year Young Adult Court program. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
As lawmakers debate banning shower cameras in children's lockups, Bernalillo County removes theirs
Christopher Herrera speaks about his experience in the juvenile legal system during a gathering in the New Mexico Legislature on Feb. 24, 2025. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM) When Christopher Herrera was 15, he was incarcerated in the Bernalillo County Youth Services Center, a juvenile detention center in Albuquerque that holds young people aged 12 to 17 from across the state. Every time Herrera received a visit from anyone like his mother or his lawyer, and any time he left to see a doctor, the guards afterward forced him to strip naked and searched him, even though he had been in handcuffs and in two guards' direct line of sight the entire time. In an interview with Source NM on Wednesday, Herrera described the strip searches' emotional and psychological toll. 'In my head, it was really weird, it messed me up as a person even to this day,' he said. 'It made me feel really uncomfortable. It wasn't private or nothing like that. You would even hear staff sometimes making jokes.' Herrera said he was held at YSC for 10 months. What he and other young people held there didn't know was that the county had installed cameras in the bathrooms, where the children shower. Herrera said he only learned about the cameras in February because of discussions around Senate Bill 322, which would regulate strip searches in juvenile detention facilities, and ban cameras from their shower and toilet areas. The Senate Health and Human Services Committee unanimously passed SB322 on March 3. It awaits a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sponsor Sen. Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque) told the committee she and others toured YSC last summer and learned of the strip searches and discovered the cameras in the shower area. 'They're recorded. What happens with that recording? Who's watching? If that recording is stored, well, who goes back to look at it?' she asked the committee. In a written statement to Source NM on Friday, Youth Services Center Director Tamera Marcantel said detention center officials disabled the cameras' video capabilities on May 15, 2024. On Friday, she said, a purchase order to remove them was approved and 'the deactivated cameras will be taken down.' YSC 'is committed to serving public safety by providing a safe and secure environment for all residents and staff,' she added. Deputy County Manager of Public Safety Greg Perez told Source NM in a written statement that he discussed removing the cameras in the showers with some of the incarcerated children's mothers. 'Based on those conversations, as well as operational changes within the facility, increased staffing, and remodeling, the decision was made to remove the cameras,' Perez said. Kristen Ferguson, a spokesperson for the Bernalillo County Public Safety Division that runs the YSC, did not answer Source NM's other questions about the county government's position on SB322. But even with the cameras removed, a future detention center administrator could reinstall them, Rodrigo Rodriguez, director of Community Organizing at La Plazita Institute, told Source NM on Friday. Rodriguez did not join the tour of YSC but has testified in support of SB322 in committee. When Source NM informed him the county is removing the cameras, he said, 'That's great news and pretty convenient timing.' 'Thus the need for legislation to ban the practice altogether,' he said. As for the strip searches, SB322 doesn't ban them, New Day Youth and Family Services Chief Program Officer Gerri Bachicha said, but requires the detention center administrator to sign off on each one, and for staff to document when they occur. She said the bill would raise the standard for conducting strip searches in juvenile detention from reasonable suspicion to probable cause, which would prevent arbitrary and unjustified searches, reducing the risk of violating children's constitutional due process protections in the Fourth Amendment. It would also enhance trust between young people and staff, which makes young people more likely to engage in rehabilitative programming, she said. In the March 3 committee hearing, Lopez cited YSC data showing nearly 700 strip searches were conducted between June and October 2024. Bachicha, Lopez's expert, also detailed to the committee the results of those searches: guards found no contraband in July, two pens and a pencil in August, a handwritten note in September, and a pen in October. Those items can usually be found through a pat search, she said, but an arbitrary, blanket policy defaults to a strip search, rather than starting with a pat search. Indeed, Herrera told Source NM, contraband didn't necessarily mean drugs. 'Contraband — to them — is us having pencils or coloring books or an extra book in our cell.' Now as a 21-year-old adult having regained his freedom, Herrera said he regularly takes drug tests and is desensitized to urinating in front of another person. Herrera said it made him feel less valued as a person knowing that there may be footage of him being strip searched. 'We never knew this, they didn't tell us none of this,' Herrera said. 'At the time, we were all kids. Everyone in there was under the age of 18. We would try to make jokes out of this, try to convince ourselves that it was normal, what we were going through.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
