Episode 324

Speaker 1 Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 We don't have another place to go, Combrada.

Speaker 3 I mean, you appreciate that there's a dead girl on your porch, right? Yeah, I don't have an option either.

Speaker 4 15-year-old Frankie Archuletta is running as fast as he can.

Speaker 4 Each step kicks up a cloud of dust as 104 Cabresto Road shrinks behind him. That's where police were supposed to go, but they missed it.
And now Frankie has to find them.

Speaker 4 His lungs burn, partly from the running, but mostly from panic.

Speaker 4 Finally, he sees the red and blue lights getting closer. Frankie frantically waves his arms, trying to flag them down.
The cruiser barely slows to a stop before Frankie jumps in the back seat.

Speaker 4 It's July 28th, 2023.

Speaker 4 And earlier in the afternoon, multiple calls came into the Cuesta Police Department. A 13-year-old girl has been shot somewhere on Cabresto Road.

Speaker 4 But as dispatch tried to confirm the details, everything blurred into confusion. Wrong addresses, contradictory witness statements, even someone mentioning that the shooting was a drive-by.

Speaker 4 By the time police and EMS arrived, they weren't sure which house was the right one.

Speaker 10 Open the damn door

Speaker 4 404 Telson. They've already wasted precious minutes.
Meanwhile, Frankie's sister is bleeding out.

Speaker 11 They can come by if they want, or they can patrol the area of a possible suspect vehicle of a black Yukon tinted Windows Node 28.

Speaker 4 Frankie and the growing squad of Cuesta police officers run towards the patch of dry dirt near the back porch attached to the house. All of the properties off Cabresto Road are rural and sprawling.

Speaker 4 They're plots of land with blurred borders, spotted with prefab homes and sheds, farming equipment, broken-down vehicles, and herds of fenced-in farm animals.

Speaker 4 By now, there's a group of police officers huddled around Frankie's sister, Amber.

Speaker 4 She's lying face up, her wound bleeding into the dry ground around her head. Frankie is frantic, to say the least.
Everything happened so fast.

Speaker 4 He hasn't even had time to call his dad and alert him.

Speaker 7 Relax. Relax.

Speaker 5 I don't know.

Speaker 13 She lied.

Speaker 5 I'm back.

Speaker 5 You need to back up. I'm back, y'all.

Speaker 7 You need to back up, dude. No!

Speaker 5 You need to back up. No!

Speaker 5 She lies.

Speaker 5 Tell me.

Speaker 5 Tell me.

Speaker 5 Are you there? Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yes! Yes! Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and let you go so you can talk to them.
Shut the fuck up this match.

Speaker 4 If Amber dies, the call to his father will be much more difficult for Frankie to make.

Speaker 4 Their mother just passed away the previous year. Frankie can't bear the thought of telling his dad they've lost another family member.

Speaker 6 She's still alive?

Speaker 5 I'm feeling like...

Speaker 7 She's... Well, where's the ambulance at?

Speaker 6 I don't think you guys dispatched a residence.

Speaker 5 What happened, guys?

Speaker 7 She's still false. She's still a false.

Speaker 5 I don't care. I don't know what happened.
I'm fucking... Oh my god.
What are we doing, Trav?

Speaker 15 Please hurry up and fucking get someone here.

Speaker 5 They're on the way.

Speaker 4 Frankie wasn't the only person who witnessed the shooting. Crouching next to Amber's lifeless body is 14-year-old Kiana Gonzalez.

Speaker 4 You can hear her crying.

Speaker 4 She's been on the phone with 911 Dispatch, her hands covered in blood. She's sobbing, and at some point, she got bit by a dog.

Speaker 4 Her medical needs are obviously not the top priority, but she doesn't care. Amber, the girl dying on the ground, is Kiana's girlfriend.

Speaker 7 Where did this happen? Right here?

Speaker 5 And then I don't know what happened.

Speaker 5 404, we do have the ambulance coming from Redev. That fucking river.
Also, we did pay Joe Quest to Fire and Settle Fire. Well, so much for fucking that.

Speaker 5 She alive?

Speaker 5 Is there anything I can get?

Speaker 7 She still has a pulse, buddy. And I'm going to have to ask you, bro.
What you're doing right now is not helping. I'm going to need to either go sit down over here or just give us a second, okay?

Speaker 7 You don't need to be upset.

Speaker 17 I understand what you're saying.

Speaker 7 I understand, but what you're doing right now is not helping.

Speaker 7 I understand, but what you're doing right now is not helping.

Speaker 7 Okay, I'm not trying to be an asshole to you. Yeah, you are.
I'm not trying to be an asshole too. I'm trying to help you, buddy.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 7 What you're doing right now isn't helping. Please just go over there with that.

Speaker 7 I could do much. Well,

Speaker 7 here's the thing, dude. The medics are on the way.

Speaker 7 All we can try to do is keep her alive while the medics are hitting the body.

Speaker 7 She is. She has a pulse.
Okay. So you need, it's pretty good.
So can you please just go over there and let us do our job, please?

Speaker 4 Sir. It's okay.

Speaker 7 It's okay, bud. I understand you're upset.
I totally get it, okay?

Speaker 7 Put the cats inside. Well, do you feel pulse?

Speaker 5 All right, guys.

Speaker 7 We're going to need you back up. Please, please, please.

Speaker 7 Guys,

Speaker 7 being here is not going to help you. Believe me, let us do our job.

Speaker 7 Let us do our job.

Speaker 7 Travis knows exactly what he's doing. Travis knows exactly what he's doing.

Speaker 7 I understand. I understand.
Is she alive? The closer you are. Does she

Speaker 7 have a huge?

Speaker 10 Does she have a pulse? She has a pulse.

Speaker 5 Right now. Yes.

Speaker 7 Right now. She has a pulse.
Right now.

Speaker 7 I just need to step back for a second. I understand it's your sister.
I understand you love her. We're going to do everything we fucking possibly can to help her, okay? I promise you.

Speaker 5 I promise you that, okay?

Speaker 14 It's okay. It's okay.

Speaker 5 I understand your man.

Speaker 7 I understand your man. I'd be mad too.
Let go. Buddy, I'm going to need you to step back because they're working on her.
Let them work on her.

Speaker 7 Stop yelling at him.

Speaker 7 Stop freaking out. Just let us do our job, okay?

Speaker 4 Frankie stomps off, deciding it's time to make that dreaded phone call to his dad.

Speaker 4 Meanwhile, EMS still hasn't arrived. So, two of the officers start giving Amber CPR.

Speaker 19 So keep your arms straight and use your body weight.

Speaker 7 Don't wear yourself out too fast.

Speaker 7 Come on, Amber.

Speaker 20 See if you can get everybody's information and just start taking statements. I mean, I know it's fresh and everything, but at least identify everybody, please.

Speaker 4 Officers begin asking around

Speaker 4 who owns the house. It isn't Amber's family's property.
Within a few minutes, they confirm it belongs to 39-year-old William Brown, an employee of the Taos County Jail.

