LOCAL COLUMN
OPINION: You are not alone in grief
If you鈥檙e not from Albuquerque, you may not know my story. If you鈥檝e been watching what鈥檚 happened in Las Cruces; the loss of Chris Carnero, the tragedy at Young Park, you may feel like those things are happening in isolation, like the violence that took your neighbors and your children is something unique to your community, something you鈥檙e enduring alone. I want you to know that couldn鈥檛 be further from the truth. What you鈥檙e living right now is what I have been living for close to 11 years.
On the night of June 26, 2015, my son Jaydon was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting while at a house party in Northeast Albuquerque. He was 17 years old and had just been accepted to the Air Force Academy. He was kind and bright and full of a future that was stolen from him in an instant by a senseless act of violence. In the days and weeks that followed, I learned something painful about the system I had trusted to deliver justice: It wasn鈥檛 built for people like Jaydon. It wasn鈥檛 built for people like us.
Jaydon's killer was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but that sentence was reduced to 20 years when the state Legislature passed the Second Chance bill in 2023, which allowed juveniles sentenced to life to become eligible for parole after 15-25 years. Two other individuals involved in that same shooting plead guilty to lesser charges: one walked out of prison in six years, his sentence was supposed to be 16; and the other, a juvenile who was the driver and a shooter, only served one year in a juvenile detention center.
I have lived with that math ever since. I sat with that reality, and I made a decision. I could not bring Jaydon back, but I could refuse to let what happened to him happen to another family without a fight. I went to the Legislature in 2016 as an advocate, a mother carrying a photograph of her son and a conviction that things had to change. What I found there disappointed me, but it also ignited something in me in the best possible way: I learned that if I wanted a seat at the table, I was going to have to earn one.
It took eight years. Two campaigns. On Jan. 1, 2025, I was sworn in as state representative for District 31 in the New Mexico House of Representatives, the first Hispanic woman to hold that seat. I arrived with 22 bills ready to file, most of them focused on public safety and victims鈥� rights. I arrived thinking that, finally, things would move.
They have moved some. But not enough. And that brings me to why I鈥檓 writing to you today.
When I heard about Carnero鈥檚 death, I didn鈥檛 just feel grief. I felt the particular, gutting recognition of a mother who has been there. Janel Carnero said something publicly that has stayed with me. She said that children are being groomed and used to commit crimes by people who know the sentences are minimal, that our children are being used as weapons because the system makes it cheap to do so. She is right, she shouldn鈥檛 have had to bury her son to say it.
New Mexico鈥檚 Children鈥檚 Code, as it stands, allows a young person to commit violent offense after violent offense without triggering meaningful accountability 鈥� not until someone is dead. The data from the Las Cruces Police Department makes the trend impossible to ignore. In 2018, 18 juveniles were arrested in possession of a firearm. By 2025, that number had climbed to 58. In the eight years from 2012 to 2019, not a single juvenile in Las Cruces was charged with murder. Since 2020, 18 have been.
Las Cruces, you are not alone in this. Demand reform of the Children鈥檚 Code. Show up. Write your legislators. Bring your grief and your anger and your love for the children you鈥檝e lost and the children you鈥檙e still fighting to protect. That is how this changes, not because lawmakers finally find the courage on their own, but because the people of New Mexico give them no other choice.
The next family shouldn鈥檛 have to wait 11 years to be heard.
Nicole Chavez, R-Albuquerque, represents District 21 in the New Mexico House of Representatives.
