APD: Two teenagers shot homeless man ‘for fun’
DA’s Office says suspects will be tried as adults
Two teenagers were making the rounds at a hotel in Albuquerque in mid-March when they fatally shot a homeless man a dozen times “for fun,” according to police.
Timothy Chavez, 15, and Anthony Gallegos, 17, were charged Tuesday with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence in the death of 50-year-old Ronnie Ross.
A spokesman for the District Attorney’s Office said both teens will be tried as adults.
Officer Simon Drobik, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department, said the teens “cold-bloodedly killed a transient for no reason.”
“They killed an individual for fun,” he said. “Both of them
shot this individual six times.”
It is actually one of three shootings police say the teens are involved with, including a drive-by shooting and another shooting that left a man in critical condition.
In “the month of March, they committed a drive-by shooting, committed a homicide and then shot an individual in the face — and left him to die,” Drobik said.
Ross, of Shiprock, was identified by an ID bracelet from the Metropolitan Detention Center, and his sister told police he was homeless and traveled between New Mexico and Arizona. She didn’t realize he was in Albuquerque.
On the morning of March 18, police were called to 1201 Menaul NE, just west of I-25, and found Ross dead from multiple gunshot wounds.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, an autopsy revealed he had been shot 12 times: five times in the back, five in the head, and once in the thigh and wrist.
Police say that Gallegos and Chavez started their night “flashing” a black handgun during a birthday party at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Menaul and University NE.
Witnesses at the party say Chavez left and came back saying he had shot a “hobo.”
Police say that both Gallegos and Chavez then went back to the scene because Gallegos didn’t believe Chavez was telling the truth.
According to the complaint, the teens found Ross still alive and Gallegos shot him another six times to “finish him off.”
When officers responded to reports of gunshots in the area, the teens fled. Police say Chavez cut his hand jumping over a barbed wire fence.
Witnesses told police Chavez’s mother picked up the pair and drove Chavez to the hospital.
Chavez’s mother told police her son said the two were in the West Mesa when he “tripped and cut his hand” on barbed wire.
When a detective asked Chavez’s mother where she picked the two up, she told them “she needed to speak to her lawyer” about that.
Two other shootings
Two days after the shooting, police say, a painter found a gun wrapped in a shirt about a halfmile from the scene.
According to the complaint, police traced the gun to a drive-by shooting on March 5, when, they say, 16-year-old Santino Lucero and Chavez shot into a home over a fight at school.
Drobik said although a family was inside the home at the time, nobody was injured.
Police say all three teens were involved in another shooting, on March 22, four days after Ross was killed.
Drobik said that in that shooting they stole money from a man during a drug deal and shot him in the face.
According to a criminal complaint, Lucero told police he, along with Gallegos and Chavez, were looking to buy $130 worth of marijuana from the man, even though they only had $100. A witness told police the three said they shot him “just for fun.”
Police said he was critically injured but survived.
Chavez and Gallegos were arrested earlier this month in that shooting. In that case, they’ve both been charged with attempted murder, shooting at or from a motor vehicle with great bodily harm and aggravated burglary.
Drobik said witnesses came forward about Ross’ death only after both Gallegos and Chavez were booked into the juvenile detention center, because they were afraid of the two.