Man charged in fatal shooting on West Side
Police: Suspect found in victim’s stolen car, and with his bloodied clothes
A man is accused of fatally shooting another man at pointblank range and stealing his car last month near a truck stop on Albuquerque’s far West Side.
Andrew Chavez, 28, is charged with an open count of murder in the March killing of 49-year-old Armando Salazar.
Gilbert Gallegos, an Albuquerque Police Department spokesman, said Chavez was arrested Wednesday.
Chavez declined to speak with police and requested an attorney. He is behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
A friend wrote, in an online obituary for Salazar, that he “dressed to the nines and exuded pure beauty.”
“I am devastated that in this world I will never feel your warm hugs or see your beautiful smile again,” a woman wrote in a Facebook post, sharing photos of Salazar through the years.
Police responded around 7 a.m. March 24 to reports of a body found in the mesa west of 98th and Avalon NW, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Officers found Salazar with a close-range gunshot wound, “consistent with a 9mm,” to the side of the head. Police said Salazar’s car keys and phone were missing.
The man who found the body told police he had been in the area trying to “hook up” with men in the area around the Flying J Travel Center and saw the body as he left the following morning.
On March 28, police identified one of the vehicles seen in surveillance footage as Salazar’s and learned the car had been reported stolen, according to the complaint. Police said they tracked Salazar’s cellphone, which was still turned on, to an apartment complex near Avenida Cesar Chavez and Yale SE.
Police said they found Salazar’s stolen car parked at the complex and watched as Chavez drove it around with several others inside.
Officers searched the apartment where Chavez and the others were staying on Tuesday and found a bag of apparently bloodied clothes and paperwork belonging to Salazar.
Those who were with Chavez at the time told police he had told them different stories of how he got Salazar’s car, and that Chavez always carried a gun, according to the complaint. Believing they had missed something in the first search, police re-searched the apartment and found a 9mm handgun hidden behind a dresser drawer in the room where Chavez was staying.
Police said Chavez was the only one who declined to speak with police and “invoked his right to a lawyer.”
“The evidence, combined with the witness statements, creates probable cause to believe Andrew Chavez shot and killed Armando Raynaldo Salazar,” according to the complaint.
Court records show Chavez was sentenced to probation on Feb. 9 after prosecutors offered him a deal to plead guilty to auto theft, dismissing larceny charges.
Between April 2022 and August 2023, Chavez was charged in six cases — accused of auto theft, drug possession and killing a dog, according to court records.
Four of the cases were dismissed because prosecutors not meeting deadlines, failing to prosecute and an officer not showing up to a hearing.