Ledes from the Land of Enchantment

A man led Albuquerque police in a car chase while under GPS surveillance

ALBUQUERQUE, NM (KRQE) – A wild ride on a New Mexico freeway with MPs dodging bullets and firing back through their own windshields. It turned out that the man they were chasing was being monitored with GPS.

Now the public prosecutor is fighting to ensure that the accused does not end up on the street again this time. “We are extremely fortunate that no one was killed in one of these events,” said Raul Torrez, District Attorney for Bernalillo.

Last summer they tried to put Jacob Montoya behind bars for stealing a car and owning a gun. “I think we have to acknowledge this risk every time we get one of these defendants back on the streets,” said Torrez.

But Judge Neil Candelaria released him from GPS surveillance instead. In November, he and a woman, Christine Dimas, are accused of robbing workers at gunpoint during a Starbucks transit in Santa Fe and then getting into a high-speed chase with the Santa Fe Deputies, which is on Highway 285 near Clines Corners ended.

When Dimas shot MPs, MPs shot back through their windshields, killing Dimas and wounding Montoya before giving up on himself. A few days earlier, Montoya was also accused of robbing a Rio Rancho Sonic. “While the accused was on the arrest warrant, he took up three new criminal offenses in November,” said public prosecutor Carmen Gutierrez.

As it turned out, the battery on Montoya’s GPS monitor was dead back in August. “We’re at a loss as to what happened to GPS,” said Torrez.

The prosecutor says he is investigating why his office did not know about this. “We did not receive a report of the non-compliance until he was apprehended in another county for these other violent crimes,” said Torrez.

Meanwhile, prosecutors are urging the court to detain Montoya. “The defendant clearly violated his terms of release, disregarded the orders of this court and went on a rampage,” Gutierrez said.

A hearing will be held next week to see if Montoya’s release should be revoked. He’s now behind bars.

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