Albuquerque police nab 3rd suspect in boy’s shooting
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A third arrest was made Friday in connection with a shooting outside an Albuquerque baseball stadium that killed an 11-year-old boy and prompted the New Mexico governor to issue a controversial gun ban.
Albuquerque police took Daniel Gomez, 26, into custody a day after two other men were identified as suspects. Police didn’t immediately release further details about Gomez’s arrest.
Jose Romero, 22, and Nathen Garley, 21, were being held in connection with the Sept. 6 shooting after an Albuquerque Isotopes game in what appeared to be a case of mistaken identity, Police Chief Harold Medina said at a news conference.
Medina said the two men had argued with people during the ballgame and mistakenly opened fire on a truck carrying Froylan Villegas and his family as it was leaving the parking lot because it closely resembled the truck of the intended targets.
Romero was already wanted for failing to appear in court in connection with alleged drug dealing, Medina said.
Garley happened to be in custody when he was arrested in connection with the killing. He had been stopped by state police Sept. 13 while returning from Arizona and authorities found a gun and about 100,000 fentanyl tablets in the car, state Police Chief W. Troy Weisler said at the news conference.
Further investigation linked him to the shooting, authorities alleged.
More than a dozen shots were fired, killing Froylan and leaving his cousin, Tatiana Villegas, paralyzed from the waist down, authorities said. A GoFundMe account for her recovery has raised nearly $40,000 to date.
The shooting, one of several involving children, prompted New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, to issue an emergency public health order days later suspending the right to carry firearms in public in and around Albuquerque. The measure was fought by Republican lawmakers and gun-rights groups and a federal judge last week granted a temporary restraining order to block the order pending another court hearing next month.