Suspect arrested in August drive-by shooting in Tucumcari

A suspect has been arrested in an August drive-by shooting in Tucumcari that left a man wounded.

Dadrian Ysco, 20, is charged with aggravated battery, negligent use of a deadly weapon, criminal damage to property, shooting at or from a motor vehicle and making a false report.

On Aug. 20, New Mexico State Police officers were dispatched around 10 p.m. to Tucumcari for reports of a shooting, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in Tucumcari Magistrate Court. Officers arrived and spoke with a man who had been sleeping in his semi-truck on the side of the road when he was shot.

“The driver of the CMV sustained a graze wound to the back of the neck from a bullet,” said Officer Wilson Silver, spokesperson for New Mexico State Police, in a news release. “The suspect vehicle fled the scene immediately after the shooting.”

The semi-truck driver told police he recorded part of the incident on his dash camera. Police reviewed the footage, which showed the driver of a Nissan pull to the side of the semi-truck and fire his gun multiple times before fleeing west toward Interstate 40, the complaint states.

Officers searched for the Nissan and found the vehicle with a missing tire on the grounds of a cemetery off of Interstate 40, east of Newkirk.

“The vehicle destroyed multiple grave sites and broke into the cemetery, consistent with a vehicle attempting to elude law enforcement,” the complaint states.

The driver was nowhere to be found.

Officers filed a search warrant for the vehicle and found bullet casings behind the driver’s seat, according to the complaint.

Officers searched a police database for the vehicle’s identification number and found that the car was registered to Ysco. The day after the shooting, Ysco had reported to the Tucumcari Police Department that his vehicle was stolen, the complaint states.

Ysco told police he had left his vehicle at a friend’s house because it had an oil leak and when he returned the next day, it was gone, according to the complaint. He told officers that he had left the vehicle with the keys inside.

On Aug. 29, officers spoke with Ysco again, who told them that he had gotten home roughly 20 minutes before the shooting occurred, the complaint states. Officers checked footage from traffic cameras and did not find any vehicle that matched the description of Ysco’s.

When police asked if Ysco owned any weapons, he told them he did not, but when officers interviewed Ysco’s friend, he said that Ysco owned multiple guns, according to the complaint.

In late October, State Police searched Ysco’s phone and found multiple photos taken the day of the shooting that showed Ysco with semi-automatic handguns with extended magazines, the complaint states.

The night of the shooting, Ysco had called and texted a female friend of his several times, and in one text Ysco admitted to being drunk, according to the complaint.

Officers spoke with the woman, who said that Ysco called moments after the shooting and “stated he just (expletive) up” and was “hauling ass to Santa Rosa,” the complaint states.

GPS data from Ysco’s phone showed that he was in Montoya, roughly 20 minutes away from the shooting, even though he told officers he was at a friend’s house, the complaint states. Ysco’s phone data showed him in Santa Rosa around 11:30 p.m. the night of the shooting.

“This ... perfectly matches the time one would take to travel from the shooting scene to the scene where the vehicle was later located,” according to the complaint.

On Thursday, State Police executed a search warrant and seized 10 firearms, including an AK-47, an AR-15, multiple shotguns and handguns, Silver said.