Man accused of fatally shooting man in the head in SE Albuquerque

Police arrested a man accused of shooting two men — one fatally — outside a smoke shop in Southeast Albuquerque earlier this month.

Deomtray Davis, 27, of Albuquerque, is charged with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence in the April 4 shooting death of Brian Miller, 39.

Davis is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

A witness identified Davis to police, according to a criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court. At 3:12 p.m. April 4, the Albuquerque Police Department received a call of a shooting outside Smoke City in the 6900 block of Central, near Indiana. Officers learned a man — later identified as Miller — was shot in the head, according to the complaint.

Through Smoke City surveillance, officers saw two other men were in a fight in the middle of the street when they heard a shot, the complaint states. One man was hit in the arm while Miller — standing several feet behind the man — fell to the ground, police said. It is unclear if Miller was targeted.

The man later told police he got into a fight with a friend over a jacket when “he had a weird feeling over his body and heard screaming,” according to the court document. The man told police he did not know where the shot came from “and did not know what it was for,” the complaint states.

Moments before the shooting, surveillance video showed a man — later identified as Davis — raising his hand “in what appeared to be a shooting position” before the shot was fired, police said. He then walked south on Indiana and east on Cochiti wearing a hoodie and shorts, according to the complaint.

Hours later, police found a firearm without a magazine wrapped in a cloth inside a parking lot garbage can in the 400 block of Louisiana, about three-tenths of a mile away from the shooting, police said. Another surveillance video showed a man walking toward the trash can with hands inside a hoodie pouch pocket before walking away, the complaint states.

On April 7, a woman told police two men got into a fight because one of the men thought the other stole his jacket before stabbing him, police said. She told police, after the man falsely claimed he was stabbed, she believed Davis was aiming for the man shot in the arm, the complaint states.

The woman told police Davis had a warrant out from a separate incident, the court document states. On April 9, Davis was arrested on the warrant at the intersection of Central and Louisiana, police said.

Two days later, Davis told police he believed people think he shot Miller “because he is Black and said words to the effect of having the same complexion of the individual on the ‘picture’ (believed to be referring to the Crime Stoppers Bulletin),” the complaint states.

Davis told police someone else had shot Miller as he was asleep during the incident, police said, before saying “he heard it was (a) one in a million shot because it went through somebody and hit another person,” the court document states.

On Tuesday, a witness identified Davis in a photo “with 100% certainty,” the complaint states.

In January, Davis was charged with four aggravated battery charges after allegedly beating up his girlfriend, but the charges were dismissed after she did not appear in court, according to court records.