When Getting Out of Jail
Means a Deadly Walk Home

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When Getting Out of Jail Means a Deadly Walk Home

People regularly walk back to town after being released from the
‘Santa Fe ai. Itis deadlier than previously known.
Cover Photo Credit...Ramsay de Give for The New York Times

By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs.

Reporting from Santa Fe, N.M. | Published May 12,2025 |
Updated May 13, 2025

Rebecca Jaramillo stepped out of the Santa Fe jail and into the cold
one night in January 2021. After two days in a cell, she was free, but
0 one was there to pick her up. So, with a snowstorm coming, she
began the long walk toward town.

The jailin Santa Fe, surrounded by barbed wire and tumblewesd, sits
ona remote stretch of highway far from the city's bustiing plaza and
historic churches. It is nearly two miles down the highway to the
closest gas station, three miles to where a sidewalk starts and eight
miles to the nearest homeless shelter.

Ms. Jaramillo, 33, made it only about a mile from the Jail that night
before she was hit by a sheriff's deputy driving a police pickup truck
at 57 miles per hour. Her body was thrown more than 100 feet, and
she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ms. Jaramillo s one of several people who have died trying to make it
home from the Santa Fe jail on foot in recent years. It is a walk that
has been far more deadly than previously reported.
Rebecca Jaramillo, pictured in
2011, was killed in 2021 after
being released from the Santa
Fejail.

Known officially as the Santa Fe
County Adult Correctional
Facility, the jail was moved to its
more remote location in 1998,
and before long, local leaders
took note of how dangerous the
walk was, even as they did little
1o solve the problem. As far back as 2002, county commissioners
‘expressed concern someone could be struck.

‘Spurred by the 2015 death of Alan Cruthirds, who had been released

and fatally run over, the local paper wrote an cditarial saying that
officials “must do more to make sure inmates aren't at risk."

But the problem has persisted. Five people have been fatally struck
shortly after being released over the past decade, four of them since
March 2020, according to records obtained by The New York Times.
Several more people have been injured.

ADeadly Walk Home

Five people have been struck and killed on the roads outside the
Santa Fe jail after being released with no good option for getting
home.

A map showing the sites of pedestrian fatalities of inmates released
trom the Santa Fe county jail without transportation options.
Snare SR

- s

Across the country, local jails
have facad_criticism for releasing
people late_al night, into dangerous

neignborhoads or without
transportation_options. The federal
prison system is r=quiredto ensure
access to transportation for released
prisoners, and many state prison
systems do 50.as well. But local jails
inmany cases leave it to the people
who are released o gt home
themselves.

Giting the risks of releasing people at
night, California tawmakers passed a
5illin 2018 that would have required

jaits to give inmates the option of waiting until morning o be released,
but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it, saying it was too costly.

In Santa Fe, county commissioners have occasionally tried to
improve the situation but failed to solve the problem. Most nights on
a recent week, a steady stream of people walked out of the jail and
onto the side of the highway, trudging along a narrow shoulder as

commuters and big rigs flew by.

The current Santa Fe County
Adult Correctional Facility was
opened in 1998.
Credit...Ramsay de Give for The
New York Times
Paul Duran, a former county commissioner, said the situation could
be improved if there were more coordination among judges, Who
issue the orders releasing people from jail; jail officials, who process
their release; the transportation agency that runs the buses; and
county commissioners who allocate funding. “They haven't done a
‘damn thing about t," he said.

Hank Hughes, one of five current Santa Fe County commissioners,
acknowledged that officials have largely been unsuccessful at
making it safer for people to get back to town, but he said other
issues, including trying to reduce overdoses at the jail, have taken
precedence.

“Itis an issue, but it's one of many issues about people in jail” ne
said.

Buses now stop there in the afternoon, but the jail often releases
People after they have come and gone. On a recent day, a bus waited
about 15 minutes and departed without picking up any inmates.
About half an hour Later, 10 or 50 people were released from the jail
Some had rides. Others began to walk.

Derek Williams, the jail warden, said jail officials ask inmates if they
need a ride toward town and inform them that they can wait for an
officer to drive them in a transport van.

But in interviews, several people recently released from the jail said
thatthey had to wait up to several hours, sometimes in harsh weather
conditions, for the transport van. One man who was walking back
from the jail said in Spanish that he did not know that a van was
available.

Mr. Williams said itwas unfortunate that released inmates had to wait
untilan officer s freed up to drive them toward town. He said people
are allowed a phone call when they are released. The “vast majority”
of the time, he said, inmates decline a ride from the jail and either

People who have
undertaken the walk to
town along .M. 14 have.
described dangerous
conditions, including
‘passing cars, no lighting
and harsh weather.
Creit...Ramsay de Give
for The New York Times.

