Albuquerque police detail fatal shooting of armed robbery suspect

The two detectives — part of a unit that pursues the “worst of the worst” — had shot at nine people between them, leaving five dead, prior to a January run-in with Daniel Harris.

Both opened fire on the 20-year-old as he held a rifle along a busy street in Northeast Albuquerque.

Harris was pronounced dead at the scene, hours after he was caught on video robbing a Walgreens at gunpoint — firing a bullet into the ceiling as he and an accomplice left.

It was the second shooting in 2025 for the Albuquerque Police Department. Since then, there have been two more, both fatal.

Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock, who oversees APD’s Criminal Investigations Bureau, said the detectives who shot Harris on Jan. 27 would not be identified due to “sensitive undercover positions” within the Investigative Services Unit.

“They are both assigned to one of our units that chases the worst of the worst,” Police Chief Harold Medina said.

The total shootings between the detectives, who both joined APD in 2007, were “on the higher side,” Medina said.

“We gauge the performance of each officer off each individual shooting. There have been no shootings that, I believe, have been found out of policy on either of these officers,” he said.

Medina declined to provide the dates of those nine prior shootings, five of which were fatal, adding, “the last time I did that, you guys figured out who the officers were.”

With Harris’ killing, one detective has been in six prior shootings, five of them fatal, and the other has had five, two being fatal. Both are back on duty.

Harris’ alleged accomplice in the robbery, Gregory Armstead, 19, is facing two counts of armed robbery and aggravated assault of a deadly weapon, according to court records. Second Judicial District Judge Britt Baca denied a motion to keep Armstead behind bars until trial, saying he had no prior charges or history of defying court orders.

Court records show Armstead is on pretrial release conditions, which include GPS monitoring for at least 60 days.

Officers responded around 9:45 p.m. to a robbery at the Walgreens at Menaul and Eubank NE. Security video showed Harris used a rifle to rob employees as a man, identified by police as Armstead, initially pretended to be a customer.

Both men are seen taking cash trays from the register and walking out, but not before Harris turned and fired the rifle into the ceiling, according to video. There were GPS trackers in some of the stolen cash, and Investigative Services Unit detectives followed the money to a nearby home.

With detectives watching, Harris and a teen left the home and walked around a nearby apartment complex, Harris holding a rifle and the teen trying to open vehicle doors. Police followed the pair and confronted them as they walked along Eubank, just north of Menaul.

Lapel camera video released Thursday does not show Harris’ response to being confronted by officers. He is only seen sprawled on the ground beside the rifle, which was loaded, after the detectives opened fire.

Hartsock said one of the detectives, identified as “detective one,” told investigators after the shooting that Harris “swung around with the rifle, starting to point towards the officers, and he discharged his firearm.” Both detectives fired and Harris was shot three times.

Afterward, the SWAT team arrested Armstead at the home Harris had left on foot after the robbery.

Hartsock said a trace on Harris’ gun found it was not reported stolen, but when they spoke with the person who originally bought it, in 2023, “he said it was stolen from his vehicle in 2023, but he did not report that to police.”