Speaker 4 As far as anyone knows, William is still at work or on his way home. He definitely isn't here yet.

Speaker 4 His son, 14-year-old Porphyrio Brown, was hanging out with his three friends at the house when all of this went down.

Speaker 4 There were no adults around, but 14 is an age where a lot of parents feel comfortable leaving their kids at home alone.

Speaker 4 None of that changes what's happening in front of them. Amber is slipping away, and precious time is running out.

Speaker 4 Paramedics

Speaker 4 have still not arrived.

Speaker 21 There's no other

Speaker 22 hold, nothing.

Speaker 4 While one deputy does CPR, another gently tilts Samber's head from side to side, looking for the bullet entry or exit wounds. I can't find anything.

Speaker 23 Right there in the eye.

Speaker 21 What I'm wondering about right here. Yeah.

Speaker 21 I just don't want to

Speaker 23 push. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Another ten minutes go by, and they take her pulse again.

Speaker 5 There's. Come on, Amber.

Speaker 5 I'm almost here.

Speaker 21 I don't feel anything anymore.

Speaker 21 This is you got shot on the road?

Speaker 5 I don't know, I think so.

Speaker 4 Finally, they can see an ambulance pulling up.

Speaker 7 How long has CPR been in progress?

Speaker 21 About 10 minutes now.

Speaker 19 And it happened at half past 14.

Speaker 7 Is that what we heard?

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 6 So we're down

Speaker 5 20 minutes.

Speaker 4 Down 20 minutes. That means it took paramedics about 20 minutes to get there after the 911 call.

Speaker 4 But no one knows how long she'd already been lying there before the call.

Speaker 4 The officers who were working on saving Amber can now leave the task to the paramedics while they gather evidence from the roadway.

Speaker 4 The spot where the kids said everything happened.

Speaker 24 The fact that that gate was closed makes me think it was happening

Speaker 24 over here.

Speaker 24 Somewhere.

Speaker 24 And if they they were shooting out the driver's side,

Speaker 24 I think possibly a little blood right here. I'm not sure if that's oil or blood, but especially wasn't bleeding when she was shot.
There's no way somebody could come out.

Speaker 4 Kiana is the only one around now. Frankie has run off to talk to his dad on the phone.
Porfirio is missing in action.

Speaker 4 And none of the parents are on the scene yet. Despite the terrible timing, all of this is about to change.

Speaker 4 As deputies walk back to the spot where Amber's body is now covered with a sheet, they hear the news.

Speaker 19 Okay, so we gotta shut it, shut it down, clear the scene.

Speaker 20 Let's get some tape and

Speaker 6 start taping everything off. Tape everything off, put the unit in the road.

Speaker 21 I want to block off whatever we can.

Speaker 4 At the worst possible moment, Frankie and Amber's grandma pulls up in her red sedan.

Speaker 4 Their dad is in the front seat.

Speaker 21 Do you have the father walking in now?

Speaker 21 He's got carpenter knee pads on, a blue t-shirt, and a baseball cap.

Speaker 6 Well, I'm trying to block everything off from right here, so I need you to kind of go back, please.

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 5 just,

Speaker 21 I'm sorry, I'm not.

Speaker 6 Hi, sir.

Speaker 6 I understand, sir. Can you talk to me for just a couple minutes?

Speaker 24 Um,

Speaker 17 the EMS just pronounced her deceased.

Speaker 25 Oh my god.

Speaker 5 Fucking god, man.

Speaker 5 What's up?

Speaker 24 She's gone. What? She's gone.
No.

Speaker 5 Can I please go see if you assist.

Speaker 4 And just like that, the worst thing imaginable is no longer a possibility.

Speaker 4 Instead, it's

Speaker 4 reality.

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Speaker 4 It's July 28th, 2023 in the rural town of Cuesta, New Mexico. 13-year-old Amber Archuleta has just been pronounced dead outside of her friend's house.
She's been shot in the face.

Speaker 4 Three other kids were there when it happened. Her brother Frankie, her girlfriend Kiana, and her friend, Porphyrio.
They were all childhood friends. Rural neighbors, you could say.

Speaker 4 They all lived within walking distance of each other's houses, and hangouts, like today, weren't abnormal.

Speaker 4 The kids tell police they all saw someone in a black SUV drive up and shoot Amber while they were all walking together near the road.

Speaker 4 This is Porfirio Brown's house, and his dad William works for Taos County Jail.

Speaker 4 Talking to him is critical.

Speaker 4 His dogs are trampling all over the scene, and one of them has already bitten two people.

Speaker 4 Not only that, but the layout of the property is set up so that herds of sheep block access to other fenced areas.

Speaker 4 Detectives need access to the whole property, property and they need William to corral the animals. And there he is, finally.
He's standing at the front of the house, his cell phone placed to his ear.

Speaker 4 Porfirio is standing just a few feet away.

Speaker 7 Porphylio, can you get the dog in the house, please?

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 7 Where can we put the dog that it won't be biting people?

Speaker 7 I understand, dude, but we need...

Speaker 7 I understand that you're upset and everything, but we have to get the dog off the property.

Speaker 7 We're going to have about 15 police officers here in about five minutes. And if your dog's not off the property, it's going to be a problem, dude.
Can you please get the dog in there?

Speaker 5 All right, bro.

Speaker 5 They're going to be walking all through this area.

Speaker 7 And they're going to be getting bit by your dog over and over again if you don't get it off the property.

Speaker 4 William Brown, like we said earlier, works for the Taos County Jail. So he's no stranger to hierarchies of authority.
But now his property is the subject of an investigation.

Speaker 4 And somehow he easily slips into the role of someone who's at more run-ins with the law than moments working alongside them. What happens next isn't going to make him any more cooperative.

Speaker 29 You just said, come here.

Speaker 30 Oh, to me now. Yeah.

Speaker 30 Your son brings the tank.

Speaker 31 Yes, he is. Yeah.

Speaker 32 Step out of the way.

Speaker 5 Come on, Barbara. Wait, wait, wait.
Just let me talk to him.

Speaker 5 Let me talk to him.

Speaker 5 Hey, come on, Judy. Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown.

Speaker 5 Hey, wait.

Speaker 7 Guys, guys, just let me talk to him.

Speaker 5 Stop. We'll let you talk to him.
Just send me calming down.

Speaker 5 I'll keep him. Let me help you get up.

Speaker 5 He doesn't have anything on his mind.

Speaker 5 You want to stand up?

Speaker 33 I'm going to drive you to the shoe, alright?

Speaker 34 You got to calm down.

Speaker 5 You got to calm down.

Speaker 21 You were swinging, bud.

Speaker 34 He wasn't even on it.

Speaker 5 Where are you taking him?

Speaker 35 To a unit.

Speaker 4 A unit is just a patrol car, to be clear. But William doesn't care.
Seeing his boy in handcuffs is all he needs to go into full-blown papa bear mode. We haven't even seen half of it yet.

Speaker 7 For what?

Speaker 35 That's all anti-tanks. He's going to be tempted.

Speaker 32 I think it's pretty obvious that he's going to tame any person.

