I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
The top staffer for the state’s district attorneys was arrested last weekend on suspicion of drunken driving, The Albuquerque Journal is reporting.
Randy Saavedra, director of the administrative office of the state’s district attorneys association, was stopped at a DWI checkpoint near Bernalillo over the weekend and arrested, but he says he wasn’t intoxicated and will fight the charges.
“I am very upset about this,” the Journal quoted him as saying.
Saavedra, the newspaper reported, has been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving before, in 2001, but the charge was dismissed by the district attorney in Bernalillo County. That was before Saavedra became head of the state-funded office in 2006.
He was appointed to the job by a board made up of the state’s district attorneys.
Saavedra has also received dozens of traffic citations in the last 20 years, according to the Journal. As of the 2001 arrest, the Journal reported, Saavedra had been cited 36 times since 1989 and had never paid a fine or received a jail sentence.
Saavedra is the son of state Rep. Henry “Kiki” Saavedra, D-Albuquerque.
At the time of his Saturday arrest, Randy Saavedra had bloodshot and watery eyes, slurred speech and a “strong odor” of alcohol, the criminal complaint states. It also says that sobriety tests showed “several signs of impairment.” But the report doesn’t include a blood-alcohol level, according to the Journal.
Saavedra was quoted by the Journal as saying he had been drinking some champagne and his blood-alcohol level tested at 0.08 percent — which is the legal level of intoxication — but was tested again because the breathalyzer wasn’t working and came back at 0.07 percent, just below the legal level.
