CABQ pays out $50k settlement after owner was charged with battery for defending her business
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The City of Albuquerque shelled out tens of thousands of dollars to a bike shop owner last fall who says she was wrongfully charged after she kicked out an aggressive customer. “Just like a bar, or restaurant, or your home, if someone enters it, you have the right to protect yourself,” says Amanda Batty.
Batty, a former Albuquerque resident, has received thousands of dollars from the city after she sued, saying she should not have been criminally charged for protecting her bike shop. “I told him that he needed to leave, and then he came back,” Batty said.
Batty used to own the now-closed Bike Coop, just south of the University of New Mexico (UNM) campus. In Batty’s lawsuit, she says that in 2023, a customer became combative after purchasing the wrong-sized tire against her advice and demanded a refund.
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“He was really aggressive; he was really abusive,” Batty explained.
Batty says she called the police, but before they arrived, the customer returned a third time. “Made a move as though he was going to enter, come further into the shop,” Batty said. “I didn’t know if he had a weapon.”
Batty told the customer he was not welcome inside the store and attempted to stop him from forcing his way in, kneeing the customer in the groin and pushing him out of the shop. When police arrived, to Batty’s shock, she was the one given a summons to appear in court on a battery charge.
“They told me that they would send me a criminal summons for ejecting someone from my private business,” Batty said.
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Batty spoke to News 13 in 2023, just after the incident. She told KRQE that she had been dealing with a string of property crimes and unwanted people on her property, and this was the last straw. That’s when Batty decided to close her shop.
That battery charge was later dropped, and Batty filed a suit against the city and the responding officer claiming unlawful arrest. Now, the City of Albuquerque has paid Batty $50,000 to settle the suit. Even so, Batty says the last couple of years have been a financial strain.
“The settlement amount was less than 10% of the inventory value that we had in the shop that we had to liquidate,” Batty added.
Following the incident, Batty moved out of Albuquerque and now lives in Oregon. News 13 reached out to the city for a comment about the settlement but did not hear back.
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