APD releases video, details from the last of 2023's police shootings

In three of the four most recent shootings by Albuquerque police, officers struck an armed man in the back as he ran away, injuring him, and killed two others: a shoplifting suspect who moments earlier held a gun to his own head and a fugitive who pointed a gun in their direction during a foot chase.

All three men were carrying loaded guns at the time — an occurrence that became more common in 2023 — and refused to drop the weapons despite repeated commands.

Officials said one of the guns was traced to North Carolina and another to Colorado. The third gun could not be traced as an officer’s bullet had obliterated the serial number.

The Albuquerque Police Department detailed all three police shootings, which occurred in late November and early December, in a briefing on Friday.

Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock, who oversees APD’s Criminal Investigations Bureau, said officer Zachary Earles shot and injured Pablo Pacheco, 35, on Nov. 21; detective Angelo Lovato fatally shot Pete Martinez, 36, on Nov. 25; and detectives Justin Jones, Raymond Marquez and Phillip Meier fatally shot Mark Carlson, 32, on Dec. 8.

The Journal could not reach family of any of the three men.

Of the officers involved, Lovato had been in a 2007 police shooting while Marquez and Jones were involved in three and four prior shootings, respectively, between 2015 and May 2023.

Police Chief Harold Medina said all three are in a specialized unit that chase “the worst of the worst,” situations that he said are more likely to end in police shootings.

Medina, who fatally shot a BB-gun-wielding teen decades ago, said officers involved in shootings are given “mental health checkups.” He said some ask to be reassigned, but others, like himself, choose to go back to the field.

Medina added, “If it does get to a point where we think we need to make a decision for the betterment of the (officer), we will sit down and we will make that decision.”

Another concern on his mind, he said, is the escalation of people pulling guns on officers and refusing to drop them, leading to a police shooting.

“A lot of these cases involved felony crimes, and it’s these individuals who have histories that would put them back into the criminal justice system and incarcerate them for longer periods of time,” Medina said. “And it seems that is a factor (in) the decision-making … is that fear of going back into the criminal justice system.”

Man pointing gun ‘randomly’

Hartsock said the first shooting began with a 911 call about a man at an apartment complex “pointing a handgun at seemingly random individuals.” He said officers found Pacheco outside the complex, near Girard and Gibson SE.

Officer Earles’ lapel video showed him chasing Pacheco while holding an AR-style rifle with a donut-patterned sling. The officer repeatedly yelled for Pacheco to stop and threatened to shoot him as they ran through the complex.

As the chase moved into an adjacent neighborhood, a gun can be seen in Pacheco’s hand. Earles yelled, “gun, gun, gun,” and aimed at Pacheco as he ran across a driveway.

Earles shot Pacheco in the back as he began to turn the corner around the house. Documents charging Pacheco in the case alleged that he could be seen “pointing the gun” at the officer as he ran.

At no point in Earles’ lapel video could Pacheco be seen pointing the gun at him.

Hartsock said Earles told investigators he “feared” Pacheco would shoot him and, during the chase, thought of another 2023 shooting, where a man fired toward police as they rounded a corner. He said Earles told them that incident “was going through his head ... as a very similar-feeling scenario started to play out.”

Hartsock said fentanyl pills were found on Pacheco along with the gun, which they traced to the original buyer in North Carolina. He said the person told them the gun had been stolen “a year ago” while they were staying at a hotel in North Carolina.

Hartsock said they also found messages on Pacheco’s phone where he was threatening suicide earlier in the day. He said Pacheco told police he was high on Xanax and did not remember the shooting.

‘Maybe I should kill myself’

The second shooting happened during operation Sticky Fingers, which targeted holiday retail crime at shopping areas around Albuquerque.

Around 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 25, officers working the operation were told of a couple shoplifting more than $500 from Kohl’s department store, near Cottonwood Mall on the West Side. Hartsock said police confronted the couple outside the store and the woman, Monica Montoya, surrendered. But Martinez took off.

He said Martinez pulled out a gun during the foot chase.

Lapel video showed that, while police chased Martinez, Montoya sobbed as she told another officer he had threatened to kill himself or force police to kill him rather than go back to jail.

The officers chasing Martinez, who was holding a gun, yelled commands at him before he ran into a Cold Stone Creamery. From outside, one officer yelled and gestured at customers to leave the ice cream parlor.

A fleeing customer told the officer Martinez “went out the back.”

Police chased Martinez across Alameda and cornered him outside an office building. Martinez knelt down and put the gun to his own head, leaving it there as officers yelled for him to put it down.

“Talk to me man, I need you to talk to me,” one officer yelled. “I want you to put the gun down, OK? ... Let’s slow this down, OK?”

Martinez, still holding the gun to his head, asked for them to allow him to reach into his pocket for a cigarette to smoke “and you guys can arrest me.” An officer told him he could do that if he dropped the gun.

“I can’t trust you man, just like you can’t trust me in that aspect,” the officer said. Another officer yelled, “put it down so we can resolve this.”

Martinez lowered the gun to his side, saying “let me just smoke a cigarette.”

“I’m not going to shoot at you guys, maybe I should kill myself,” Martinez said. An officer replied, “we don’t want that either, man.”

An officer aimed a less-lethal 40 mm launcher at Martinez and another officer said “just (expletive) do it, man.” Within a second of the officer firing the launcher, striking Martinez, detective Lovato fired a real bullet.

The shots happened in such close proximity it is hard to tell them apart.

Surveillance video from the building showed the moment the shots were fired. Martinez’s arms flared out as the foam round hit him but the gun in his hand never pointed toward any of the officers before he was fatally shot.

Martinez dropped the gun and fell against the wall before sliding to the ground. Lovato told police he fired when the gun “lifted” in Martinez’s hand, fearing he was going to shoot another officer.

Hartsock said the gun Martinez held was traced to an original purchase in 1995 in Colorado. He said they have not been able to contact that buyer and do not know how the gun ended up with Martinez.

Cmdr. Matt Dietzel, who runs APD’s Crisis Intervention Unit, said he wanted to “draw a line between someone who’s suicidal as a result of a mental health diagnosis and someone who’s suicidal as a result of the circumstances that they’re in.”

He said they found no mental health history in Martinez’s case, which led APD to believe the latter.

“This all combined together leads us to believe that this was not a mental health crisis. This is an important distinction,” Dietzel said.

He said APD would start training “on that scenario specifically and give officers an additional tool to try to use in that situation.”

“And I’m not going to stand up here and act like that’s going to stop all of the shootings of this type. These are crisis situations. People are emotional, It’s life-and-death stuff,” Dietzel said. “We’re gonna give (officers) one more tool and attempt to save lives.”

Fugitive search erupts in gunfire

The third shooting stemmed from APD’s effort to arrest Carlson on a probation violation warrant. Hartsock said he was also a suspect in armed robberies.

Detectives tracked Carlson to Sun Pointe Park apartments on Montgomery NE, near Carlisle. They surrounded the apartment and asked Carlson to surrender.

Lapel video showed Carlson jumped out of a two-story window and ran from detectives. Detectives shot Carlson with a 40 mm less-lethal launcher, but he kept running.

At one point, officers were walking alongside Carlson — separated by 20 feet — aiming their guns and telling him to get on the ground. Police chased Carlson, who then was holding a gun, around the corner and he pointed it in their direction before Jones, Meier and Marquez shot him.

Hartsock said they couldn’t trace the gun used by Carlson as it was struck by gunfire, destroying the serial number.