Speaker 7 Well, that, but what?

Speaker 34 He didn't do nothing.

Speaker 36 He's been attained with us. That's his.

Speaker 5 That's it.

Speaker 5 He's not leaving the room.

Speaker 34 He's just going to sit in the shop. You guys can't bring him to the house, the unit to the house?

Speaker 35 No. Because it's a crime scene.
I can't let anyone in it.

Speaker 5 So that's the other thing. How long is this going to take?

Speaker 35 As long as it takes.

Speaker 5 I can't give you an answer. No, no, I know, but how long is this going to take? Because, you know, we can talk anything before.

Speaker 5 I just got to hold on to you, okay?

Speaker 34 We don't have another place to go.

Speaker 3 I mean, you appreciate that there's a dead girl on your porch, right? Yeah, I don't have an option either.

Speaker 4 As they walk back towards the house, William starts to yell at Porfirio not to talk to cops. Interesting timing.

Speaker 4 He also yells at the officer escorting him, telling him not to talk to his son. Never mind that he hasn't been mirandized yet.

Speaker 4 Big Daddy William Brown is on the case, acting like Porfirio's stand-in attorney. If the attorney was Saul Goodman, that is.

Speaker 5 Really a little kid?

Speaker 5 Yeah, right. Really little kid? Guys.

Speaker 5 Hey, your attitude sucks, man.

Speaker 5 And don't square up with him, Really? Stop, you stop. Stop.
I'm not. I'm just squaring up to him.

Speaker 34 Well, he's telling me I had to keep cough.

Speaker 5 Well, don't you shut up. But what do you say? You have a dead girl in your, like, you don't understand the severity of this? I do.
Sure.

Speaker 34 Look at that way. I've been trying to cooperate with the cross.

Speaker 5 Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Speaker 34 Well, they're taking him. He said I could walk with you guys.

Speaker 5 You need to calm down. I am.
You're on the camera. I wasn't even talking to them.

Speaker 35 And I just told him to leave so he didn't aggravate you anymore. But you can't keep doing this because then I'll put you in cuffs.
But I don't want to do that.

Speaker 24 You've done nothing wrong.

Speaker 5 Well, let's walk over there.

Speaker 5 They're still talking to him. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 Once they get Porphyrio in the back of the squad car and away from the adults, the state police, who have been on the scene for a while, have to explain everything to William and his girlfriend, Ashley.

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 as much as they can, that is.

Speaker 36 Would you be here to give us a statement?

Speaker 34 I wasn't even working.

Speaker 36 Okay, so you just got here just now, or

Speaker 36 did you just get here after the incident?

Speaker 30 Yeah.

Speaker 34 I was at work.

Speaker 36 When my son called me about it happening, did your son tell you anything? Anything like that?

Speaker 34 He just said that there was a girl that was shot and he didn't know what to do.

Speaker 36 Did he say who shot the girl?

Speaker 34 You can't go. Ashley, you can't go there.

Speaker 36 Did he say who shot the girl?

Speaker 34 He said a black SUV. No, I'm trying to get to my family.

Speaker 40 Black SUV? Yeah.

Speaker 41 That's all he said?

Speaker 33 I he well, he referred to it as he said it was a black SUV, is all he said.

Speaker 34 I don't know, was it a Yukon? I can't remember, because we referred to it as another girl's car, Delilah's name, but that her family drives that car.

Speaker 34 But it wasn't that vehicle, it's just the way we, because that's what he told me. He said it was a car that looked like Delilah's.

Speaker 42 And it's looked like Delilah's, yeah.

Speaker 34 That's another girl that lives in town. She has nothing to do with it, but it's what's Delilah's car, her mom's?

Speaker 43 Yupon Delano's an older one.

Speaker 36 But did she see who shot him? Or no?

Speaker 34 No, he never said he just told me the vehicle.

Speaker 36 He didn't tell you who it was.

Speaker 34 And

Speaker 34 he told me that that happened. I was at work and I just left.
And then

Speaker 34 everything else was done with

Speaker 34 quest of Pedia. So there was nothing else that he told me.
Other than, you know,

Speaker 34 we've been cooperating the whole time until now. Appreciate it.
Because this guy asked us to take off his pants and stuff, and

Speaker 34 we put them in a bag there on the counter for you. He was basically watching through the window.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 He's actually insinuating that one of the officers was creeping through the window, enjoying the view of Porfirio removing his bloody pants and putting them in an evidence bag.

Speaker 4 Also, ain't it weird that the guy who keeps asking the same questions over and over again, just like his son, by the way, questions which have been answered, mind you, was content with his son only giving him vague details about the dead girl on his property.

Speaker 4 Weird, right?

Speaker 45 So, Mr.

Speaker 25 Brown, this is who I am. I'm Jim Falkra.
I'm the West New Mexico State Police. I'm the case agent for this case.

Speaker 30 Okay.

Speaker 25 I know you said that your son had already spoken to a lawyer. So then we'll get a hold of him and see what he wants to do.

Speaker 46 All I can tell you is that this is all brand new to us. We just showed up.
I understand your frustrations, but let us do our jobs. I can promise you, all I'm here for is the truth.

Speaker 47 And what's going to happen with him?

Speaker 9 So,

Speaker 46 right this second, he's just being detained.

Speaker 8 I'm going to get a hold of Mr.

Speaker 46 Gower.

Speaker 39 So why is he being detained?

Speaker 9 I mean, obviously.

Speaker 46 Because the preliminary information, preliminary information that we've received has given us the right to detain him for right now.

Speaker 9 I can't, I can't, there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff that I can't tell you.

Speaker 46 I'll tell you as much as I can. I'll be as straight up with you as I as I can, but there's just information that I don't share and that just to protect the integrity of the investigation.

Speaker 46 I'm the case agent. The buck stops with me.

Speaker 23 Okay?

Speaker 25 So if you have any questions, by all means, call me.

Speaker 48 But right now we just have a lot, a lot of other stuff to do that's all preliminary.

Speaker 46 So we don't have a lot of information either. But the initial stuff that we do have gives us the right to detain your son.

Speaker 4 William has already noticed something strange, though. His son Porfirio seems to be the odd one out in his group of friends.

Speaker 34 And when are the other ones going to be picked up?

Speaker 9 As soon as I get to that point.

Speaker 46 Bottom line, I can't give you a time frame. Okay.

Speaker 38 Do you you know where they're at?

Speaker 39 They let them leave. I have no idea.
Okay.

Speaker 39 Ashley, don't say anything to nobody.

Speaker 5 I'm the sir.

Speaker 39 So I'm not saying anything to anybody. The attorney's already sent.

Speaker 49 I just want to explain something to her, okay?

Speaker 43 I'm just.

Speaker 39 You can listen, Ashley, but you don't speak until the attorney speaks.

Speaker 49 I'm not going to ask her any questions.

Speaker 39 I'm just helping.

Speaker 46 Mr. Brown, I understand your frustration, but let us work.

Speaker 31 Well, yeah, I'm not saying. I just said that.
No, I understand.

