It has been nearly three years since the New Mexico Supreme Court re-established the public’s constitutional right to wade and fish in the state’s streams, including those that flow alongside or over private property. This has, at times, created a dangerous tension between fishermen and landowners in the Land of Enchantment. And while multiple appeals by private landowners to overturn the State Supreme Court’s 2022 decision have failed, at least one property owner along the Pecos River has resorted to other, more menacing tools to reject the state’s stream access laws: namely, firearms, excavators, and barbed wire.
On June 1, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced the arrest of Erik Briones, who was charged with five counts of aggravated assault for allegedly threatening multiple fishermen while holding a firearm. These charges came just few weeks after a judge held Briones in contempt for violating a 2025 court order reqiuring him and other landowners to remove barbed wire fencing and other illegal barriers from along the Pecos River.
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A criminal complaint filed in May by the New Mexico Department of Justice includes witness statements — as well as photographs and video footage — from four anglers who claim to have had “hostile encounters” with an armed Briones while they were legally wading and fishing in the Pecos over the last few years. They also shared evidence and allegations of Briones laying “traps” for anglers in the stretch of the river that flows past his property. All four anglers were able to correctly identify Briones in an array of photographs before Torrez signed an arrest warrant for Briones on May 28.
A video clip that was provided to the NMDOJ by Kennis Romero, a fly fishing guide based in Santa Fe, shows one such encounter from 2023. In an affidavit accompanying Briones’ arrest warrant, NMDOJ special agent Isaac Maes explained that after reviewing Romero’s video and cell phone evidence, he determined that on or between April 8 or 9, 2023, Romero was wading in the Pecos River near Mr. Briones’ land when he was verbally threatened by Briones, who was holding a shotgun.
Shotgun video
In the full video clip, which was made public by the NMDOJ (albeit at a very poor resolution), Briones’ threat can be heard clearly following the audible sound of a shell being racked into the shotgun’s chamber.
“I’m gonna start target practicing,” Briones tells Romero, who is standing in the river and filming the encounter. “It’s my land, I’ve got a right to target practice. I’m going to start shooting right across here.”
The three other witnesses whose testimonies were included in the arrest affidavit are Enrique Hurst, Algene Fulgenzi, and Zephaniah Bustos. All three anglers described encounters they had with Briones between 2023 and 2026 during which Briones brandished a firearm and made violent threats.
“Enrique Hurst reported to me that on February 27, 2026, while he was walking along the Pecos River by Erico Briones’ land, he and a friend later identified as Zephaniah Bustos were approached by Briones,” special agent Maes writes in the affidavit. “It was at this point that Briones told Mr. Hurst that ‘he could shoot from one side of the river to the other, and if he is in the middle that’s his fault.’ Mr. Hurst told me he observed what he described as a black handgun and told me that Briones pointed to the handgun and stated, ‘That’s why I have this.’”
Romero and Hurst also provided witness statements and photographs alleging that Briones has continued to use barbed wire fencing and heavy machinery to try and keep the public out of the stretch of the Pecos River that flows past his property. These activities are in direct violation of a 2025 court order that required Briones and other landowners to remove these barriers, and they are part of what Torrez has referred to as “an ongoing pattern of blatant contempt” of that court order.
Hurst told Maes that in April, he observed heavy machinery rearranging rocks in a stretch of the Pecos near Briones’ property, “essentially building a dam” that would make it more difficult or dangerous for a fisherman to wade the river. Romero also shared photographs of what appears to be an excavator digging in the same stretch of river this spring, along with pictures of barbed wire fencing that Briones had installed in the area.
“[Briones] brought in heavy equipment to trench the river, creating underwater hazards. And he has laid barbed wire in the river,” Attorney General Torrez alleges in an emergency motion filed on May 6. “The effect is to funnel river issuers into an area where water depths in his trenches create a drowning hazard.”
Torrez’ decision to arrest and charge Briones is part of his continued effort to defend the public’s right to wade and recreate in New Mexico’s streams. This constitutional right had been eroded over the years, to the point where, in 2017, the New Mexico State Game Commission adopted a regulation that purported to allow landowners to exclude the public from streams flowing through their property. The state Supreme Court struck down this regulation in March 2022 and issued its monumental decision that restored the public’s right to wade and fish in these streams, so long as they can enter the riverbed without trespassing on private ground.
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In 2023 the U.S. Supreme Court declined a request from some New Mexico landowners to reconsider the State Supreme Court’s ruling. Then, in 2025, after a judge ordered Briones and other landowners to remove illegal barriers along the Pecos River, he and other landowners sued the state, claiming that the 2022 court ruling amounted to an unconstitutional “taking” of private property. A federal judge ruled against the landowners, who then appealed that ruling.
On April 21, a panel of judges on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected their appeal. In a press release issued that same day, Torrez called the decision a “significant victory in the NMDOJ’s ongoing effort to protect the public’s right to access streams” in New Mexico.
“No one has the right to threaten violence against members of the public because they disagree with established law,” Torrez said in a statement last week, referring to Briones’ arrest. “Our office will continue enforcing both the criminal laws of this state and the public access protections guaranteed under New Mexico law.”
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