‘Choose what to do with your pain’: Gun violence victim returns to reclaim his narrative

Jacob Johns was among a group of people who prevented Ryan Martinez from reaching elders and children gathered just outside the doors leading to the Rio Arriba County Commission chambers in Española on Sept. 28, 2023.

Martinez, carrying a concealed 9mm handgun, repeatedly tried to rush into an area where around 50 people were peacefully celebrating county officials’ decision to postpone resurrecting a statue of genocidal Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate.

Martinez shot Johns, a Hopi, Akimel O’odham activist from Washington, in the chest. Martinez then allegedly turned the gun on Malaya Peixinho, but the gun jammed, and he fled the scene.

Martinez is being prosecuted for trying to murder Johns and assaulting Peixinho. State prosecutors have also added a hate crime enhancement and a firearm enhancement to the charges against him.

Last week and over the weekend, Johns returned to Northern New Mexico to put on a free art show including depictions of the incident and Martinez himself called “ Forward Movement.”

The following interview with Johns, conducted at the show’s venue El Museo in Santa Fe, has been edited for clarity. You can also listen to the full audio from the interview here:

Austin Fisher: Why are you back here in New Mexico?

Jacob Johns: I’m back here to do these shows. I had a lot of time with the folks who witnessed what took place on September 28, and a lot of the community members were really broken up and hurt about what took place.

It brought up a lot of intergenerational trauma, seeing that violence there that morning really picked a scab on the consciousness of the local community. I think that was really, really impactful for them and not in the best way. The community deserves to be healed.

It’s a weird sensation, because I was killed. I died. I don’t really know how — I mean, I play it off nonchalantly, but coming back in here and to have everybody tell me their version of what they saw and what they witnessed that day, it gives weight to what took place.

I wanted to come back and really try to find some closure, try to find a way to move on.

I do a lot of other things besides being a gun violence victim. People should know that despite oppressive forces trying to stop evolution and progression, these systems of control and these oppressive mentalities are dying, they are going extinct.

We’re starting to see the death rattle of these systems all over the world, as right-wing fascist dictators try to take power across the globe. We understand these are the death rattles; as the old world dies, a new one is created.

Jacob Johns’ painting depicting the moment witnesses stopped the gunshot wound in his chest from bleeding. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM)

I spent some time dead, and on the other side, I met a council of spirits who basically went over my entire life, everything I had done up to that point.

I was asking to come back into the body, I wanted to continue to be a father to my then 11-year old-daughter, it was very important for me to come back in and continue to be her father and play that role for her.

I had to go over all these different examples of times I had chosen service to others versus service to myself, and bring up these examples throughout my entire life to the council as a way to come back into this body.

They told me I would be able to, but it would be difficult, and they gave me a brand new list of things I needed to accomplish in order to fulfill my contract.

So I agreed to do it, and then came back into my body. They told me it wasn’t gonna be easy and it wasn’t going to be a smooth trip. I had to learn how to eat again and to walk again, go to the bathroom again. I mean, none of my insides, none of my muscles were working the same way. But I did, and I came back.

I do a lot of international climate work. I organized a delegation of Indigenous wisdom keepers and activists around the world who co-develop contemporary climate policy that we advance under the umbrella of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). This was one of the things I had to continue to do.

After dying and coming back, it really gives you a new perspective on where we’re at, because I was instructed on the spirit side to do all these things, but more importantly, they put me back into frequency or dimension or version of reality that is of the highest frequency.

As we go into the future, and looking at all these detrimental things that are happening with the ecosystems collapsing and the rise of fascism in this world, it’s important for us to remember this is the highest vibration, and every single moment we co-create together defines the future.

If the future itself is unwritten, it’s waiting to be co-created. But there is a version of the future that is healthy, just and livable, and we all emanate from that space. We’re just trying to work backwards from our future self.

So with that mentality of, “Alright, well, we’re gonna heal, we’re going to get over it, go through it,” they asked me to come back. I’m a little nervous about coming back to New Mexico, obviously (laughs).