Speaker 9 And I appreciate that, but that's that's where we're at, okay?

Speaker 4 If this family of Karen's is so insufferable with a dead girl on their porch, can you imagine what the local Walmart supervisor has had to put up with over the years?

Speaker 4 Everything happened so fast, just like the shooting. But before police gave William this vague explanation, they'd already spoken to Frankie and Kiana.

Speaker 4 While the kids waited to give their official statements, one officer happened to be standing near a car. The door was open.
Kiana was talking to her mom, and what she said to her changed everything.

Speaker 4 This is going to be a little bit hard to hear, but we're going to play it anyway.

Speaker 47 As a reaction, of course, she's going to go like try to move their heads and shit.

Speaker 40 And she did that and rest for so

Speaker 47 I look I see a little flash that's hard

Speaker 47 and the fucking dumbass operator's being so stupid and of course I'm gonna be fucking freaking out

Speaker 40 and she's gonna come in and again and shut the fuck up shut up just fucking listen the hardest you can I don't know what to fuck to tell you

Speaker 47 And then she tries to tell me, do you have any form of ID? Nigga, I'm fucking 14.

Speaker 47 If I tell you I'm I was born in 2009 the fuck this

Speaker 43 hello

Speaker 4 this dumb bitch's friend just murdered someone but she's mad at 911

Speaker 4 instead yeah there's a lot of that going around anyway in the beginning of this clip if you listen real close you can hear what she told her mom she said everything was perfectly fine We were all sitting in his kitchen listening to music.

Speaker 4 And that's when he pulls out the gun and starts pointing it.

Speaker 4 Will you look at that?

Speaker 4 Turns out, New Mexico State Police had a really good reason to detain Porphyrio Brown.

Speaker 6 Okay,

Speaker 7 so go ahead and tell me

Speaker 7 what exactly would happen from

Speaker 7 the moment before she was shot. Okay, what were you guys doing before she was shot?

Speaker 16 We were all chilling having a good old time and we just like went to the backyard and like were done messing with his goats and shit.

Speaker 16 and we ended up going to the front and

Speaker 16 we ended up going back into his house

Speaker 16 and then next thing we know he pulls out

Speaker 16 I think it's a revolver the one that has like a spinning barrel okay he pulls out one of the it was a handgun yeah and he pulls that out so just to just to get it straight you guys are you guys are in the back of the house right you're hanging out playing with the front first we were perfectly fine just chilling nothing wrong and then we ended up going inside

Speaker 16 and then that that's the one he pulls out that gun and I was like, dog, don't even be doing that because I could be loading. He was also.
And then he ends up pointing it at her. And she went

Speaker 16 and she went to go, like,

Speaker 16 take it away from her face, right?

Speaker 22 All of a sudden, you just hear a boom.

Speaker 16 I look and I see your faults in the crowd.

Speaker 7 So he shot her in the face with the handgun?

Speaker 33 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Where were you guys when he shot her with the handgun?

Speaker 5 Oh, I think the kitchen.

Speaker 7 You guys were inside the house when it happened? Yeah.

Speaker 7 Were they joking around? Was he mad at her?

Speaker 5 What was the reason for him to pull the gun out? I don't know.

Speaker 16 Everything was perfectly fine. Everyone was joking, laughing.

Speaker 16 And he he pulls it out. I don't even know where he got it from.

Speaker 5 And then he goes, he goes, like, because,

Speaker 16 like, how it was, there's a table against the wall. And, like, I was standing against the window.
And she was, like, standing right there in the middle. And he points that at her.

Speaker 16 And so she, like, went to go, move it.

Speaker 16 And that's when you just hear the loud bang and a little bit of a light, and then she drops.

Speaker 51 And next thing you know, she just starts to bleed.

Speaker 32 Okay.

Speaker 16 But next thing you know, when like she does fall, we all look.

Speaker 16 And then that starts to freak out. And he's like, Let's take her to the back.

Speaker 5 And Frankie's all like, well, call 911.

Speaker 16 And I was like panicking, so it took me a minute to get my phone out of my pocket and just to dial in general.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 16 And finally, we were able, well, he was able to get her out. And then me and Frankie were standing out there with her.
Well, Porph went somewhere, I don't know where.

Speaker 7 He just took a bumped about back into the house.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I think so. I'm not sure.

Speaker 4 Guys, guys, guys, before you get outraged, remember, it's the gun's fault. The inanimate object murdered this girl, not the ignorant brown kid growing up in gangsta culture.

Speaker 4 With the approval of his ignorant brown gun-owning parents, who weren't even home at the time. Remember to assign your blame in a proper woke fashion, everyone.

Speaker 4 Good. Now that all the idiots have left and stopped listening, let's continue.
While all this was happening, a detective pulls out his radio and quietly cancels the bolo alert.

Speaker 53 Hey, what's going on?

Speaker 12 Hey, can you do me a favor and cancel that bolo for that black SUV?

Speaker 53 Yeah, we kind of already did.

Speaker 2 Okay, perfect.

Speaker 12 Okay, any other updates or nothing?

Speaker 11 So, for right now,

Speaker 11 state police is on scene their iv guys are out here their crime scene guys are out here so um it looks like they'll probably end up taking this one over from us uh-huh um

Speaker 11 but we do have uh

Speaker 38 possible suspect in custody uh-huh and we're gonna be turning them over to state police okay um

Speaker 11 and so um yeah i don't think we have anybody uh any other suspects outstanding

Speaker 4 it isn't until much later during a follow-up interview that kiana explains why she didn't tell the truth from the beginning.

Speaker 33 So there was a story of a vehicle driving by.

Speaker 51 Yeah,

Speaker 51 he made that story up whenever he shot her and took her outside.

Speaker 33 What did he tell you

Speaker 2 about that?

Speaker 51 He tried to make up the story that a drive-by happened right like next to that dumpster in front of his like on the road.

Speaker 51 Try to see a drive-by happened right there and that her brother went to his house freaking out about it and they ended up dragging her over there, but

Speaker 11 But that's not even close.

Speaker 43 Okay,

Speaker 54 so was he telling you guys to say that

Speaker 51 I think he wanted us to or he was just saying that version

Speaker 30 was he on the phone at that time or something?

Speaker 51 Yeah, I think he was

Speaker 38 who do you know who he was on the phone with by chance?

Speaker 51 It might have been one of his parents. I'm not sure though

Speaker 33 So

Speaker 50 he made sure sure that you heard him talking on the phone when he gave that.

Speaker 51 Yeah, because he walked around me and her when I was still next to her on the floor.

Speaker 51 And he ended up saying, like, I heard him on the phone, he was all, it was a drive-by, all of a sudden some car passed by and he shot her.

Speaker 33 Did he ever ask you to move her down

Speaker 40 anywhere?

Speaker 51 He did ask us to help him pick her up, but no one else helped. Because that's fucked up.

Speaker 11 And what did he want to do?

Speaker 51 I don't know if he wanted to take her outside and hide the whole fact that he shot her.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, if he was talking about a drive-by,

Speaker 2 that makes sense.

