Lawmakers mull how to address teen gun problem after Albuquerque shooting turns deadly

Yahoo

09-02-2025

It started with seven teens, one 12-year-old, several guns — and, police said, a plan to rob a couple in a Jeep nearby.
By the time it was over, a 14-year-old boy, Alonzo Sanderson, was dead, shot by the man police believe he and his friends had tried to rob at gunpoint outside an Albuquerque apartment complex in late January.
The man's wife had been shot twice, and a 15-year-old girl had been grazed by a bullet.
The surviving six teens and the 12-year-old were taken into custody and are now facing charges.
Lawmakers and authorities have pointed to the alarming incident — shocking even in Albuquerque, which has seen what police describe as an escalation in youth violence — as one that illustrates the rising level of gun crimes committed by juveniles in New Mexico and the urgency they feel to stop youth violence and cut off the flow of guns to young people.
'Juvenile gun violence is exploding,' said 2nd Judicial District Attorney Sam Bregman, whose Bernalillo County jurisdiction is the most populous in New Mexico. '... It is horrific, and we have to do something to get a handle on this.'
Statewide, the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department's Juvenile Justice Services received 173 referrals for gun charges in the first six months of the current fiscal year. In the previous fiscal year, the agency received 249 — 81 more than it did in the year before.
Proposals to address the problem during this year's legislative session are varied: imposing adult penalties on juveniles for more crimes, specifically outlawing gun sales to minors, and creating incentives for the safe storage of weapons.
'This devastating pattern must end,' Governor's Office spokesperson Jodi McGinnis Porter wrote in an email. '... Currently, young offenders may perceive a lack of meaningful consequences for violent crimes, auto theft and weapons violations. We must strike a careful balance — holding youth accountable for violent actions while providing the support and rehabilitation they need to choose a better path.'
McGinnis Porter said Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham supports a slew of public safety bills that would help address the problem of juvenile gun crime.
For example, she cited House Bill 38, which would make a state crime out of possessing devices that convert semiautomatic firearms into automatic ones — devices McGinnis Porter said authorities are increasingly finding in the hands of juveniles.
The governor also has thrown her support behind House Bill 134, a measure Bregman proposed that would make sweeping changes to the state Children's Code.
Those changes include requiring young people to be transferred from juvenile detention centers to adult facilities on their 18th birthday and expanding the definition of a 'serious youthful offender' — juveniles who are sentenced as adults — to include crimes other than first-degree murder, such as second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and armed robbery with a deadly weapon.
HB 134 has become a bipartisan effort.
'For too long this [Legislature] has failed to pass laws that will keep New Mexican safe. We know what is needed to address New Mexico's crime problem, but without House and Senate Democrat support, nothing will happen,' the bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Andrea Reeb of Clovis, said in a statement. 'It is bipartisan collaboration like this that will bring safety back to our streets.'
Albuquerque gunfight
Sanderson and his group were cruising around southeast Albuquerque on the night of Jan. 28 when they spotted the couple's Jeep and decided to rob them, according to a criminal complaint filed in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court.
Sanderson, holding two guns, and 15-year-old Jeriah Salas hopped out of the car and pointed their weapons at the Jeep, according to the complaint. The victims told police the two pulled open the passenger-side doors of the vehicle.
The husband, in the driver's seat, pulled his own gun and fired back six times, emptying his weapon, according to the complaint.
A teenage girl then jumped over the wife and started fighting with the husband, the complaint states. He hit her with his pistol to get her out of the Jeep and then began driving, reversing into the juveniles' car before leaving and going to a hospital.
The woman, who was shot in the foot and the abdomen, was treated and released from the hospital hours later.
The teens loaded Sanderson into their car and drove to an apartment nearby for gas money to take him to a hospital. Instead of taking him, however, they called 911. There, police found Sanderson lying on the ground with gunshot wounds. He was taken to University of New Mexico Hospital, where he died.
"Detectives are investigating the death as a justifiable homicide since the husband of the victim was defending his wife and himself during an armed robbery," Albuquerque police said in a statement issued Jan. 29.
The statement said, "Five teens have been arrested and two others are wanted by police in connection with the shooting."
