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Charges filed against brother of teen killed in University of New Mexico dorm
Zion Miera was ordered Wednesday to stay in custody until his trial for his role in the July 25 shooting death of his brother at a University of New Mexico dorm room.
ALBUQUERQUE — The brother of a 14-year-old fatally shot in a University of New Mexico dorm is accused of removing guns and drugs from the room without trying to render aid to the teen or call 911.
Zion Miera, 19, is charged with tampering with evidence, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and drug possession.
Daniel Archuleta, the 19-year-old student who leased the dorm, was arrested Sept. 30 on a charge of tampering with evidence and was scheduled for a pretrial detention hearing Friday.
John Fuentes, the alleged shooter, was arrested soon after the July 25 killing of Michael LaMotte, of Rio Rancho, and is awaiting trial on an open count of murder and lesser felonies.
Miera was under a judge’s order not to possess firearms or commit crimes at the time his brother was fatally shot in a University of New Mexico dorm room.
Miera violated those conditions in June when he and others gathered for a drug-fueled night at UNM that ended in the shooting death of 14-year-old Michael LaMotte, of Rio Rancho, a judge ruled Wednesday. State District Judge Emeterio Rudolfo ordered Miera to remain behind bars while awaiting trial.
“He has demonstrated his inability to make safe decisions,” Rudolfo said of Miera at his pretrial detention hearing in 2nd Judicial District Court. “I don’t think we need federal cases or federal judges to tell us that mixing drugs and firearms is dangerous for anyone, especially someone so young.”
An arrest warrant affidavit filed in Metropolitan Court further alleged that for months Miera had been supplying LaMotte with drugs to sell to his classmates and the pair would often “split the profits.”
New Mexico State Police said in the month before the shooting, Miera began talking about selling and trading guns with LaMotte and LaMotte’s mother told police she knew Miera kept multiple guns in his younger brother’s room.
Investigators searched Miera and LaMotte’s phones and found videos and photos of the group showing off guns in Archuleta’s dorm prior to the shooting, including a photo in which LaMotte was smoking cannabis “and playing with at least six different firearms.”
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The night of the shooting, Miera took LaMotte to the dorm room a final time, according to the affidavit. Through later interviews, police learned Fuentes and Archuleta took LSD and did cocaine with Miera while LaMotte smoked cannabis.
As the group played video games, according to the complaint, Archuleta “pressured others to snort line after line” of cocaine.
“While drinking and consuming the drugs, they passed around and played with two loaded stolen pistols,” the complaint states, which were brought by Archuleta and Miera.
Around 12:05 a.m. and without apparent warning, police said, Fuentes shot LaMotte in the head and opened fire on Miera and Archuleta, grazing the latter with a bullet. All three fled the dorm room but, the complaint states, Miera and Archuleta returned less than 20 minutes later.
Police said the two were seen leaving the dorm room on surveillance video with two bags believed to contain a large quantity of drugs and at least two guns. Neither called 911 and Miera’s mother eventually took them to the hospital and they told authorities they were unaware if anyone was shot.
When UNM police made entry into the dorm after 3 a.m. they found LaMotte dead, with a box of ammunition, alcohol, cannabis, LSD and cocaine nearby, according to the complaint. More than $3,500 was found in a dresser drawer.