Speaker 51 Because later on, like, even, like, when he was on the phone with his dad, he even told him that he didn't shoot her.

Speaker 4 Assigning blame to a random third party?

Speaker 4 Weird.

Speaker 4 That's not at all what criminals do. I guess now would be a good time to play the beginning of that 911 call for you.

Speaker 53 What's the location of your emergency? What's the fucking location?

Speaker 53 Hello?

Speaker 12 Give me the address.

Speaker 12 Give me the address.

Speaker 12 What's the address?

Speaker 53 God, you're yelling and I can't understand.

Speaker 12 Thank you.

Speaker 53 What happened?

Speaker 43 My girlfriend got shot.

Speaker 53 Your girlfriend?

Speaker 43 Yes.

Speaker 53 Where did she get shot?

Speaker 43 In her nose.

Speaker 12 By her nose?

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 12 Okay,

Speaker 12 what's your name?

Speaker 5 My name is Kira.

Speaker 53 Okay.

Speaker 12 Amber.

Speaker 53 Is she alert?

Speaker 53 Is your girlfriend alert?

Speaker 43 Oh, she's fucking unconscious right now. Please, fucking hurry.

Speaker 53 Okay, we're gonna get somebody out there right now. Stay on the line with me.

Speaker 12 Don't hang up. Hurry up, please.

Speaker 53 Don't hang up.

Speaker 53 We're getting somebody out there, but don't hang up on me, okay?

Speaker 12 Just keep her comfortable, okay?

Speaker 43 Oh, I think, I don't know if she's well, I don't know how my voice is

Speaker 5 hard.

Speaker 12 Is she still unconscious?

Speaker 43 She's breathing.

Speaker 43 Sir,

Speaker 53 is the person that shot her still there?

Speaker 43 Yeah, uh, wait, no, uh, they they drove by.

Speaker 53 It was a drive-by?

Speaker 12 Do you know who they were?

Speaker 43 No, I wasn't even really around. I was up in the field.

Speaker 53 Okay, do you have an idea of what kind of vehicle maybe?

Speaker 43 No, ma'am. Okay.
I'm not sure though.

Speaker 43 I'm not sure.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Let me ask you something.
And I want you to rub those two brain cells together real hard and see if you can come up with an answer.

Speaker 4 If you had just watched someone murder someone else, would your first instinct be to cover for them?

Speaker 4 If so, kindly fuck off and unsubscribe now.

Speaker 4 Now, let's hear what Frankie says when he's confronted with these inconsistencies.

Speaker 45 What time did

Speaker 54 Tell you guys about the taking her to the road?

Speaker 55 That's when he likes that's when she was actually outside, outside.

Speaker 33 That's when she was already outside. Yeah.
And you guys had called 911 yet?

Speaker 55 I think, well, like, right when he, like, kind of, like, drug her out to, like, the final spot, he kept saying, he said that, and I was like, no. And then I called him.

Speaker 54 Okay, but

Speaker 54 you, but you and Kiana and Porf all three talked about a vehicle driving by

Speaker 42 about Amber being shot from a vehicle that drove by.

Speaker 39 I know, or I don't know about DJ, but I don't remember me seeing the vehicle.

Speaker 33 I know Porf did.

Speaker 55 Yeah, he did.

Speaker 23 I know he did.

Speaker 10 So, what did you hear?

Speaker 42 Like, did he tell you that story?

Speaker 55 He kept, I kept hearing him saying, like, help me, help me because that he was gonna like his dad was gonna like

Speaker 10 and he was on the phone when he was saying help me no or who is he talking to to like trying to tell us to like help him okay

Speaker 38 all right and what did Porf do with the gun I have no idea that's one thing I don't know what he did with after the fact do you know what Russian roulette is yeah

Speaker 8 okay was he playing that no

Speaker 54 you're positive? I am positive.

Speaker 4 Kids can be pretty stupid, as evidenced by this detective's question about Russian roulette.

Speaker 4 If the false story about a drive-by came from Porphyrio, it might seem strange that Frankie and Kiana went along with it. But these four kids were close.
Frankie and Porphyrio were best friends.

Speaker 4 His best friend had just shot his sister. And in that moment, Frankie wasn't thinking about justice.
He was thinking about damage control.

Speaker 4 He didn't know exactly what had happened, but he knew one thing for sure.

Speaker 4 It had to be an accident. Didn't it?

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Speaker 4 The story Frankie, Kiana, and Porphyrio gave to the police has completely fallen apart. The black SUV simply didn't exist, and the real shooter is now sitting in the back of a patrol car.

Speaker 4 Porfirio Brown is 14 years old, and he had access to at least one gun. For some reason, he pointed it at a 13-year-old named Amber Archuleta in the face and pulled the trigger.

Speaker 41 That was my daughter's girlfriend.

Speaker 4 These were classmates. They lived in the same neighborhood.
They were childhood friends. Porfirio's father worked for the Taos County Jail.

Speaker 4 In the past, he was even a guide for the Hunters Safety course.

Speaker 4 The family should have known gun safety like the back of their hand. Should have been second nature to them.
Because in many ways, it was their job.

Speaker 8 So when he pointed it at her,

Speaker 2 about how far away he was.

Speaker 23 About.

Speaker 41 Probably about like this.

Speaker 25 So did she approach him to get the hold for the gun?

Speaker 51 Well, she was like this, and I don't know if they went closer or what, but then like they started struggling like this, and then like in time.

Speaker 23 Here or up here?

Speaker 32 Yes.

Speaker 33 And what was he doing with the other guns?

Speaker 51 You said he I'm not sure if he was just pulling them out to show them off to see if he was cool or what, but

Speaker 51 he just pulled them out and he didn't do nothing with them but then he ended up doing I think he put him on the counter or something. I don't even know.

Speaker 51 So I thought like generally he was a really chill guy. Like we always used to hang out and shit.

Speaker 16 He was chill have a good time.

Speaker 51 He was like always the homie. Yeah.
Never really thought anything bad about him, thought he'd do anything bad.

Speaker 51 Like I always knew like he always liked to beat people up if they disrespect him or whatever.

Speaker 33 But, I didn't. But he liked to fight.

Speaker 40 Yeah.

Speaker 30 But I didn't.

Speaker 10 I grew up in SPL.

Speaker 30 That's not that big of a deal.

Speaker 51 But I didn't think he'd ever pull a gun out on someone actually shoot them.

Speaker 33 And

Speaker 45 he was never mad about anything?

Speaker 13 Everyone was laughing, having a good time.

Speaker 38 Everybody was just having a good time.

Speaker 54 Do you feel like he meant to do this?

Speaker 51 I don't know because if you think about it, he didn't seem mad or anything, but then why would he have his finger on the trigger and just do that?

Speaker 31 So, I I don't really know.

Speaker 54 Did he ever do you ever know of him to pull guns out on somebody else and other people?

Speaker 51 I've heard about it, but I wasn't sure if it was true.

Speaker 42 You've heard about it, but you've never seen it?

Speaker 30 Yeah.

