More details emerge about suspects in Las Cruces shooting

The lone adult thus far charged in Friday night’s Las Cruces shooting faced prior charges in Texas for human smuggling.

Texas court records show that the El Paso County District Attorney’s Office charged Tomas Rivas, 20, with four counts of smuggling of persons and evading arrest in January 2024. He was also arrested in 2021, when he was 17, and charged with transporting an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States.

Those past and pending charges are being used in court records as evidence that Rivas is dangerous and that no conditions of release can protect the community, as the 3rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office seeks to hold him in jail.

For years, teens in the El Paso-Sunland Park area have been recruited into smuggling operations, a phenomenon that persists across the U.S. Mexico Borderland and has resulted in deaths after high-speed chases through the desert or El Paso streets. Border Patrol has been working with El Paso high schools, and even middle schools, to get ahead of the problem for more than a decade. Court records suggest that Rivas may have been involved in such an operation.

Rivas is one of four people — including two 17-year-old boys and one 15-year-old boy — charged in Friday night’s shooting at Young Park that resulted in three people dead and 15 injured. The three unidentified teenagers have each been charged with three counts of open murder in the first degree, as has Rivas.

Rivas was booked into the Doña Ana County Detention Center just before 3 a.m. Sunday. Jail records show he was arrested at a residence on Las Cruces’ north side. The other unidentified teenagers were booked into the juvenile section of the jail.

Third Judicial District Attorney Fernando Macias told the Journal he intends to charge all four defendants as adults.

“The first thing that we’re going to address, hopefully very quickly, is keeping them in custody,” Macias said. “That’s going to be kind of the first step.”

Macias said anyone over 15 can be charged as an adult.

Police said Rivas was one of at least four people who began firing guns into a crowd during an unsanctioned car show at the Las Cruces park, killing Dominick Estrada, 19, Andrew “AJ” Madrid, 16, and Jason Gomez, 17.

A statement of probable cause, filed in the Doña Ana Magistrate Court, did not provide insight into what might have motivated the shooting. However, a witness told police two groups pulled out guns and started shooting at each other.

Rivas and one of the other teens tried to stash four guns in a nearby dumpster, according to court documents. However, the statement noted that police ultimately found those guns, which were all semi-automatic pistols, including a 9mm pistol, a .40 caliber and a .45 caliber.

Police also said in the statement that one of the teens rang the doorbell of a nearby apartment complex. The tenant said the teen looked panicked, so he let him inside. Later, the tenant said he discovered another gun in his apartment that belonged to the teen, police said.

Prosecutors have filed an expedited motion for pretrial detention to keep Rivas in jail. In it, they note that he’s been living in Las Cruces for “a significant period of time” and works as a carhop at a local Sonic. The motion also states that Rivas “has a history of criminal activity which appears to be gang-related.”

Rivas was scheduled for a first appearance Monday as Macias and the 3rd Judicial District Attorney’s office filed their motion requesting Rivas remain in jail. The Journal contacted Rivas’ attorney, Thomas Clark, who said he anticipated the detention hearing would occur later this week.

Clark also said that attorneys had been assigned to the defendants.