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New Mexico state police in Albuquerque arrested a man accused of ordering another man to open fire on a vehicle full of people – injuring a man and a woman – near Farmington last month.
Jaden Ortega
Jaden Ortega of Farmington was arrested Friday at Block 200 of San Clemente NW, near Fourth and Griegos, and booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center.
The 21-year-old is charged with criminal charges of first degree murder, attempted murder, shooting on or from a motor vehicle for grievous bodily harm and manipulation of evidence in a shooting on July 20.
The alleged shooter, 18-year-old Samuel Stevens, is charged with attempted murder, double assault with a lethal weapon, heavy battery with a lethal weapon, shooting at or from a motor vehicle, and tampering with evidence in the case.
Stevens was sent to the San Juan County Detention Center on Wednesday.
Prosecutors filed a motion for Stevens to be detained pending trial, saying that authorities had found a fully automatic pistol in his home and that his mother encouraged him to go to Sweden, where he is dueling citizenship “as a change.” of lifestyle and as a bad influence ”. New Mexico.
Stevens doesn’t have a great criminal history other than drug possession charges, but Ortega has been arrested numerous times since 2016, including kidnapping, car shooting, child abuse, burglary and rape. At least four of the trials against him were dropped, three of them because the victim and witness did not cooperate.
Ortega is currently awaiting trial for first degree child abuse that resulted in death after allegedly drowning his one-year-old son in the bathtub while Ortega slept in the next room in February.
Samuel Stevens
According to an arrest warrant affidavit filed with the Magistrate Court in connection with the Farmington shooting:
The San Juan District Sheriff’s deputies responded to the San Juan Regional Medical Center at around 7:15 pm on July 20 after a man and woman with gunshot wounds showed up. The woman told MPs that they were driving home with the man’s parents in the back seat when gunfire broke out at a traffic light on NM 350 south of Flora Vista.
The woman said the car windows were broken, glass hit her in the face and a bullet went through her ankle. The woman told MPs that she ducked until the shots stopped and the driver, who had been shot in the head and leg, could take her to a nearby gas station where they met rescue workers.
The driver told MPs that a man in a black mask shot them from a gray car before driving. MPs got a good description of the car from nearby surveillance cameras, and on August 19, a MP saw the car in Farmington.
The MPs tracked Stevens’s license plate and took him into custody for questioning. Stevens, who according to the MPs was “noticeably nervous”, initially denied having anything to do with the shooting.
But Stevens eventually told the detectives that he shot the vehicle on Ortega’s orders. Stevens said the two were walking out of a dollar general store in Flora Vista when Ortega saw a vehicle “he knew” and told him to follow it.
Stevens told MPs Ortega drew a green pistol and told him to shoot the people in the vehicle. According to Stevens, Ortega threatened him with a gun and said if he shot the vehicle he would also have to kill Stevens because “he would be a witness”.
Stevens told MPs he took the gun from Ortega, pulled up in front of the vehicle and fired several shots at the occupants before driving off. Stevens said Ortega wanted him to shoot people because the man behind the wheel “sniffed” Ortega’s brother.
Stevens said after the shooting, Ortega told him to get rid of all the shell casings in the car. The officers searched Steven’s vehicle and found gun residue on the driver’s side, as well as a spent 9 mm bullet case in the trunk.
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