Man shot in head in road rage incident

LANL employee has a bullet ‘partially lodged’ in his skull

SANTA FE — A Los Alamos National Laboratory employee who lives in Santa Fe was shot in the head during a road rage incident that took place while the man was driving home from work Thursday afternoon.

According to Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office reports, a hospital CT scan “showed what appeared to be a bullet partially lodged” in the wounded man’s

skull.

A sheriff’s deputy reporting from the Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center emergency room said the bullet was “between the scalp and the skull.”

A surgeon told the deputy that while the man’s skull was fractured, “the bullet or fragment did not penetrate the skull.” The shot that struck the man apparently came through his car’s rear window.

The wounded man, who was able to describe the incident both to a responding deputy after he pulled off the highway after being shot and again at the hospital, was to undergo surgery to remove the bullet, according to the sheriff’s report.

Sheriff’s Office spokesman Juan Rios said no one involved in the case is being identified, “as this remains an open investigation and we’ve not made any arrests.” As of Tuesday afternoon, Rios said the Sheriff’s Office could not comment on the victim’s condition.

The shooting took place on N.M. 502 — the road between Los Alamos and Pojoaque — near the community of El Rancho about 6 p.m. Thursday.

According to the man who was shot, he was driving east on the highway in a Dodge Avenger and the driver of the vehicle in front of him — said to be a white Jeep Wrangler with a Marines veterans license plate — would turn on “bright LED lights” on the Jeep’s bumper whenever the Avenger would “close the distance between the two vehicles.”

The LANL employee said he passed the Jeep when it pulled into the right lane. The Avenger stayed in the left lane. The Jeep driver than began pulling up next to the Avenger “like he wanted to race.” The Avenger driver said he ignored the other driver. Then the Jeep driver began shouting, but the Avenger driver was “unable to make out what was being said.”

After the shouting, the Jeep stayed in the right lane about a car length behind the Avenger. That’s when the lab employee heard two shots, “one right after the other,” that he believed came from a semiautomatic weapon, according to the wounded man’s account.

The wounded LANL employee pulled into the Kicks 66 gas station in Pojoaque. The man said he at first “felt like he had been punched in the back of the head.” One responding deputy said there was glass mixed with blood in the man’s hair.

The Avenger had its rear windshield shattered and a bullet hole in the trunk. The bullet that went through the trunk also pierced the rear seat before hitting the left rear armrest of the Avenger.

There were bullet fragments on the rear passenger floorboard, the rear passenger seat and the dash area on the passenger side.

Anyone with information about the vehicle or the driver is asked to call Santa Fe County sheriff’s detectives at 505-428-3720.