Suspect identified in fatal 2015 shooting
Detectives get break in case after 6 months
Albuquerque police are looking for a 25-year-old reported gang member from Albuquerque’s West Side who they say shot and killed a man from a different gang in August 2015.
It’s one of at least eight homicides from last year that remain unsolved. But detectives have homed in on a main suspect: a man named David Lazo-Rios, 25.
Police say Sergio Chapparo-Loya, 21, was hanging out with friends outside a trailer near Unser and Blake SW on Aug. 1, 2015, drinking a beer when a white car drove by. One of Chapparo-Loya’s friends told pol ice the occupants of the car said they were gang members.
ChapparoLoya and his friend told the occupant s to get out and f ight, but instead they started driving away and fired at the group, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court.
Chapparo-Loya was hit once in the chest and later died at the University of New Mexico Hospital.
Police quickly found surveillance footage from the nearby Robert F. Kennedy Charter School that showed a white car driving by the trailer park. They released images from that video in hopes that someone would recognize the car, but apparently the tips dried up.
About six months later, in January, detectives got a break in the case. A man whom police are keeping anonymous told them David Lazo-Rios was the shooter, according the criminal complaint filed against him.
Another anonymous source told them the same thing a few days later. That source said Lazo-Rios was in the back seat behind someone who was driving the car when they saw ChapparoLoya, whom he apparently knew.
“There is that fool,” he said, according to the complaint.
Lazo-Rios rolled down his window and started talking to Chapparo-Loya and his friends, who started approaching the car. That’s when Lazo-Rios shot Chapparo-Loya, according to the source.
Police issued a warrant for him Friday and are still looking for him, Albuquerque police spokesman Tanner Tixier said Tuesday.