SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – The New Mexico Department of Justice dropped a second-degree murder charge against a former Santa Fe city employee accused of shooting and killing another city worker.
Police say Karl Rougemont was arguing and got into a physical fight with Christopher Vigil on St. Michael’s and Cerillos on March 7, 2022. At some point, Rougemont pulled out a gun and shot Vigil. The incident was caught on cell phone video.
The NMDOJ dropped the charge on Monday, saying that they would not be able to prove that the shooting wasn’t self-defense. “We learned that Chris, the decedent, had actually pulled the shooter, Rougemont, out of his vehicle at that intersection and was sort of the instigator of the fight by doing that. That fact alone was going to be very difficult for us to overcome,” said John Duran, assistant attorney general.
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Rougemont’s lawyer applauded the decision. “It takes a good lawyer, a very ethical lawyer, to walk back on something that’s been pending for so long. But you realize your about to face a trial, and you’ve got to realize that the evidence just doesn’t suggest that Mr. Rougemont did anything else but defend himself,” said Thomas Clark, defense lawyer.
Rougemont and Vigil both worked in the city’s public utilities department. Their union said the two had issues for at least one year before Vigil’s death. During an investigation KRQE News 13 did on issues with Santa Fe city employees in 2022, the city said they had no record of issues between the two employees.
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