I had a show in San Jose before I came here. I drove over and dropped my daughter and my partner off at the airport in Vegas, they flew back. My kid’s mom didn’t want me to bring my daughter — which was valid — so I drove over and I made stops, I stopped at my village (Moenkopi, or “Mountain Spring”), I went through Hopi, and then I made a pilgrimage to Chaco Canyon. I went down to see a medicine man in Jemez (Pueblo) and then came down.

The whole point was for me to come here and re-tell everybody that despite the evils around us, and these oppressive systems are born out of colonialism and capitalism, we still are here, and we still survive, and more importantly, we are walking together in this beautiful frequency that was given to us by creation.

It’s easy for us to blow it off nonchalantly, like it was an “attempted” death, but from my perspective, I did die, and I had to come back in. Letting everybody know I’m OK, we will survive, we will overcome, and the whole point for us to go there on September 28, was to stop them from reinstalling that statue, and we were successful.

So despite the aftermath and everything that took place, the community should celebrate this as a win. More importantly, this should be a model for other communities who are fighting similar fights around the country: we will overcome, these systems of oppression will be subdued, and a new paradigm will be born out of our connection.

AF: Can you describe the art related to the incident we’re sitting near today? What has it been like to paint these images from that day?

JJ: I was constantly bombarded by strangers, people who I barely know, coming up to me, saying, “Hey, I heard you died,” casually. Me standing at the urinal in the bathroom and somebody said, “Hey, did you get shot in the chest?” Sure, let’s just casually talk about it here. (laughs)

The U.S. Climate Action Network is who I was here with. They’re a node of the International Climate Network, which has nodes in countries around the world. They sent an email out to the international community to send prayers. So when I went to Dubai for the COP28, strangers from the international community were coming up to me and talking to me about it. So I was offended, often. I was like, “We can talk about anything else, like, we’re not here to discuss that. We’re in Dubai.”

It sort of desensitized me to the whole thing, because people constantly want to talk to me about it. It feels like a big pimple underneath your skin, that might turn into a cyst. It’s this massive thing inside of you, and you just want it out.

As somebody who paints — I paint a lot — I needed to get it out. The images were everywhere. You Google my name, and there’s all this stuff. I wanted to take it back. This shouldn’t be this shouldn’t be something to be glorified. This should be reclaimed for what it really is. It was violence. It was ongoing white supremacy.

The idea of being able to take that power back, taking the weight away from victimization back into something creative, something pro-freedom, and the idea of being able to commodify violence in a way that brings healing is a very unique experience.

Painting my body laying on the ground, with so many hands on top of my chest, was beyond anything. When I see it, I remember it, I remember the feeling, I remember the sensation, I remember the immediate reaction of the crowd.

The people in New Mexico know what solidarity is. I’m not as tough. It’s something very rare in this world. That sense of community and that sense of prayer was really, really powerful.

You have to be able to take that somehow and get it out. We talk about all these things out there, but we have to be able to take these conceptual things and these emotions, these pains, and take them out of the ether and put them into our shared reality so we can say, “There it is. That’s what it is.” And walk away from it.

AF: Have you walked away from it yet, or are you still in that process?

JJ: (laughs) I don’t know if I’ve walked away from it. I’m here and the community here really needs some healing. That’s really what I came back for.

They wanted to bring me back for a certain reason. This is all an effort from those folks who witnessed what took place that day. This is a massive production. Just even getting down here as a whole thing. We’ve got teams of people doing so many things, just to celebrate this return.

It’s strange for me to be in the center of attention like this, I don’t like to be in the center of attention all the time, I do a lot of public speaking and stuff but I don’t like to be on display like that.

They really showed this connection. People say it was trauma bonding or whatever, but we’re here, we’re trying to put it past us and move forward. The idea of the whole show, even it’s named, “Forward Movement” because it’s too hard for us to walk backwards. We must walk forwards. In order to get where we need to go and become who we are meant to be.

AF: From my perspective, covering it from the outside and hearing from my co-workers who were there over the phone that day, it seems like Ryan exerted a lot of violent control not only over you, but over everyone who was there. Do you see this art, depicting yourself and turning him into a subject as well, is that regaining some measure of control over yourself?

