East New Mexico News

From March 4, 2023 post.

A Roswell woman was arrested and charged with multiple crimes after fighting with a shopping-mall security officer who had seen her shoplifting late Thursday afternoon (March 2) and then driving a stolen pickup truck while leading law enforcement officers on a pursuit that ended north of Roswell after tire-deflation devices were used to stop the truck.

Sophia Solis, 29, was taken into custody by the Roswell Police Department following the approximately 20-minute pursuit that also included the New Mexico State Police and Chaves County Sheriff’s Office. Officers and deputies with the multiple agencies pursued Solis as she drove a Toyota Tacoma north on U.S. 285 at speeds that stayed around 55 mph or less. At times she drove the truck north in the southbound lanes of U.S. 285 toward oncoming traffic after fleeing a traffic stop made by an RPD officer on East Pine Lodge Road a short distance to the northeast of Roswell city limits.

The traffic stop was initiated by an RPD officer who was in the area searching for the suspect and vehicle that had been reported to be involved in a shoplifting incident that had just occurred, shortly before 5 p.m., at Hobby Lobby at the Roswell Mall, located on North Main Street just south of East Pine Lodge Road. The driver of the truck, later identified as Solis, was accused of fighting with the mall security officer who was trying to stop her as she was leaving the store with jewelry and other items she hadn’t paid for. During the struggle, which included Solis biting the security officer and the security officer spraying Solis with “pepper spray,” the security officer fell and Solis fled in the truck, which was reported stolen Feb. 24 as part of a burglary Solis is accused of carrying out at an apartment in the 3000 block of North Main Street.

On Thursday, Solis stopped the truck briefly when the RPD officer initiated the traffic stop on East Pine Lodge Road, but quickly drove away again heading west. Soon after, the truck turned north onto North Main Street, which is also U.S. 285, and headed north out of the city limits. State police officers and county sheriff’s deputies joined RPD in the pursuit as it went north, with some officers driving ahead of the suspect vehicle to warn oncoming traffic when the truck was driving in the wrong direction in the southbound lanes.

State police deployed “spike strips” into the highway at various times ahead of the truck, resulting in at least one tire being punctured and deflating and breaking apart off the wheel rim. This eventually brought the truck to a stop in the highway median about 11 miles north of the Roswell city limits. Solis refused officers’ commands to exit the truck. Officers approached the truck and pulled Solis out of it.

Solis was booked into the Chaves County Detention Center on charges related to Thursday’s incident, as well as the earlier apartment burglary. She is charged with aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer, robbery, larceny (two counts), vehicle burglary, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, receiving/transferring a stolen motor vehicle, receiving stolen property, battery, assault, shoplifting, criminal damage to property, concealing identity, and resisting, evading or obstructing an officer.

Original source can be found here.