SANTA FE (New Mexico, US), March 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Three people were fatally shot, and 15 others were hurt, after an altercation broke out at a park in the desert city of Las Cruces, police said.
Police and fire crews arrived at just after 10 p.m. Friday to a chaotic scene at Young Park, where an unauthorized car show had drawn about 200 people, police said in a news conference. Gunshot victims ranging in age from 16 to 36 were treated there or taken to hospitals.
Between 50 and 60 handgun casings were scattered across a wide swath of the park, Police Chief Jeremy Story said, suggesting multiple shooters and multiple weapons among two groups whose “ill will” toward each other are believed to have led to the shootings. Several others were injured in the crossfire, he said.
The dead were identified only as a 16-year-old boy and two men, ages 18 and 19, police said. Their names and those of the other victims were not yet being released.
Las Cruces Fire Chief Michael Daniels said 11 patients were sent to three local hospitals or to University Medical Center of El Paso, the regional trauma center. As of Saturday, he said, seven victims were in El Paso, four had been treated and released and the conditions of the other four were not known.
Authorities are seeking video from the park and tips from those present as they work to identify a suspect or suspects.
Mayor Eric Enriquez called for people to support the victims, their families and the community after the “senseless” event.
Police were still on the scene Saturday, and the area around the park was closed to traffic, according to local media reports.
In the New Mexican capital, Santa Fe, the state Senate held a late-night moment of silence as word of the shootings spread.
The shootings cast a pall over efforts by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the state Legislature to find effective solutions to persistently high crime rates and concerns about gun violence.
Legislators passed an overhaul of the state’s red-flag gun law, under which firearms may be temporarily removed from people who may pose a danger, and bolstered funding for addiction and mental health treatment.
But the governor excoriated legislators for a lack of progress on juvenile justice reforms and highlighted the apparent large number of weapons used in the Las Cruces shootings.
Las Cruces sits on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert along the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico, about 40 miles (70 kilometers) from the U.S.-Mexico border. — NNN-AGENCIES