JJ: There’s a lot of emotion and weight around seeing somebody who shot you in the chest. But being able to take it out and put it into a physical thing where it’s contained, gives you the ownership. You choose what to do with your pain.

That’s the thing: we can be the victims, we can be sad, we can forever look at our scars and be disappointed in ourselves or whatever. Or we can reclaim it and move forward or use it as a stepping stone to get us out.

I feel lucky I’m able to get this s--- out of my body. It’s in your head, it’s in your heart, it’s in your spirit. You got to get it out.

I feel very sorry for this person who was so misguided. In no way would I have ever thought somebody would bring a weapon to a prayer gathering like that, let alone a gun, and let alone multiple firearms, which he had in his possession. He had intentions to do more than just shoot one person, and he was running into the center, and trying to do evil things. I feel sorry for somebody who was so young to throw their life away, based off of lies and deceit they’ve learned off of the internet.

These concepts are born out of unrealistic views of the world, and it’s sad to see there is a divide in our country where people are so consumed with themselves and their own homogenous mentality, that they don’t participate in society as a whole or as an active part of humanity.

A good friend of mine always says, “The light does not fight to be, it just shines.” That really resonates with me because we always want to be anti-establishment, anti-racism, anti-fascism, right? But the truth is, we can’t be against that which we post because we still feed that by being in opposition. You give power to that which you are against.

And so we must forge a new path, we must create new paradigms that make these old systems and these old ways of thinking obsolete. That’s what’s taking place now. It’s a painful process. We’re seeing it in the streets, we’re seeing it in our interactions with loved ones, in interactions with strangers on the street, but we’re winning, and I I think that’s the beautiful part of this process. It’s painful, and it’s hard, but also we are growing as human beings and humanity itself is thriving and is wanting to pop the pimple of all the disgusting pain we’ve contained from generations and generations.

AF: How do you see your art about that incident fitting into everything else in this room right now, the rest of your work?

JJ: It’s a story that will be forever with me. A lot of these images are taken from famous people. This is Russell Means, co-founder of the American Indian Movement. Sitting Bull is up here. We have Chief Joseph Jr., Chief, Joseph Sr. over there. These are all very, very powerful people, iconic images. When I see them, it really grabs me.

I try to do a lot of contrast stuff, black and white with color splashes. It’s really about this energy that has, and I think the separation between these and those is that this is a process of me purging out all of the trauma and pain that was associated with what took place.

Being able to get it out and be free from it, you know, moving forward, forward movement, that’s the idea. We retake older pictures, and contemporize them, really bring them into modernization. That’s the same idea: we can put new life into things that have already happened or systems that have already passed. We can redefine what our versions of history are. This is about containing truths, with the freedom of creative expression.

AF: As you said earlier, we are right now witnessing the death rattles of an old world and perhaps, signals toward a new one. What kind of world do you hope we’re creating right now?

JJ: I do climate work, and it’s a scary thing, looking at the science of all this stuff. It’s even more frightening seeing the political reactions to what’s happening in this reality. We’re starting to see ecosystems collapse all around the world. This is that moment.

So many times, we are fed these post-apocalyptic visions of the future that we will all be Mad Max fighting against all these crazy things out there. But people always forget that as the old world dies, a new one is born. We need to shift our thinking from the destruction — focusing on being shot, focusing on being dead, focusing on the past — into realizing born out of that destruction, born out of that pain, something new is birthed.

We must represent that — whatever that means to you, whatever that means to me — but the fact is, there is a future that is healthy, and just and livable. That version of us, and that future is looking back on this present moment, encouraging us and pulling us towards that future that’s exactly what we envision.

I think we will survive, we will overcome, and so we look at the next election, we still will be here, and we will still continue to fight for what’s right, and fight for the future of humanity, whether that’s in the streets, in political avenues, or using art, and we will remain and more importantly will grow and blossom and evolve.

That’s what I hope for us: I hope for people to come by and see this, this pain and this trauma, see my blood and mugshots and all of the things, that they understand that born out of the the beauty we have now, there is pain underneath, that we use that pain to create something new, and we must move forward.

Source New Mexico is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Source New Mexico maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Shaun Griswold for questions: info@sourcenm.com. Follow Source New Mexico on Facebook and X.