The Las Cruces Police Department held a press conference and gave more details on the fatal shooting of a man by officers at the McDonald’s on Lohman.
Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story led the conference and explained that on April 24th, Metro Narcotics agents were watching 45-year-old David Gallegos, who was suspected of having a large amount of drugs in his possession.
“Metro had multiple successful controlled narcotics buys from Mr. Gallegos in the recent past. They had credible information that he had a significant amount of narcotics on the date of the incident,” Story said.
According to Story, after yelling at a man in the parking lot, Gallegos starts walking over to his truck when an undercover police truck blocks his path and two agents hop out of the car.
Story continued saying Gallegos then reaches for his gun and body camera footage shows he puts his hands in the air moments before officers fire at least three shots, killing him. Police say the gun in Gallegos’s possession was not reported to be stolen.
Story said that the whole event happened very quickly.
“From the time that the suspect's hand is clearly visible without the firearm to the first shot is approximately 0.233 seconds. Less than a quarter of a second,” Story said.
After obtaining a search warrant to look through the man's truck, police say that they found half a kilo, or a little over one pound, of meth, 580 fentanyl pills, and 20 grams of powdered fentanyl.
The investigation into the incident is ongoing and the agents are on paid administrative leave.
