Juan Valdez Dead: Land Grant Activist Who Led New Mexico Courthouse Raid And Inspired Chicano Movement Dies At 74

Juan Valdez, a land grant activist who fired the first shot during a 1967 New Mexico courthouse raid that grabbed international attention and helped spark the Chicano Movement, has died. He was 74. Valdez died peacefully Saturday at his Canjilon ranch after recently suffering two heart attacks, his daughter Juanita Montoya said. Heir to a northern New Mexico land grant, Valdez was 29 years old when he and a group of land grant advocates, led by Reies Lopez Tijerina, raided a Rio Arriba County courthouse in Tierra Amarilla. Their goal was to attempt a citizens' arrest of then-District Attorney Alfonso Sanchez over Hispanic land rights issues. During the raid, it was Valdez who shot and wounded state police officer Nick Saiz after the officer went for his pistol and refused commands by Valdez to put his hands up. "It came down to, I shoot him or he was going to shoot me – so I pulled the trigger," Valdez said in the book. "Lucky for both of us, he didn't die." The raiders also beat a deputy and took a sheriff and reporter hostage. After holding the courthouse for a couple of hours, the armed group fled to the mountains as the National Guard and armored tanks chased them. Valdez was convicted of assault but was later pardoned by Gov. Bruce King...more