{"id":34023,"date":"2023-05-12T22:07:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-13T04:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/student-charged-after-alleged-on-campus-altercation-at-piedra-vista-high-school\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:15:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:15:39","slug":"student-charged-after-alleged-on-campus-altercation-at-piedra-vista-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/student-charged-after-alleged-on-campus-altercation-at-piedra-vista-high-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Student charged after alleged on-campus altercation at Piedra Vista High School"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kaden
Kaden Hunter was arrested on three charges after a May 2 altercation with school officials at Piedra Vista High School. (Courtesy San Juan County Adult Detention Center)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Piedra Vista High School student Kaden Hunter was arrested May 2 by Farmington Police Department on three criminal charges, after an alleged assault and battery that prompted a preventive lockdown.<\/p>\n

According to police reports, Hunter became \u201cextremely angry verbally and physically\u201d when he was asked a second time to stop talking in a classroom.<\/p>\n

Hunter reportedly slammed his backpack on the floor, breaking his school-issued laptop. When a teacher about fluid leaking from the pack, he \u201cbecame even angrier\u201d and picked up a student desk.<\/p>\n

The teacher, standing in front of Hunter, asked him to put the desk down. Hunter told the teacher to \u201cget out of his way\u201d and began swinging the desk back and forth after the teacher moved to the side. The teacher later said she feared Hunter would throw the desk at her.<\/p>\n

Hunter threw the desk into a whiteboard, denting it and damaging the desk and part of a mounted projector. He shouted an expletive and left the room, and the teacher radioed administrators.<\/p>\n

Police reports did not provide a timeline or account for Hunter\u2019s whereabouts for between the time he left the classroom and arrived in the school\u2019s administration office.<\/p>\n

Roberto Taboada, spokesperson for Farmington Municipal Schools, was unable to comment on the specifics of this situation.<\/p>\n

The reports stated that when the school resource officer entered the administration office, Hunter threw his sunglasses at an assistant principal, then shouted an expletive and shoved an assistant principal into a closed door and entered the hallway after pulling his wrist from the SRO\u2019s grasp.<\/p>\n

The SRO, identified only as \u201cFernandez,\u201d urges staff to not to attempt to stop Hunter \u201cfor their safety.\u201d Hunter was later asked to leave the building, and he eventually left through the front entrance.<\/p>\n

The police reports do not state how long Hunter remained in the school after leaving the administration office.<\/p>\n

The report stated that Fernandez \u201cwas informed by school staff members that Hunter likes to walk off his anger\u201d and \u201cfollowed him around the school\u2019s property exterior until other units arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the report, three police officers arrested Hunter on a fourth-degree felony charge of battery upon a school employee, misdemeanor assault upon a school employee and criminal damage to property worth over $1,000, a fourth-degree felony.<\/p>\n

Hunter was taken to San Juan County Adult Detention Center May 2 and released May 4.<\/p>\n

When asked about lockdown communications, Taboada initially said a notification was sent to students\u2019 parents and guardians on May 2, but later confirmed that no announcement had been sent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe May 2 \u2018preventive lockdown\u2019 was a contained situation that didn\u2019t interfere with the regular school schedule, and no call was made based on that criteria,\u201d Taboada said in an email.<\/p>\n

In his email, Taboada referenced the March 23 fatal shooting at Animas Valley Mall as precedent for not sending out a notification. After reports of the shooting, \u201cthree of our schools were put in a preventive lockdown. \u2026 There was no threat to the schools. No phone calls to parents were made either.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as reported by The Journal <\/em>March 23, and confirmed by cellphone records, Farmington Municipal Schools sent two notification calls to families at 11:24 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. March 23.<\/p>\n

Piedra Vista High School Principal Kelly Thur also confirmed that notifications were sent out in regards to the shooting at the mall March 23 because there was a potential \u201clack of safety\u201d in that situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people have scanners, a lot of people have social media, so we wanted to make sure we didn\u2019t help spread that in that situation,\u201d Thur said. \u201cThe situation in early May was a little different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taboada confirmed that a preventive lockdown May 2 lasted six minutes. He added that the May 6 lockdown was meant to prevent him from reentering the school.<\/p>\n

Thur said the lockdown was an effort to \u201cmanage movement\u201d during an isolated situation and \u201conce the movement was managed, we lifted it.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Thur, the decision to forgo a notification was based in part because the short lockdown did not prevent students from moving to their next class at the scheduled time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t feel like \u2026 safety was an issue for anybody,\u201d Thur said. \u201cOnce that event occurred, there was no other safety concerns. It was more about just making sure that the movement was restricted, and we could keep it isolated.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the initial altercation, Thur said staff was notified that the school was in a state of \u201ca restriction of movement,\u201d which was intended to keep the hallways clear and students in classrooms.<\/p>\n

He added that preventive lockdowns are used for situations that could become emergencies. They manage movement while attempting to avoid disrupting the normal education process.<\/p>\n

Thur said that altercations of this severity are unusual and that school administration typically deals with behavioral or others disruptive issues on campus when possible, according to \u201cprocedure based on board policies and handbook and state law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thur said school staff uses all resources available to them to \u201cwork with kids (to) give them an opportunity to change behaviors before they do make a bad choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we\u2019re unable to do that,\u201d and sometimes situations outside the school environment that they are not aware of make it difficult for staff to effect behavior change with students, Thur said.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement is typically contacted when a situation \u201ccould be considered a crime,\u201d according to Thur. Such situations may include in-person or digital harassment, controlled substance violations, assault or battery.<\/p>\n

Because of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act restrictions, the district was unable to release information on whether Hunter was allowed to return to classes after being released from the detention center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parents were not notified about short lockdown, school says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,799,3751,2833,1773],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-34023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-farmington","tag-farmington-municipal-schools","tag-farmington-police-department","tag-piedra-vista-high-school"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82448,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34023\/revisions\/82448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34023"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=34023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}