Best friends dead after gas station shooting
Killings may be part of robbery attempt, says a victim’s mom
Two men, best friends, were shot and killed while family members say they were visiting an assistant manager at a Northeast Albuquerque gas station early Monday morning.
Jesús Lopez, 27, died at the scene. The assistant manager was his older brother.
James Ronquillo, 24, was taken to the hospital, where he died.
Police have not released a motive for the shooting or publicly identified a suspect, but Lopez’s mother told the Journal that detectives told her family it might have been a robbery attempt.
Gilbert Gallegos, an Albuquerque Police Department spokesman, said that around 2 a.m. officers were called to reports of a shooting at a 24-hour Circle K gas station on University and Menaul NE.
He said that when they arrived, they found Lopez and Ronquillo had been shot.
“Rescue arrived and one male subject was pronounced deceased on scene and the other male sub-
ject succumbed to his injuries at the hospital,” Gallegos wrote in an email.
He said the shooter fled before police arrived. Homicide detectives are now investigating.
“This is an active investigation and information will be updated when made available,” Gallegos said.
Lopez’s mother, Yvonne Rizo, said her son was an outgoing man who was always helping others. She said he and Ronquillo grew up as friends in Albuquerque.
“Him and James were best friends,” Rizo said. “I’ve known him forever, too, for many, many years. He was a good guy, too.”
She said she’s not sure what the two men had been doing Sunday night, but early Monday morning, they stopped by the gas station to visit her other son, Lopez’s older brother Joseph.
“I had two sons there” during the shooting, Rizo said. “They went to go visit my other son at work.”
Rizo said that around 2:30 a.m. her son Joseph called her very upset to tell her what had happened. She and her husband jumped in the car and raced to the city from their home in Peralta.
“It’s devastating, it’s heartbreaking, I can’t believe my baby boy was gone,” Rizo said. She said Joseph “was taking it hard because he was there when Jesús died.”
Ronquillo’s family did not respond to requests for comment, but Rizo said his mother was also at the crime scene.
By late morning Monday, the gas station, perched on the corner between a truck stop, a smoke shop and several hotels, was cleared of any sign of the crime.
A manager declined to comment.