Former Boise mayoral candidate arrested on felony charge, says he will ‘seek help’
Adriel Martinez, a former Boise mayoral candidate who finished sixth of seven contenders in last year’s city election, says he is “sorry for making a fool of myself” after being arrested on multiple charges.
Court records show Martinez, 29, was arrested around 4 a.m. Thursday on accusations of driving under the influence, resisting or obstructing officers, and attempting to flee or elude police officers in a motor vehicle. The last is a felony charge.
In an interview Friday, he told the Statesman that the Boise Police Department handled his arrest professionally.
“I was drinking, and I was going to get more alcohol and go to one of my guy friends’ houses,” he said. “I can’t really remember, but a cop, I could tell, was about to tail me, but he hadn’t turned his lights on yet.”
He said he tried to go to his home off Overland Road on the Bench, because he was near his house.
“I evaded the police,“ he said. “I got back to my house and jumped out of my car and tried to run.”
He said he was then tackled and arrested but that he did not fight back.
Court records show Martinez was also arrested on an accusation of driving under the influence in May 2019 in Canyon County, but that was pleaded down to a reckless driving charge.
Martinez is a veteran of the U.S. Army and a Boise State University graduate. His first major foray into politics was in 2015, when he ran for a seat on the Boise City Council against Scot Ludwig, winning about 31% of the vote.
He also ran for mayor in 2019. He frequently criticized the policies of then-Mayor David Bieter on everything from library spending to homelessness. He claimed just 588 of the nearly 52,000 cast in the November election, taking 1.1% of the vote for a sixth-place finish.
During the runoff election, he endorsed Bieter in his bid against now-Mayor Lauren McLean.
He ran as a Democratic candidate for the Idaho Senate this year in Boise’s District 17, but he lost in the primary to Ali Rabe, director of Jesse Tree, a Boise nonprofit that aims to help people on the verge of homelessness. He took less than a quarter of the vote and, in a now-deleted Facebook post, he inaccurately accused Ada County of rejecting a high number of ballots that otherwise would have changed the vote.
In a Facebook post Friday, he wrote, “We all make mistakes, and this one fortunately did not cost anyone their life, property or anything else.”
“Coming from the Army and having been deployed twice to Afghanistan changes a person, and it is hard to ever become whole again,” he wrote. “You lose stuff and parts of your life that will never come back. That soldier who has extreme flight or fight from years of combat and training kicked in at the wrong time, which in turn got me arrested.”
He told the Statesman that he would be seeking help by going to counseling, taking part in Alcoholics Anonymous and taking advantage of services for veterans.
Martinez has a preliminary hearing set for Oct. 1, according to court records.
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 10:35 AM.
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