Updated at 6:15 p.m.
State Police lift lockdown after shooting on UNM campus leaves one dead - KUNM News
A shooting this morning at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque has left one person dead and another with non-life threatening injuries. New Mexico State Police lifted a shelter-in-place order that began at 5:30 a.m. just before 4 p.m.
KOAT reported the U.S. Marshals arrested the shooting suspect in Los Lunas.
UNM Police sent an alert asking people to avoid what they called an active crime scene from the Redondo roundabout to the Duck Pond.
The shooting happened in the early hours of the morning at the Casas del Rio dormitories on UNM’s main campus in the heart of Albuquerque. The names of the victims and the suspect have not been released.
UNM Police Spokesman Tim Delgado said neither the victims nor the suspected shooter are UNM students, but they were visiting a UNM student on campus.
UNM Police and State Police began evacuating some students from campus dorms this afternoon.
The Albuquerque Journal reports about 400 new students were on campus for orientation, which included staying overnight in the dorms last night. The New Student Orientation has been cancelled.
A UNMPD officer confirmed students who were spending the night on campus last night as part of their new student orientation, but who are not living on campus, were allowed to leave during a “staged tactical evacuation” early this afternoon. The students were bussed from Hokona Hall, where they were sheltering in place, to the Yale Parking Structure where they could either leave in their own cars, or be packed up by parents.
Students who are living on campus for the next semester, however, were not evacuated, and instead are still sheltering in place, the officer said.
Julio Arvizo was sitting in the grass across from the Casas del Rio complex with his in-laws. They drove overnight from Phoenix to pick up his girlfriend, who goes to Arizona State University but is attending a summer medical studies program at UNM and was staying in the Gila part of the Casas del Rio complex. He was getting updates from her on Instagram.
"We've been having just a little bit of fear, even though we're out here, you know, sitting out, we're still worried about her, just wanting to have her come back so we can take her Phoenix already," he said.
High school students who have been on the campus for three weeks as part of the Engineering and Computer Science Academy were being escorted by State Police to their parents’ cars at around 2 pm. Itzel Ramos is 16 and attends El Dorado High School. It was the last day of the camp,
"We were gonna have a closing ceremony. We're gonna give our presentations," Ramos said. "We were supposed to leave today. We'were gonna get, like, awards and stuff. But yeah, well, I guess it's been rescheduled."
UNM Medical school has also canceled its white coat ceremony, according to a ticket site.
While the campus remained in shelter-in-place status for over 10 hours, the majority of the campus was still accessible with no police intervention. Several people were seen freely driving and walking on and off campus — one woman was taking two out-of-town friends to see the duck pond, which was closed for renovations anyway, and a large group of people said they were on campus for a quinceañera, and hadn’t seen a single police officer during their festivities.
Areas in and around the dormitories had police stationed at entrances and exits, and were closed off with crime scene tape, as were several areas in central campus near Zimmerman Library and the Student Union Building.
UNM graduate student Valeria Texeira was on her way to Student Health and Counseling Services when a KUNM reporter told her the campus was closed. She knew about the shooting from Lobo Alerts but was not aware of the lockdown.
"I think it would probably put people at ease to know exactly what was going on but I feel like that happens often with the UNM alerts, they’re very kind of vague and these are not any different from the other ones we’ve had," she said.
Elsa Castillo directs the Engineering Student Success Center and oversees the Engineering Summer Academy program for high school students. Friday was the last day of the program. She was working with students and parents most of the afternoon to check them out of the dorms. Castillo has been with UNM for over 22 years and praised the notifications and communications sent from UNM Police.
"I have lived in other campuses across the country and I feel that UNM has a safe campus. In fact, for me, UNM is one of the safest places to be within the city of Albuquerque and I credit this to the presence of a well-coordinated campus police office dedicated to the protection of everyone on campus," she said. "Our students, faculty, and staff have the possibility of requesting campus police to send them an escort to walk them safely to their dorms or a parking lot at nighttime. Having a very strong campus police presence makes a big difference for our students."