Speaker 33 Is he known to carry a gun?

Speaker 51 S I'm not sure about like all the time, but sometimes, yeah.

Speaker 54 Sometimes, like, what kind of gun?

Speaker 51 Well, even before, whenever, like, everything happened when we were actually in the car, he pulls out, like, like maybe a block I don't know but it's like mini handgun black and then he also had I think a rifle in the car but

Speaker 31 and do you know does he hunt stuff like that?

Speaker 51 I think he does yeah

Speaker 11 does he talk about that a lot?

Speaker 33 Yeah sometimes has he ever talked about hurting anybody else like shooting anybody else?

Speaker 51 I mean well he used to talk about beating people's butt ass before, but other than that not like gun violence.

Speaker 4 What 14 year old needs to be carrying around a pistol? And why didn't anyone teach them the rule that every gun owner knows?

Speaker 4 You never point a gun at a target that you don't intend to shoot.

Speaker 38 You know, and I'm really upset because he's a, you know, I know him. You know, I know him and the wife and everything.

Speaker 42 Oh, he's got horses and stuff. He's got several guns in that house.
I'm sure you've seen a lot of guns in that house.

Speaker 30 Like lots of guns.

Speaker 4 They're just a patriotic, gun-loving family, right?

Speaker 4 But after the shot was fired and Amber collapsed, Porfario didn't run for help. He didn't call 911.

Speaker 4 He started cleaning up and staging the scene.

Speaker 51 He just had her by her arms and no one was helping him. And he just started dragging her.

Speaker 38 What do you mean he wanted you guys to help?

Speaker 54 Did he say something?

Speaker 51 Whenever he first grabbed her under his arms, he was all help me, help me. We just looked at him.

Speaker 51 I guess maybe still in shock or something because no one helped him.

Speaker 54 And then, so he takes her to the porch,

Speaker 33 or did he take her all the way to where she was?

Speaker 51 He took her, he stopped her at the porch, that's why there was some blood there.

Speaker 13 Right.

Speaker 51 And then he drived her off to there.

Speaker 33 And he got on the phone right away?

Speaker 33 And I know this is tough, but do you remember a lot of blood being in the house?

Speaker 33 You said he cleaned up.

Speaker 51 I'm not sure how much, but it's probably a decent

Speaker 13 bit.

Speaker 51 And you could tell that he cleaned because there was a mop bucket and there wasn't, like, there was like a little streak of blood next to the mop bucket. But you could tell he tried to hide some.

Speaker 51 But one thing is, whenever I did end up going back to talk, whenever they moved me from the cop car,

Speaker 51 it did seem like he changed his clothes okay so a second ago you said you didn't know if he hit or did something with the guns yeah like multiple guns yeah so what do you mean by multiple guns because even at first before everything happened he even pulled out like an ak and or it seemed like an ak it looked like it and then some sort of other gun i don't know my guns but it was like about

Speaker 51 I would say maybe about this, maybe a little bit bigger. It was camouflage.
And they were full rounds.

Speaker 51 like the clip was full but i don't know if there was one in the chamber he ended up putting those away and then that's when he he pulls out the revolver did he threaten you guys at all were you scared of him in that point of moment i didn't know what could have happened like he he probably could have if he really wanted to

Speaker 4 that's the question isn't it did he really want to hurt amber Or was he just a dumb kid trying to look cool in front of his friends? Here's Frankie again.

Speaker 33 Do you know Porf to carry a gun?

Speaker 2 Uh sometimes.

Speaker 25 I mean besides a rifle?

Speaker 48 Once in a while.

Speaker 42 Once in a while.

Speaker 44 You know it's coming out a lot that he's actually been pointing that gun at a lot of other kids in the community.

Speaker 10 And I'm curious about that as well.

Speaker 44 And you know some other people said that only the kids knew but last weekend at the farmer's market there you know there's a little program for the kids to live there.

Speaker 44 And I guess it only went around the kids. Well he had the gun in his thing the whole time here at the farmer's market.

Speaker 42 But nobody knew knew except have you seen him point a gun at somebody else?

Speaker 33 Well, are you sure?

Speaker 38 And be honest with you,

Speaker 1 I've never seen him.

Speaker 4 This is all starting to paint a clear picture. None of the adults knew it at the time, but Porferio had apparently brought a gun to work at the local farmer's market.

Speaker 4 He'd been known to show off his guns, pull them out, and even point them at other kids. And now, a girl was dead.
The escalation couldn't have been more obvious.

Speaker 4 To anyone that was paying attention, that is.

Speaker 25 But as far as evidence, I feel very strong for our case.

Speaker 33 I can't tell you exactly what he'll be charged.

Speaker 30 I mean,

Speaker 33 I can tell you exactly what he's been charged with.

Speaker 50 It's called an open-counter murder.

Speaker 50 That is a, you know, that's kind of an all-encompassing charge.

Speaker 4 Now, Porfirio has to face the full weight of the law. His dad might see him as just a kid, but when you kill someone, the law doesn't always agree.

Speaker 4 Oh, and the dead girl and the dead girl's family don't care how old he is. The word of the day on sort and scale here is irrelevant.
Say it with me. E re le

Speaker 4 vante.

Speaker 4 William Brown was focused on his son's legal battle. What he didn't know was that he was about to become the first person charged under the new state statute.

Speaker 4 By the end of the day, both father and son would be in handcuffs. The law is called Benny's Law, and it took effect in June of 2023, less than a month before Amber's murder.

Speaker 22 It's been nearly two years since tragedy hit Washington Middle School in Albuquerque and just rippled throughout our community.

Speaker 22 What should have been a harmless schoolyard argument turned deadly when 13-year-old Benny Hargrove was shot and and killed by a classmate. Witnesses say Benny was just standing up to a bully.

Speaker 22 And police say that teen was able to bring the gun to school because it wasn't stored properly at home.

Speaker 56 This year, state lawmakers passed the Benny Hargrove bill in an effort to prevent another similar tragedy. And today, that new law officially is going into effect.

Speaker 15 Democratic Representative Pamela Herndon spearheaded this bill as one of the sponsors.

Speaker 57 What we are expecting as a result of Benny Hargrove bill going into place is that parents or adults who have responsibility for firearms will absolutely restore those, will store them safely so that children or minors do not have access to them at all.

Speaker 15 House Bill 9 acts as a gun safety bill. If a kid gets a hold of their parent or guardian's gun and commits a crime, that caretaker can be charged with a misdemeanor.

Speaker 57 The purpose was not necessarily to punish adults, but the purpose was to make sure that they are thinking about what they're doing.

Speaker 4 Gun fanatics, and by gun fanatics, I mean those nutty Democrats that want to take away everyone's constitutional right to self-defense, will never admit that conservative gun right activists are more critical on gun safety than anyone else.

Speaker 4 If you have a kid, especially a teenage boy, and you're not locking up your guns properly, then you deserve everything that's coming to you.

Speaker 4 Unless William had his eyes glued to the news, he probably had no idea idea that unsecured firearms could now land him in jail. You see, he wasn't paying attention.

