Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
A Tucumcari man faces four criminal charges, including a felony count, after being accused of threatening and shoving a pregnant woman, plus putting her infant son in jeopardy of physical harm.
Peter Thomas Briones, 23, was charged with negligent child abuse, two counts of battery against a household member and violation of a restraining order prohibiting domestic violence.
The child-abuse count is a third-degree felony that can lead up to three years in prison and up to a $5,000 fine. The other counts are misdemeanors.
According to an affidavit filed by Tucumcari Police Cpl. Abel Cullum, he and other officers were sent the afternoon of June 22 to investigate an assault in the 1300 block of South First Street.
The woman told officers she has a 1-year-old child and is six months pregnant. She went to Briones’ home to pick up the child. She and Briones began arguing when he asked whom she was dating.
She told Cullum that Briones shoved her onto the bed, placed a knee on her belly and said: “Tell me who you are talking to or I will put all my weight down; I don’t care if it kills the baby.”
She said she pushed him off her. Briones picked up the child and said he wasn’t letting him go until she told him whom she was dating.
After she said she would call the police and ran toward the home’s front door, Briones chased her while holding the baby.
He pushed her against a shelf and threatened to kill her and “the guy you’re talking to.” He eventually gave the woman the baby, and she left.
Cullum stated in the affidavit he unsuccessfully tried to make contact with Briones or anyone else at his home.
Cullum said he later learned Briones was on probation for a previous domestic-violence incident involving the woman, and there was an order of protection forbidding him from assaulting, threatening, harassing, following or stalking her.
An arrest warrant was issued for Briones, and he was detained June 23 and booked into the Quay County Detention Center under a no-bond hold.
No attorney was listed for Briones in online court records.