Teen charged in fatal shooting of 16-year-old

Phone records place the suspect, also 16, at the scene of the crime

Police have arrested a 16-yearold boy accused of gunning down another teen — his sister’s boyfriend — during a fight in Downtown Albuquerque earlier this year.

Angelo Baldonado, 16, is charged with an open count of murder in the March 4 death of

Josue Ruiz, also 16. Baldonado was booked into the Bernalillo County Juvenile Detention Center on Wednesday.

Police said a search of Baldonado’s phone turned up messages setting up a fight between the two and placed the teen at the scene when the shooting occurred.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court:

Officers responded around 11:15 a.m. to a shooting in an alleyway near Sixth and Central SW. They found Ruiz with a gunshot wound to the head and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Witnesses told police they saw a girl talking to Ruiz before a gunshot was heard and a group of teens were seen leaving in a gold, beat-up car. The manager of Lindy’s Diner told police Ruiz worked there and had left work before the shooting.

She said Ruiz had “been having problems” with his girlfriend’s brother and the two had previously fought. The girlfriend told police her brother, Baldonado, was supposed to fight Ruiz but nothing happened.

Baldonado’s mother told police Ruiz asked her to schedule a “oneon-one” fight with her son and she declined. When police asked if her son or his friends owned guns, the mother said no but her 5-year-old granddaughter — who was next to her during the interview — nodded yes.

Detectives searched Ruiz’s phone and found several conversations about him meeting Baldonado and his friends to fight the day before the shooting. In one, Ruiz and a friend joke about him losing the fight and having shirts made of him “with some clouds on it.”

In another message, Ruiz’s girlfriend told him her mother wanted the fight “done tomorrow.”

Baldonado told police they agreed to meet but then he backed out because he didn’t want to fight Ruiz. Detectives found messages on Baldonado’s phone asking friends to bring bullets the day before the fight and phone records placed him at the scene when the shooting occurred.

After the fight, Baldonado’s girlfriend sent him a news article on Ruiz’s homicide and he reacted to it with a “heart emoji.” When detectives confronted Baldonado’s mother about setting up the fight, she became “very irate.”