Speaker 4 But whether he knew it or not, William Brown had just become a test case. And the thing is, the guns were all over his house.

Speaker 4 Big macho grande.

Speaker 26 And that one?

Speaker 25 There's probably like seven or eight in that one too high for me to do sign there.

Speaker 41 We're good with this idea.

Speaker 10 All right, now.

Speaker 14 So I have here a return of inventory.

Speaker 10 I'll have you signed.

Speaker 14 We have just secured a bunch of firearms, okay? We didn't take any firearms, but we secured a bunch of firearms because there was

Speaker 14 a bunch just laying around. And with that new law in place,

Speaker 55 they can't just be, like, I guess, unsecured.

Speaker 4 Loaded, unlocked, and accessible. As you just heard, there weren't just one or two guns lying around.

Speaker 4 Deputies found at least seven firearms in a single bedroom.

Speaker 4 When they locate William Brown to explain the situation, he stands stiff, his arms crossed, wearing the blank, defiant stare of a toddler who knows they're in trouble, but doesn't think it's fair.

Speaker 25 So here's the thing, okay?

Speaker 25 I need you to understand that we're just we're doing our jobs.

Speaker 10 We're gonna do our jobs, best of our ability. We've got information

Speaker 10 about what all took place.

Speaker 25 And as far as a black SUV,

Speaker 10 that's not kind of out.

Speaker 10 Does that make sense?

Speaker 10 If you're saying I can't tell you that was that one.

Speaker 10 Okay, and I get that.

Speaker 30 But

Speaker 30 another thing that you need to understand is there's a lot of guns in that house, right?

Speaker 42 And none of them are secured.

Speaker 2 Most of them are secured. I have a few that are out.

Speaker 42 You have a few that are out.

Speaker 10 Okay, with that right there. have your hands, put your hands behind your back.

Speaker 17 Point one is an idea in making a firearm accessible to a minor,

Speaker 17 resulting in great balloon or death.

Speaker 25 So this is a normal degree map. Yes, we so

Speaker 34 it was a my firearm.

Speaker 17 That's that we we have enough follow-up suit to uh to actually uh

Speaker 25 really value us that under that stuff.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 34 That it was it was uh that only bunks.

Speaker 4 The bottom line is that it was normal for the Brown family to give their kids unfettered and unsupervised access to deadly weapons. It was your firearm.

Speaker 4 That line hits hard, but was William thinking about the girl his son killed? Or was he already thinking about how to protect himself and his son Porphyrio?

Speaker 4 Before the ink could dry on his charging documents, William started spinning his own version of events. One where he was the victim.
Not the dead girl, him.

Speaker 4 Within minutes of his arrest, the whole group was on speakerphone with his employer at the Taos County Jail.

Speaker 34 Hey, I don't know what you call Danny and see. They're arresting me because there was a shooting at my house.

Speaker 34 And they're saying, yeah, for negligence of a that a firearm unsecure.

Speaker 34 I don't know. The state police have me in cuffs already, so he's holding the phone now.
And I'm just calling you to.

Speaker 34 They said maybe if I see a judge, see if he can call the judges, maybe I can get out tonight.

Speaker 34 Okay.

Speaker 34 So what are the sergeants that

Speaker 10 so?

Speaker 45 Like he like he explained,

Speaker 45 he had a weapon that was not secure.

Speaker 10 His son

Speaker 45 had access to that weapon, and a 14-year-old girl was shot and killed.

Speaker 45 So what on the

Speaker 4 While he waited for his first court appearance, something must have gotten lost in communication because Taos County had placed him on leave, but he showed up to work anyway.

Speaker 4 During the time he was there, he had a lot to say about his case.

Speaker 37 We were still getting the letter.

Speaker 37 I was trying to find a way to put him on administrative leave without pay.

Speaker 37 I don't want him sitting out there. We're doing our own

Speaker 37 internal investigation for policy violations. We're procuring Universal to do the investigation.
I don't know who's been assigned yet. We're going to look at our own policy

Speaker 37 violations

Speaker 37 outside of what you guys are doing.

Speaker 37 And then the other thing that just struck me, and that's what I just told Jason,

Speaker 37 is

Speaker 37 you may have to interview the shift this morning because I don't know what was relayed to the other folks on duty because of the miscommunication you had a study. He showed up to work this morning.

Speaker 37 And then they pulled him aside and had him sit in the office. When Jason handed him the

Speaker 37 letter that he was on paid administrative leave, it's when he mentioned, anyways, I'm going to be back to work next week because there's no gun.

Speaker 37 They're going to drop all the charges and I'll be back to work.

Speaker 37 And then when HR conveyed to him, hey, this isn't about your case, this is about policy infractions, he was like, oh.

Speaker 39 And,

Speaker 37 but I was thinking about it now. He disclosed that the NRA is going to pay for his legal defense and he's not worried about it.

Speaker 37 And I thought, well, to me, you need to hold your cards

Speaker 30 close.

Speaker 37 And I just these little things, I know they're not lengthy conversations, but it's just...

Speaker 37 I just thought

Speaker 37 interesting. Just

Speaker 37 interesting.

Speaker 37 Okay.

Speaker 4 William didn't seem to be worried at all.

Speaker 4 He was convinced for some reason that they'd never find the gun, that the NRA would foot the bill for his defense, and that he'd be free of this whole inconvenient ordeal sooner rather than later.

Speaker 4 William Brown would be the first person in New Mexico tried under Benny's law. This added a political layer to the case.
Even so, He was sure he'd walk.

Speaker 19 That it's not about a firearm. It's not about any firearm.
It's about the firearm used in the killing of Miss Anne Berard Shiletta.

Speaker 52 Brown testified in his own defense today, claiming none of his guns were missing after the deadly shooting.

Speaker 52 Prosecutors tried to poke holes in Brown's testimony by showing him a picture of a gun that was in his home that he didn't testify about.

Speaker 52 They reiterated investigators found unsecured guns around his home.

Speaker 20 What do we know? Well, we do know that we had a house. It was the Brown residence owned by the Browns.

Speaker 20 And that the guns in there

Speaker 20 belonged to mr brown

Speaker 58 so we've got photos of the house and of the weapons and how they were secured jurors took just two hours to deliberate the first of its kind case we the jury find the defendant william brown not guilty of negligently making a firearm accessible to a minor as charged in Count 1 of the grand jury indictment for criminal information.

Speaker 4 William walked out of the courtroom a free man. A real travesty of justice, if you ask me.
But sometimes juries are full of idiots. So is Earth, so it tracks.

Speaker 4 Had he been found guilty, he would have been facing up to 18 months in prison, which still seems to me a bit of a walk in the park for something so serious.

Speaker 4 For Amber Archuleta's family, it felt like a second blow.

Speaker 4 The man who owned the gun, who should have known better than to leave it available for his teenager to use, to flash around and brag about, had walked away, a free man.

Speaker 4 But William wasn't the only one they wanted held accountable. William's son, Porphyrio, the boy who'd pulled the trigger, was still facing murder charges.

