FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) — The gunman who killed three people and wounded six others while roaming his northwest New Mexico neighborhood, apparently shooting at random targets, was an 18-year-old local high school student , authorities said Tuesday, noting that they were still trying to determine the motive for the attack.
Beau Wilson lived in the Farmington neighborhood where he opened fire and killed three women on Monday, authorities said at a news conference. One of the three was a woman in her 90s, another was the woman’s daughter, who was in her 70s, and the third was also a woman in her 70s, Deputy Police Chief Baric said Crum.
Witnesses and police say the gunman walked through the neighborhood a short drive from downtown Farmington spraying bullets until police arrived on the scene within minutes and shot and killed him.
Crum said the shooter was shooting indiscriminately at vehicles, but rounds also hit homes in the area.
“At this point, our investigation is showing that he was indiscriminately shooting at vehicles, but we also know that during this shooting the rounds struck … residences in the area,” Crum said.
Farmington Police Deputy Chief Kyle Dowdy said that in November, Wilson legally purchased at least one of the guns he used in the attack.
“The amount of violence and brutality these people faced is unfathomable to me,” Dowdy said. “I don’t care how old you are, I don’t care what else happens in your life, killing three innocent elderly women who were in no position to defend themselves will always be a tragedy.”
Four officers fired a total of 16 rounds at Wilson, including one of the two officers who were wounded Monday, San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari said.
Mayor Nate Duckett said Tuesday that both injured law enforcement officers, a local Farmington officer and a state trooper, were treated and released from a hospital.
Authorities are still trying to determine a motive for the attack, he said
In a videotaped statement Monday night, Police Chief Steve Hebbe said the targets of the attack appeared to have been chosen at random.
Hebbe said the “suspect randomly shot whatever came into his head to shoot” as bullets pierced half a dozen homes and several cars.
It was “honestly one of the most horrible and difficult days Farmington has ever had as a community,” he said.
Officers began receiving reports of shots fired around 10:57 a.m. and the first one arrived at the scene at 11:02 a.m., Hebbe said. Three minutes later, the gunman had been killed.
Joseph Robledo, a 32-year-old tree cutter, said he rushed home after learning that his wife, Jolene, and their one-year-old daughter had sought shelter in the laundry room when the shots rang out. A bullet went through the window and through his daughter’s room, without hitting anyone.
Jolene Robledo said she and her daughter had just finished eating breakfast when she heard “pop, pop, pop, pop,” which she first thought was a backfiring car. She said they were going to run out the back door until she heard a male voice just outside the house say the f word so she quietly closed the door and hid with her daughter between the washer and dryer.
“I mean it was crazy. I called my husband and he could hear the gunshots over the phone,” she said. “I was freaking out and I said, ‘don’t hang up, don’t hang up!'”
Joseph Robledo said he jumped a fence to get in through the back door. Ahead, he found an elderly woman on the street who had been injured as she passed. She appeared to have fallen out of her car, which continued to roll without her, he said.
“I went out to see because the lady was lying in the road, and to find out what the hell was going on,” Robledo said. He and others began to administer first aid.
Neighbors directed an arriving police officer toward the suspect.
“We were saying (to the officer), ‘He’s down there.’ … The cop just went right into action,” Robledo said.
Robledo’s family car was riddled with bullets.
“We’ve been working in the garden all last week. I just thank God there was no one in front,” he said. “Obviously the older people, I had no sympathy for them.”
Downtown Farmington, which is just a short drive from the residential neighborhood where the attack occurred, has undergone something of a transformation in recent years, with coffee shops and breweries popping up alongside decades-old businesses selling native crafts American, from silver jewelry to wool fabrics. .
Nick Akins, a high school teacher who lives in the area where the attack happened, said it’s a great place to live, with a mix of houses, short-term rental apartments and churches.
“You never think it’s going to happen here, and all of a sudden, in a small town, it comes here,” Akins said.
On Tuesday, orange circles of spray paint still marked the area where police had collected evidence in the shootings. Authorities were using metal detectors to search the grass in front of one of the churches on the street where the gunfire erupted.
As Monday night approached, dozens of people gathered at Hills Church, a few miles (kilometers) from the scene of the attack, to pray at the base of a tall cross metallic Senior Pastor Matt Mizell spoke of living in a “dark and broken world” but told the crowd there was still hope and asked God to provide them with strength.
Politicians also weighed in on the attack.
Mayor Nate Duckett said in a statement that the shooting “has left us distraught and in disbelief.”
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement that she was praying for the families of those killed and that it “serves as yet another reminder of how gun violence.” it destroys lives every day in our state and our country.”
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat who represents the area in Congress, said in a Facebook post that “our beautiful New Mexico is not immune to the mass shootings that happen across the country — every. Single. Day.”
“I praise the heroes who drove into danger to stop the violence. I pray for the speedy recovery of the injured and for the families of those we lost,” he said.
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Ritter reported from Las Vegas, Nevada, and Lee from Santa Fe. Associated Press writer Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed.
