LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico State’s athletics director says power forward Mike Peake has been suspended indefinitely from the basketball team in connection with last month’s fatal shooting of a student from UNM. Mario Moccia also told reporters Monday night that neither he nor the school could comment on Peake’s enrollment status as a student.
The 21-year-old Peake has not been charged in the Nov. 19 pre-dawn shooting on the University of New Mexico’s campus in Albuquerque hours before the host Lobos were to play the Aggies. State police investigators said 19-year-old Brandon Travis conspired with two other UNM students and a 17-year-old girl to lure Peake onto campus. The subsequent shootout left Travis dead at the scene and Peake hospitalized with a leg wound.
KOAT-TV in Albuquerque reports the NMSU team left Albuquerque before investigators were done conducting interviews and that items including a tablet and cell phone belonging to Peake were found on the bus and in the hands of an administrator while the gun was with an assistant coach in a hotel room in Albuquerque. The team's bus was pulled over on I-25 South on its way back to Las Cruces. The Albuquerque Journal reports teammates aided Peake following the shooting by taking his gun and tablet in the trunk of a yellow Camaro from the scene of the shooting.
According to the Las Cruces Sun News, the players who are believed to have aided Peake the night of the shooting played in Monday night's game against Simon Frasier at the Pan Am Center. An NMSU spokesperson referred reporters to New Mexico State Police for questions regarding the investigation.
This is a developing story.