ALBUQUERQUE - Daniel A. Mendoza, 21, a non-Indian man from Albuquerque, N.M., was sentenced today in federal court to 33 months in prison for assaulting a federally commissioned tribal police officer. Mendoza will be on supervised release for two years after completing his prison sentence.
The BIA arrested Mendoza on Nov. 22, 2016, for assaulting a federal officer based on his assault of an officer of the Pueblo of Isleta Tribal Police Department, who was commissioned as a Special Law Enforcement Officer by the BIA’s Office of Justice Services. According to the complaint, Mendoza assaulted the officer by running his vehicle into the officer’s vehicle while attempting to evade arrest. Mendoza committed the offense on Sept. 22, 2016, on the Isleta Pueblo in Bernalillo County, N.M.
Mendoza subsequently was indicted on Dec. 20, 2016, and was charged with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly and dangerous weapon, a vehicle, on Sept. 22, 2016, in Bernalillo County.
On Dec. 13, 2017, Mendoza pled guilty to the indictment and admitted that on Sept. 22, 2016, in order to avoid arrest, he backed his truck into an Isleta Pueblo Police patrol vehicle that was being operated by an Isleta Pueblo Police Sergeant who was commissioned as a Special Law Enforcement Officer by the BIA. Mendoza admitted intentionally driving his truck forward and reversing a second time at a high rate of speed into the Isleta Pueblo Police Sergeant’s patrol vehicle.
This case was investigated by the Pueblo of Isleta Tribal Police Department and the Northern Pueblos Agency of the BIA’s Office of Justice Services and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle T. Nayback.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
