ALBUQUERQUE – The city of Albuquerque has now surpassed 100 homicides since the start of the year.
A man officers found dead with a gunshot wound to the head Sunday night near Mountain Road and San Mateo Boulevard is the city's 101st homicide victim, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
Several hours earlier around 1 a.m. police responded to a shooting at an Albuquerque food market that left one man dead and another wounded. The second man is in stable condition, the newspaper reported.
These events come a week after a chaotic Halloween weekend of shootings at house parties in the city and Bernalillo County that left three dead.
Albuquerque is now at its its highest homicide total and rate in recorded history.
“We have devoted a lot of resources to the increase in homicides during the pandemic,” Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said in a statement Sunday. “At the same time, our detectives are committed to solving homicides from past years, whether they occurred last year or decades ago.”
As of October, the number of shootings in which people were injured had increased by nearly 16% when compared with the same period last year. Law enforcement has recorded more than 250 shooting incidents so far this year, including more than three dozen accidental shootings. Most of the victims have been men between the ages of 20 and 30.
Incumbent mayor Tim Keller signed an executive order last month creating a task force to focus on gun violence. He and other officials called it a public health crisis.
