After weeks of unanswered questions, UNM releases audio and reports from fatal dorm shooting

ALBUQUERQUE — A 14-year-old lay dead with blood pooling from a gunshot wound to the head as police stood by for 40 minutes while a resident assistant struggled to find the right key to the University of New Mexico dorm room.

Several UNM Police officers watched surveillance video of an inebriated 18-year-old, the alleged shooter, doing a backflip in a parking lot after dropping a gun and disappearing into the night.

Those are a few of the details released by UNM weeks after John Fuentes allegedly shot Michael LaMotte, of Rio Rancho, in the head as a group of young men played video games at the Casas del Rio dormitory. Prosecutors allege Fuentes was high on LSD, cocaine, alcohol and cannabis during the July 25 shooting.

UNM released 911 calls Aug. 29, including from Fuentes’ mother, and a 34-page report on the police’s actions after an Inspection of Public Records Act request submitted by the Journal. The documents and files provided the most clarity on the university’s response after weeks of unanswered questions.

The university in a statement distanced itself from any culpability in the outcome, saying an autopsy found LaMotte died almost instantly and hours before UNMPD found his body. UNM also noted that the other two people in the dorm room, a student and Zion Miera, LaMotte’s stepbrother, did not alert police to the shooting.

“Instead, UNMPD was provided fragmented information from several third-party sources, including family members, who reached out to authorities over the course of the night,” according to the statement.

UNM said, as a result, police did not have a full picture of what had happened until much later. By then, Fuentes was gone.

“Despite these circumstances, UNMPD and first responders worked quickly, striving to locate the suspect and protect the campus community under rapidly unfolding and difficult circumstances,” according to the statement.

In the statement, UNM said officers “responded immediately” to a report of a person brandishing a gun in a campus parking lot around 12:13 a.m. UNMPD arrived by 12:17 a.m. and “began searching for the subject, although UNMPD had received no reports or alerts of shots fired.”

“It was not until nearly 45 minutes later that UNMPD received information indicating shots may have been fired,” according to the statement.

It would be another two hours before UNMPD would get into the dorm room. After some fumbling around for the right key by the RA, they ended up entering through a window.

UNMPD Lt. Tim Delgado, the department’s spokesman, did not return a call Friday evening seeking further comment.

Fuentes, who was arrested the following day by State Police in Los Lunas, has been charged with an open count of murder and lesser charges in the fatal shooting.

The documents paint a picture of the chaos the responding officers dealt with as calls came in throughout the early morning hours.

Tessa Cannon frantically called the UMPD in the early hours of July 25, begging police to track down her son, Fuentes, who called her and said he had overdosed on drugs.

“My son is missing, they said you guys are the ones in charge of this,” Cannon told UNMPD. “I’ve been calling around for over an hour. He said over an hour ago he was OD’ing or something. I have no idea, and I’m freaking out.”

Cannon told police her son had FaceTimed Joseph Fuentes, his father, on the roof of an unknown building while shirtless. The UNMPD officer told Cannon that officers found Fuentes on the roof of Mesa Vista Hall and they were attempting to get him off the roof.

Cannon screamed, “They found him,” to someone in the background before she asked UNM officers what she should do. The responding officer told her he would find out before he hung up.

“Please let him be OK,” Cannon said while gasping.

By the time the sun rose, UNM officers had found LaMotte but were still left with a suspect at large.

At 2 a.m., while searching for Fuentes, an officer reviewed surveillance video that showed Fuentes’ escape from campus. The officer noted that at 12:09 a.m. Miera and Daniel Archuleta, a student who was also shot by Fuentes, were seen running toward UNM Hospital, where Archuleta would be treated for his gunshot wound.

One minute later, Fuentes, who matched the description provided by Miera, was spotted on surveillance in a parking lot, brandishing a firearm at passersby before he dropped a magazine and did a backflip. Fuentes stayed in the parking lot for two minutes before he headed toward the dorms.

He was spotted at 12:13 a.m., shirtless, holding the gun in his right hand and a phone in his left. He then headed toward Mesa Vista Hall and was last seen on security footage — for the next hour — atop the hall’s stairwell at 12:18 a.m.

He appeared again at 1:37 a.m. with injuries to his hands, wearing just socks and underwear near the Zimmerman Library, before heading north. He was then picked up by a large pickup truck around 1:40 a.m.

Four officers were on the hunt for Fuentes, according to the reports, and began their search around 1:20 a.m. — after being informed that he had called his parents, consumed drugs that were “laced” and passed out on a roof.

According to one report, someone reported glass breaking at 1:37 a.m., accompanied by screaming “in the direction of Mesa Vista Hall.” Then, officers found a trail of blood and eventually requested a K-9 unit from the Albuquerque Police Department, which one report said was never provided.

An officer who was called to secure the crime scene and arrived at 3:55 a.m. eventually located a black handgun near a laser pointer, a magazine, and a set of car keys at 5:55 a.m.

Other officers who were on the hunt for Fuentes had shifted their priorities after 2 a.m., with at least three reporting to the Casas del Rio dorm after dispatch notified them the mother of a possible gunshot victim was on campus outside the dorm.

A dispatcher told UNMPD LaMotte’s mother said that her son’s location was at UNM, but she did not know what room he was in or how he was. “They all left, and I guess her son stayed,” the dispatcher said. “I don’t know if he stayed.”

According to the reports, around 2:30 a.m. officers located the dorm’s RA and asked for help getting a key to enter the room where LaMotte was. The two keys provided by the resident assistant did not work. As a result, at 3:09 a.m., two officers decided to enter the dorm through a broken window.

There, they would find LaMotte “laying sideways across a chair with his head on the floor and blood pooling.”

Police tried to interview Archuleta during the morning hours. He declined to answer questions until his parents were present.

But Miera, the stepbrother of LaMotte, talked.

Miera told officers that Fuentes and the friends were hanging out and had a few drinks when, “out of nowhere,” Fuentes pulled out a gun and fired it towards Miera and Archuleta.

Miera said that he and Archuleta jumped out a window “away to safety” after being shot at. He said he did not know where his stepbrother was, or if he was still in the room.