Later that day, police issued an update: A 15-year-old girl was arrested after she arrived at a hospital for treatment of a "bullet graze wound"; a 13-year-old was still on the run.
The following day, police sent a second update: The 13-year-old "surrendered to police this evening. All seven teens who were charged in connection with the robbery and shooting are now in custody."
All are facing charges, including Salas, who police say is charged with counts of attempted armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated battery.
The suspects range in age from 12 to 17.
In the last year, several gun incidents among teens around the state have led to injuries.
Santa Fe police charged a 16-year-old boy in the apparently accidental shooting of a 15-year-old in July. Officers said the boy was "playing with" a handgun in the backseat of a car on Cerrillos Road when it fired and injured the other boy, who was driving.
Española police alleged a 19-year-old from Abiquiú shot his younger brother in the face while playing with a gun in February 2024.
And in September, a 16-year-old boy suffered four gunshot wounds in a shooting outside his house near Frenchy's Park. Police said they found 40 shell casings outside the home, and officers charged 21-year-old LeSean Liggins with attempted murder.
Tracking firearm flow
At the heart of the rising tide of juvenile gun crimes is a major question: Where are they getting their weapons?
The problem has plagued Bregman, who last year implemented a policy in his office of refusing to negotiate plea deals with juveniles facing gun crimes unless they admit where they got the guns.
Numbers provided by his office show guns get into youths' hands from a variety of sources.
As of Jan. 7, Bregman's office had given 96 juveniles the ultimatum of admitting where they got their guns or losing out on plea agreements. Most, so far, have confessed, with 20 claiming they got them from a friend and 19 saying they got them off the social media platform Telegram.
Six juveniles said they stole the guns, nine said they got them from family members and the rest who disclosed the source gave more vague answers, some claiming they got the weapons online or found them.
Five so far have declined to say where they got their guns, and 25 juveniles still had cases pending and had not made a decision about disclosing where they got the guns, Bregman's office said.
To curb the flow of firearms, Bregman pointed to two pieces of legislation making their way through the Roundhouse: Senate Bill 244, which would make a second-degree felony out of giving a gun to a minor, unless in appropriate circumstances like shooting competitions or hunting; and Senate Bill 255, which would make allowing or failing to prevent a gun sale through public platforms without a background check a third-degree felony.
'Someone has to be responsible for the disposition of a firearm, end of story,' Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, the bills' sponsor, said in an interview. 'If you illegally transfer it to a minor, you should be held accountable to what happens to that gun if you knowingly did that.'
Bregman said SB 255 would allow the state to set its sights on social media platforms like Telegram.
Victoria DeAnda, a freshman at the University of New Mexico, said she commonly sees young people selling firearms on the social media platform Snapchat as well. Gun sales on such apps, she noted, easily fly under the radar of adults.
'They don't know, and that's one of the biggest problems of student and youth gun violence, is that parents really don't know what's happening in their children's lives,' she said.
House Bill 202, sponsored by several House Republicans as well as Rep. Meredith Dixon, D-Albuquerque, might also help address another major source of guns for juveniles. The bill would make available $750 tax credits to New Mexicans who purchase devices such as gun safes and lock boxes.
'Our state requires gun owners to responsibly store their firearms to help protect our children from gun violence. By fully covering the cost of storage safes, this legislation makes it easier to comply with this law so weapons are kept out of the hands of children,' Dixon said in a statement.
Reeb, also a sponsor of HB 202, added the bill would complement the Bennie Hargrove Gun Safety Act, passed in 2023, which created a criminal charge for parents and guardians whose children got their hands on firearms because they were negligently stored.
That law, named after a boy who was shot and killed by a fellow student at an Albuquerque middle school, has been used 15 times to charge people across the state, according to data provided by the Administrative Office of the Courts. Two of those cases were in Santa Fe.
For all the challenges with tracking and curbing the flow of guns, young people who have them are often unsubtle about it.
Wesley Clum, a senior at the private Bosque School in Albuquerque, said it's not uncommon for students around him to have access to guns at home. He added students who have guns often tout the fact they do and see the weapons as something of a status symbol.
'It's a culture of feeling powerful,' he said.