The New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department is facing accusations it refused to take responsibility for a runaway teenage boy despite officials knowing his location, including after he was shot and wounded while he and other unsupervised teenagers played with a firearm.
The 16-year-old boy, identified in a lawsuit only by the initials N.H., was removed from his mother’s custody, but later ran away from foster care back to her home, putting his custody into a gray area the lawsuit alleges allowed CYFD to list him as a runaway and cut him off from resources his family said they needed. The lawsuit was filed in First Judicial District Court last week.
“By putting someone on runaway status, you don’t have to do anything,” attorney Benjamin Gubernick said in an interview. “… It allows them to do less work.”
CYFD spokesperson Jake Thompson declined to comment on the allegations, noting the agency “looks forward to addressing the lawsuit in court.”
The lawsuit, filed by court-appointed youth attorney Samuel Ruyle on behalf of N.H., seeks compensatory damages and other attorney and court costs, citing the boy’s physical injury, pain and emotional distress.
New Mexico has a number of children who have run away from foster homes or other placements. According to an online data dashboard, CYFD designated children as runaways 52 times from the start of 2026 through March.
The lawsuit is one of several filed over the years by Gubernick against CYFD’s Hobbs office accusing its employees of misconduct or inaction in cases in which children were severely injured or killed.
Those include a lawsuit filed by an investigator over an incident in which leadership at the office are alleged to have allowed 17-year-old Devarean Gomez to return to the care of his mother, who was homeless and said she could not care for her children alone. The family’s reunification came despite warnings from the investigator that doing so would be unsafe, the lawsuit alleges. The boy, who had become involved in street gangs, was later fatally shot in the head.
N.H. was taken into CYFD custody from his mother’s care around 2023, the lawsuit states, though it is unclear why. However, the boy was sent to a number of “unstable, inadequate placements,” and he eventually decided he was better off on his own and ran away, back to his mother’s home in Hobbs, the lawsuit adds.
CYFD employees knew he was staying there, with the boy’s caseworker sometimes visiting the boy at his mother’s home, the lawsuit alleges.
Nevertheless, the lawsuit accuses CYFD of continuing to to designate N.H. as a runaway, and indicated in children’s court that his location was unknown.
That led to the agency effectively cutting N.H. and his mother off from state resources, including clothing the family asked CYFD for so the boy could “attend school appropriately” and transportation services for medical appointments, the lawsuit alleges.
Gubernick acknowledged the home N.H. was staying in with his mother was “not an acceptable environment, because there was no supervision.” He said the boy’s mother had to work to support him and her children, which left N.H. without supervision for large portions of the day. He often had to fend for himself, Gubernick added.
“This is someone who’s kind of learned to take care of himself,” he said.
Then, in November 2024, N.H. was shot in the back while he and other teenagers played with a gun at his mother’s home, according to the lawsuit. The mother was at work at the time, it adds.
Gubernick said the gun was brought into the home, and that the other teenagers were acquaintances of N.H.’s. He said the bullet missed his spine by an inch, and that he was treated for his injuries in the hospital, but he has recovered well from the gunshot wound.
In the wake of the shooting, the lawsuit alleges CYFD falsely told police that N.H. was at his mother’s home on a trial home visit, a practice used by the agency when it is trying to determine if a family can be safely reunited.
The move was an effort to “minimize liability” for CYFD, given they are alleged to have known N.H. was staying with his mother, Gubernick said.
“He just got shot in the back, and now they’re thinking, ‘Gee, this could look bad for us,’ ” he said. “… This is not normal for anyone else. [It’s] not how most people would react to that situation.”
