FARMINGTON, N.M. — At least three people are dead and several others, including two police officers, were injured before a teenage suspect was shot and killed in a New Mexico community, authorities said Monday.
Around 11 a.m., four police officers responded to “multiple calls” of gunshots in Farmington, New Mexico, a city of more than 45,000 people about 200 miles north of Albuquerque. Police Deputy Chief Baric Crum said the officers found and fatally shot the 18-year-old shooter, killing him.
The chief said it was a “chaotic scene” as the suspect had shot and killed three other people before police confronted him.
“Besides the suspect himself, who is deceased, there were nine other people injured,” Crum said. Police are trying to determine why he was in the neighborhood, the chief added. He did not identify the suspect and he didn’t know any of the victims’ ages.
Monday’s incident in New Mexico is the 225th mass shooting in the U.S. so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.
The shooting led to “preventative lockdowns” of the Farmington Municipal Schools at the request of police, the school district said. The lockdowns were lifted Monday afternoon.
San Juan Regional Medical Center, where victims were taken for medical care, was also locked down during the “crisis,” according to statement from the hospital, as an incident command center was put in place to organize the facility’s response.
“We worked closely with law enforcement to ensure the safety of our patients and caregivers,” said Laura Werbner, public relations coordinator for San Juan Regional Medical Center.
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Multiple agencies investigate shooting
Officers from the Farmington Police Department, San Juan County Sheriff’s Office, and the New Mexico State Police are investigating the shooting. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tweeted that agents from Phoenix were responding to Farmington to assist in the investigation.
Authorities are asking for anyone with information to come forward.
“What we now need from our community is anybody that has any additional information, whether that be eyewitness information or video information or whatever it may be, if you feel it’s pertinent,” Crum said.
Crum said the investigation would continue with a look at the “several blocks of this crime scene to see what actually happened.”
“We’re grateful for the response we received from our agencies partners in the area,” Crum said.
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Witnesses describe the attack
Hank Shirley who lives near the scene of the shooting, said he was home watching television when he heard a series of gunshots around 11 a.m. which he described as a prolonged gun battle. Shirley said he did not see what happened but rather identified the distinctive pops as gunfire.
“When I heard that, I told my daughter to get down in the basement and get the baby down in the basement,” Shirley told the Farmington Daily Times, part of the USA TODAY Network.
About four minutes after the gunfire ceased, he said he heard sirens and saw emergency vehicles approaching.
Joseph Robledo, a 32-year-old tree trimmer, said he rushed home after learning that his wife and 1-year-old daughter had sought shelter in the laundry room when gunshots rang out. A bullet went through his daughter’s window and room, without hitting anyone.
Robledo jumped a fence to get in through the back door. Out front, he found an older woman in the street who had been wounded while driving by. She appeared to have fallen out of her car, which kept rolling without her, he said.
“I went out to see because the lady was just lying in the road, and to figure just what the heck was going on,” Robledo said. He and others began to administer first aid as neighbors directed an arriving police officer toward the suspect.
“We were telling (the officer), ‘He’s down there.’ … The cop just went straight into action,” Robledo said.
Robledo’s own family car was perforated with bullets.
“We’ve been doing yard work all last week. I just thank God that nobody was outside in front,” he said. “… Obviously, elderly people — he didn’t have no sympathy for them. Who’s to say he would have sympathy for a little kid.”
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‘We’ve habituated these killings’
In a statement, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Monday she was praying for the victims’ families and that the incident “serves at yet another reminder of how gun violence destroys lives in our state and our country every single day.”
The governor’s comments echo sentiments previously made by the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety that around 120 Americans are killed with guns and more than 200 are shot and wounded daily.
“Right now in America, it does not matter if you wear a badge or carry a service weapon, no one is immune to the scourge of gun violence,” said Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in a statement Monday. “Americans everywhere must band together and demand sensible solutions to end this preventable epidemic.”
And with the increased ratio of mass shootings in the U.S., it feels like there’s one almost daily, Prof. Jonathan Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University, said Monday.
“Ten years when something like his happened, the country would stop and it would be almost like a reckoning,” said Metzl, the author of Dying of Whiteness, a book examining the stereotypes of race and mental illness surrounding gun violence.
“And we’ve habituated these killings,” Metzl said. “They’re part of our daily lives now and we’ve become resigned to this happening.”
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Contributing: The Associated Press