Alleged UNM shooter's mom called 911 to report son 'hallucinating'

Hours before the discovery of a slain 14-year-old inside a University of New Mexico dorm, a Valencia County dispatcher received a frantic call from a woman reporting her son was on a roof, couldn’t breathe and was hallucinating.

The woman was Tessa Cannon, who identified herself as the mother of 18-year-old John Fuentes. She said she received a report from her son’s father, “All of a sudden they said something’s wrong with John. No one knows where he’s at.”

At 12:51 a.m. on July 25, Cannon never mentioned anything about someone being shot in the 911 call the Journal obtained through an Inspection of Public Records Act request. During the call, Cannon said she received a call from Joseph Fuentes, father of John Fuentes, just 20 minutes earlier.

“He’s on a building somewhere, he’s on drugs, hallucinating right now. I need his location to be located,” she said. Cannon told the dispatcher she had last seen her son at home in Peralta — just 10 minutes away from Los Lunas — after making breakfast burritos for him.

One of the young men in the dorm room told police Fuentes “appeared to be on drugs,” before shooting 14-year-old Michael LaMotte in the head, according to court records filed in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court.

John Fuentes was ultimately arrested and charged with an open count of murder, aggravated battery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and tampering with evidence in the fatal shooting of LaMotte.

Fuentes and LaMotte, along with two other young men, were playing video games at Casas del Rio, a UNM dorm, when Fuentes allegedly opened fire on the others, killing LaMotte and wounding a 19-year-old. The 19-year-old later went to a hospital for treatment and officers discovered LaMotte’s body in the dorm room after 2:30 a.m.

The 911 call adds to the timeline of what happened after a detection device picked up gunfire near the dorms just after midnight and LaMotte’s body being found hours later. UNM Police Department, Albuquerque Police Department and New Mexico State Police have not released any additional information from their investigations.

In her 911 call, Cannon asked police to meet her at an Albertsons in Los Lunas, roughly 15 minutes away from where she was in Meadow Lake.

When asked by a dispatcher with the Valencia Regional Emergency Communications Center, Cannon said she was unsure if Fuentes had any weapons on him. She said he had no mental health issues.

According to Cannon, Joseph Fuentes had received a FaceTime call from his son, who told his father that he could not breathe. John Fuentes was on an unknown rooftop, shirtless and in a frenzy.

Court records stated there was blood on the rooftop of Mesa Vista Hall, an academic building around the corner from Casas del Rio.

Fuentes had dropped his phone from the rooftop, and Joseph Fuentes was only able to see concrete during the FaceTime call.

Police called Joseph Fuentes after speaking with Cannon and Joseph Fuentes said he was in Albuquerque looking for his son. He said he did not have his son’s location .

“They told us he was down here in Valencia County, are you guys looking for him in Albuquerque,” the dispatcher asked while speaking with Joseph Fuentes.

At 1:01 a.m., Valencia County dispatchers called AT&T to track down the last known location of Fuentes based off of his phone data. AT&T was able to track Fuentes’ phone to an 89-meter (or 300-foot) radius near an Einstein Bros. Bagels on Roma Avenue.

“He’s got to be pinging somewhere over there,” a dispatcher said on the phone.

The dispatcher also noted pings from the police administration building and the UNM Anderson School of Management. The UNM Anderson School of Management is less than five minutes away from the Casas del Rio dormitories, where the shooting occurred.

Joseph Fuentes told police his son said his phone’s battery was at 1%. AT&T relayed to Valencia dispatchers that once the phone battery was dead, they would no longer be able to ping the phone’s current location.

Einstein Bros. Bagels on Roma and Las Lomas Road was the last location discussed on the 911 calls.

New Mexico State Police said Fuentes was picked up by someone in a truck around 1:40 a.m., but they didn’t say who.

Roughly 12 hours later, State Police arrested Fuentes during a traffic stop in Los Lunas. Police tracked Fuentes to the area using license plate readers, State Police Chief Troy Weisler said.

The 18-year-old has been booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center and is scheduled for a pretrial detention hearing on Tuesday.