Witness shares experience of helping shooting victim in Las Cruces
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (KRQE) – A Las Cruces man is sharing his experience as a deadly shooting played out before his eyes, and how he tried to help. That man happened to stop at Young Park, where people were gathered for a car meet, but it wasn't long before gunshots were fired.
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It was late Friday night on March 21 at Young Park in Las Cruces when sounds of gunshots erupted during an unsanctioned car meet. 'I was only there for less than 10 minutes when the shooting happened, I just heard gunshots and everybody running,' said Toby Mondragon.
He initially was out for a drive to get some food and decided to stop and check out the car meet. 'When the shots first happened, I thought they were just cars revving their engine to backfire, but then I just saw a lot of people running away,' said Mondragon.
Mondragon said that in the midst of the chaos, he saw 19-year-old Dominick Estrada wounded on the ground and rushed over to help. 'Honestly, I think just in that moment, I just went over there, saw him on the ground just bleeding, so I just try to do the best that I could,' said Mondragon.
He works at a local hospital as an ICU and ER tech and said Estrada didn't have a pulse, so he called 911 and started performing CPR until first responders got there.
Estrada, along with 16-year-old Andrew Madrid and 18-year-old Jason Gomez, were killed, and dozens of others were injured. Mondragon said it was especially hard to see this happen to someone so young. 'That's the one thing that bothered me because he was still young. 19, about to start his life, and then out of the blue it was taken away,' said Mondragon.
He said he has great appreciation for the first responders and a message for Estrada's family. 'I'm sorry for your loss, hopefully we get justice for what happened,' said Mondragon.
Meanwhile, all four suspects in the shooting will remain locked up until trial. In a motion filed Wednesday, 20-year-old Tomas Rivas waived his pretrial detention hearing and agreed to be detained. The juveniles are two 17-year-old boys and one 15-year-old boy. They have not been publicly identified. All four suspects are facing three counts of murder.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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