Grants cancels Christmas parade due to shootings

GRANTS, N.M. – The City of Grants is canceling this year’s annual Christmas light parade, citing the safety of the public and their own officers.

Dozens of floats were supposed to roll down Santa Fe Avenue on Saturday night, but Grants police are holding off until next year after three incidents where someone shot at law enforcement officers.

“It was definitely a difficult decision, but due to the incident that took place on December 8, where law enforcement was shot at in the area of Santa Fe Avenue, we made that decision to protect the citizens of Grants,” says Grants Police Chief Maxine Monte.

She says a New Mexico State Police officer was shot at while making a traffic stop. The officer walked away uninjured, but this was too much for the chief.

“We’ve had three different incidents where law enforcement was shot at. One was May of 2025, the other one was August of 2025, and then the recent event of December 8 of 2025,” says Monte.

It’s not a risk the chief wants to take, and points out people would be standing exactly where the last shooting happened.

“We have a lot of citizens that attend our parade, and our main concern was that they were out in the open in the middle of the night, and in the same area that our latest shooting took place.”

Grant residents will be able to see the floats during the day on Saturday. But even some daylight isn’t convincing some residents.

“I’ll be staying home,” said Amy Brigdon. “There’s too many people in the world that want to see bad things happen to other people. I’m not one of them.”

Police still don’t have a suspect for this week’s attempted shooting. Anyone with information is asked to get in touch with the Grants Police Department.