Among the walkers one evening this year was James Moore, who sai
he had made the same trek a handful of times after being released,
often in the dark. The worst, he recalled, was about four years ago,
‘when he had fresh staples in his knee after a car crash.

“I was hobbling along the road in the dark, with blood going down my
leg.” he said. It took him about seven and a half hours to get home
that time, he said.

Joe Madrid, 35, said he had done the walk as many as 25 times over
the years, and that he often worried that drivers would not be able to
‘see him. He said he has had several close calls and could remember
feeling the wind from cars that passed too closely.

“People are flying by you at like 60, 70-some miles an hour,” Mr.
Madrid said. “Some of them turn their brights on just to be able o e

Itwas late at night in March 2020 when Kevin Poirier walked across
the highway to a neighboring state prison and asked a security guard
if he could casn a jail-issued check there. He had just been released
after beingarrested for failing to appear for a court hearing, according
to jail records. The guard at the prison told him he needed to leave
and, shortly after, heard a “loud thump” from the highway, according
toa police report. A truck had fatally hit Mr. Poirier and the driver had
fled the scene.

Then, in December of that year, Andrew Ortiz was released after one
night in jail. Mr. Ortiz, 58, had fallen on hard times, according to
Henrietta Cordova, his partner before the couple separated. She said
he had become addicted to drugs and had begun hearing things.

Mr. Ortiz was released in the afternoon and was dead within about
two hours. A woman driving an S.UV. struck him about three miles
north of the jal.

Evidence photos of the S.ULV. that struck and killed Andrew Ortiz.
Credit...New Mexico State Police.
“Iblame the jail a lot for them just letting people like that go on their
own,”Ms. Cordova said. “Ifyou're in somebody's custody andyou can
see that they're mentally not well, why would you just open the door
and say ‘Go instead of getting ahold of family members and making
sure they get where they're going safely?"

‘There have been problems even when someone has elected to walt
for the transport van. The van often depasits inmates about six miles
north, ata bus stop, the jail warden said. Itis within city imits but stil
far from the homeless shelter or other places where people are often
trying to go, and the buses run only into the earty evening.

On the night of Feb. 27, an officer dropped a released inmate, Chris.
Vigil, near a hospital, the warden said. It was more than seven miles
from the house where Mr. VigiLlived with his aunt.

“I don't know what happened after that,” the warden said.

Mr. Vigil, 46, had spent less than 24 hours in jailfor not showing up to
courttoface an old charge of drinking in a park.

“Ithink Chris was one of
those that just didn't get
good rap,”said Chis Vigit's
‘mother, Judy Vigil. “And he
" kepttrying, trying to make
itwork. He was trying.”
Credit..Ramsay de Give
for The New York Times

Not long after he was dropped off, he was struck by at least one car,
‘and his body was found near an exitramp of a highway. A police report
said a station wagon and a large truck were involved in the crash and
that neither driver was at faut.

Mr. Vigil's aunt, Barbara Ortiz, said he may not have had his glasses,
and that he was nearty blind without the.

Ms. Jaramillo, who was struck by the sheriff's deputy in 2021, had
once worked as a correctional officer herself ata ail not too far away
before falling on harder times. She had been booked into the jail for
trespassing at a homeless shelter that banned her. A police report
from the crash said she had been walking in the middle of a lane on
the highway.

Her sister, Elizabeth Jaramillo, said she does not understand why
people are released so late and allowed to walk. In an interview, she
and her father, Alfredo, rattled off the many solutions they had come
up with to make the releases safer. Among them were having an
‘advocacy group transport people to town, extending the sidewalk to
the jail, billing inmates for a ride to their home or even just giving.
people reflective vests if they are walking at night.

“It's just bafflingto me;” she said, “that somebody somewhere hasn't
made sense of ityet, or igured out a way to get it done”
Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports on national stories across the
United States with a focus on criminal justice. He i from upstate
New York.

Aversion of this article appears in print on May 13, 2025, Section A,
Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: A Deadly Walk
Home From County Jail. Visit online to read all hypertinked
materials.

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Across the country, local jails

have faced criticism for releasing
people late at night, into dangerous
neighborhoods or without
transportation options. The federal
prison system is required fo ensure
access to transportation for released
prisoners, and many state prison systems
do so as well. But local jails in many
cases leave it to the people who are
released to get home themselves.