The thin blurred line

IN MID-JUNE, ON A SUNNY late afternoon, dozens of protesters led by Indigenous and youth organizers gathered in front of the Albuquerque Museum at the feet of La Jornada, a statue of Spanish conquistador Don Juan de Oñate. They called for the statue’s removal, saying it was a monument to a genocidal colonial history. On the outer banks of the crowd, at least six militiamen from the New Mexico Civil Guard, a civilian militia, flanked the protest in a tight semicircle, some of them shouldering semi-automatic rifles.

When some of the protesters began taking a pickax and chain to the statue, a man in a blue shirt — later identified as Steven Baca Jr. — began shoving protesters. Then he threw a woman to the ground. Her head hit the pavement with an audible smack and Baca fled, discharging a cloud of pepper