APD: Police shoot armed suspect who fled from ‘bait car’
An armed man suspected of taking a “bait car” from Louisiana and Central and then exchanging gunfire with officers was shot by police Monday morning at an apartment complex in the 5900 block of Osuna NE, authorities said.
The male suspect is being treated at the hospital for “non-lifethreatening injuries,” police said.
Albuquerque Police Department Deputy Chief Eric Garcia said that a bait car was activated near Central and Louisiana at 7:30 a.m. Monday.
Officers tracked the vehicle to a location just north of Osuna
Apartments, near Osuna and San Mateo NE, where they deactivated the vehicle.
“At least one officer fired his weapon at the driver of the vehicle,” Garcia told reporters Monday as APD investigated the scene. “We did find another firearm on scene. After the subject exited the vehicle, he traveled southbound into the apartment complex, where he was taken into custody by officers on scene.”
Garcia said he did not know if the suspect had any connection to the apartment complex.
APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said officers exchanged gunfire with the driver of the vehicle.
Gallegos also said APD would know more details of the foot chase from the vehicle once officers had been interviewed.
Albuquerque police park bait cars in regions with high crime and auto thefts.
“Sometimes (there) are bait packages inside the cars, and GPS monitors,” Gallegos said. “So if someone opens a door, it will notify our dispatchers and the auto theft guys.”
Both Garcia and Gallegos said investigators did not know yet if there was video recorded inside the bait car during the suspect’s drive to Osuna NE, where APD deactivated the vehicle.
“A lot of times the guys just give up, but a lot of times they get out and run on foot,” Gallegos said. “That’s basically what happened here, but at this point he had a gun and that’s what we’re trying figure out what happened from there.”
Brittney Lamm, who lives in Osuna Apartments with her boyfriend and two children, was coming home from a friend’s house Monday morning when her boyfriend called to say he heard what sounded like a “big crash” and “shots fired.”
“I had to call out of work,” Lamm said, because police had not yet let apartment residents who were not in the complex when the incident occurred back into their homes.
A section of Osuna NE between San Mateo and San Pedro remained closed while officers investigated the scene.