Speaker 42 But I know the DA's office is going to try and have him charged as an adult.

Speaker 10 I wouldn't would love that.

Speaker 42 But there's no guarantee.

Speaker 44 I understand that, but

Speaker 54 I would truly

Speaker 42 be charged as an adult.

Speaker 44 Just for the fact that

Speaker 44 he tried covering it up and he drug her out and threw her off that porch like a dog. Absolutely.
So I definitely want him to be punished to the fullest extent.

Speaker 42 And I'm doing everything I can.

Speaker 44 You know, at first I was on the fence about it because they were friends.

Speaker 32 You know, she was there because she trusted him.

Speaker 44 But after him, what I seen her in the condition I want him

Speaker 44 to the fullest extent.

Speaker 4 Porfario's first trial began in February of 2024, just a few months before his father's not guilty verdict. Porfario was 15 by this point and was charged as a youthful offender.

Speaker 4 It sounds counterintuitive, but this meant that he could be tried and sentenced as an adult.

Speaker 4 At trial, he faced charges of second-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and attempted assault of a peace officer.

Speaker 56 Porfirio Brown. He went on trial for second-degree murder last week, but jurors couldn't make a unanimous decision.

Speaker 60 I think there was a lot of emotion from myself, my client. It's just you put in so much effort for these trials.
You really believe in your defense.

Speaker 60 When the jury can't come to a conclusion, it can feel a little invalidating almost.

Speaker 56 Bunker says the jury had questions about several pieces of evidence. First, the initial 911 call.

Speaker 60 The story has been that my kid wanted to create this drive-by story.

Speaker 60 But if you listen to the evidence on the 911 call, it's actually the brother who first tells 911 that his sister was shot in a drive-by.

Speaker 4 We'll let you decide the likelihood of Frankie coming up with a story on his own versus the story coming from Porphyrio, who didn't even think to call 911 and was instead busy cleaning up what he had done.

Speaker 56 Bunker says jurors also asked about a hug between the brother and Brown.

Speaker 60 On body camera, while the girl is laying there dying, the brother actually comes up to my client and gives my client a huge hug.

Speaker 60 And so to me, that was very inconsistent because why are you hugging my client if he just shot your sister?

Speaker 56 Blood on the brother's arms also came into question.

Speaker 60 He has perfect circular spots of blood on his arm. He's got blood on the back of his elbow.
He has a watch on. And then he goes home.

Speaker 60 So he and the other juvenile witness, they leave the scene and they're together at another location for over an hour.

Speaker 56 Eight jurors found Brown not not guilty. Four thought he was guilty.
But Bunker says they all agreed on one thing.

Speaker 60 Even the four that thought he was guilty said that they thought this was an accident. And so what they're trying to charge him with is intentional murder.
And all the jurors unanimously agreed.

Speaker 60 that whoever the shooter was, this was an accident.

Speaker 56 District Attorney Marcus Montoya says it's likely his office will retry the case.

Speaker 59 Guns and gun violence and gun control are very serious issues. And

Speaker 59 this was unnecessary and very traumatic traumatic loss of a young life and

Speaker 59 we can never say that often enough or loud enough.

Speaker 56 Montoya might also have a personnel issue to address connected to the case. Bunker says the lead prosecutor wasn't there for closing arguments.

Speaker 60 We were told she went to the hospital. The judge indicated he may have smelled alcohol on her breath.

Speaker 60 So not entirely sure what happened there.

Speaker 59 There may be rumors about that. Nothing certainly that I can verify.
And even if

Speaker 59 we conduct an investigation to find that anything like that was a potentiality, that would be an internal and personnel issue for me to deal with.

Speaker 4 Bunger. What an unfortunate name.
Then again, who am I to judge? Bidet.

Speaker 4 Anyway, rather than face a second trial, Porferio accepted a plea deal in August of 2024. He pleaded guilty to one single count of tampering with evidence.

Speaker 4 In exchange for accepting the deal, the remaining charges, including second-degree murder, were dropped.

Speaker 4 He was expected to serve a year of probation, and by the time this episode airs, his punishment will be over. His victim will still be dead.

Speaker 4 In the end, the courtroom decisions can't change what happened. Amber Archuletta

Speaker 4 is gone forever.

Speaker 61 She was outgoing. She had no fear.
If there was a hill, she'd climb it.

Speaker 61 You know, her and her brother, you know, riding their bike, she was the one popping the wheelies and ramping and stuff like that.

Speaker 61 I just want them to remember her for the sweet little thing that she was. You know, she, uh, like I say, she touched a lot of people, and I just want them to have those good memories of her.

Speaker 4 Amber took her last breaths in the dry New Mexico dirt that afternoon. She was only 13 years old, full of creativity.

Speaker 4 making her way through adolescence and surrounded by kids who were supposed to be her friends.

Speaker 4 This This story isn't about a teenager making a horrible mistake, it's about the environment that allowed it to happen.

Speaker 4 Adults who never want to take accountability and leave weapons out within reach, laws that arrive too late, and the culture that trusts children around firearms more than the car keys or voting ballots.

Speaker 4 Oh, and also...

Speaker 4 Really fucking dumb juries.

Speaker 4 Because who the hell wants to get out of work to go do that shit? Especially if you have a good job and like it. Imagine that.

Speaker 10 Well, we're all taught in rural areas like this gun safety.

Speaker 30 Yeah, that's what it's like.

Speaker 50 We all know gun safety.

Speaker 30 And that's part of our, you know, our

Speaker 42 grew up in Española and Chimita,

Speaker 30 and it was no different.

Speaker 38 You know, I

Speaker 8 knew how to handle a gun from an early age,

Speaker 42 and I knew that you don't point a gun at something that you're not willing to shoot.

Speaker 4 But knowing the rules doesn't mean everyone follows them.

Speaker 4 You see, being an adult, not to mention being a parent, requires that you get off your ass and actually do things that are inconvenient from time to time.

Speaker 4 Like, oh, I don't know, getting a gun safe, actually using it, and actually teaching your dumb kids about gun safety and about what not to do with a deadly weapon? But who has the time?

Speaker 4 When you're busy yelling at the Walmart manager and asking repeatedly why the Rutabakas aren't on sale, they were last week, so why aren't they this week? Are you starting to see how that works?

Speaker 4 Well, that does it for another episode of What the Fuck Is That Guy's Problem Anyway? Or as I like to call it, Sword and Scale. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 4 If you like the show, you can get a video version of it. We call it Sword and Scale Television, or just Sword and Scale, really.

Speaker 4 But it's available, 20 episodes of it, right now at swordandscale.com you can get it on tier two or tier three of our plus subscription platform it's a great way to support the show another great way to support the show is to buy a t-shirt or a baseball cap or a pair of boxer shorts or a pair of socks from our store at store.swordandscale.com.

Speaker 4 But before I forget, before I forget, this is news you want to hear. This is good news.
First of all, we're going to be gone for a little bit, but then we're going to be back.

Speaker 4 And then next year we're going to have season three of something we like to call Sword and Scale

Speaker 4 Nightmares.

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