Two separate crimes kept local and state law enforcement busy the evening of Easter Sunday.
Shortly before 6 p.m., Sunday, April 12, deputies with the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call of a stabbing at Menard Road and N.M. 47 in Tomé, near the Family Dollar store.
When deputies arrived, they found Raymond D. Hanley Jr., 28, of Los Lunas, dead in an empty field north of Menard Road. Hanley’s death is being investigated as a homicide.
“Simultaneously, while we were responding to that call, New Mexico State Police units, who were coming to assist, were involved in an officer-involved shooting to the south,” said Lt. Joseph Rowland, the VCSO spokesman.
Deputies in the area saw a woman leaving the scene at Menard, who Rowland said was considered a person of interest.
The officer-involved shooting happened at Entrada Aragon and N.M. 47, near the Tomé Post Office, about a mile south of Menard Road.
According a press release from NMSP, state police officers were called by VCSO to assist with the stabbing scene and help locate an unidentified female in the area.
While trying to locate the woman, a state police officer saw a dark gray passenger vehicle driving erratically and at a high rate of speed through the area. The officer attempted to initiate a traffic stop, but the driver of the vehicle fled and a pursuit was initiated.
The pursuit ended when the suspect vehicle came to a stop on Entrada Aragon. At some point after the pursuit ended, the officer deployed his taser and then fired his gun towards two men, hitting both.
The officer began rendering aid to one or both male subjects on scene until emergency medical services arrived. One man died on scene, and the other male was transported by ambulance to the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque.
The New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau was requested to investigate the shooting.
The identification of the officer and the male subjects will not be released until the interview with the officer has been completed, the press release said. No officers were injured during the incident.
Rowland said it was too early in the investigation to confirm if the two incidents are related, but said investigators were “leaning that way.”
Julia M. Dendinger began working at the VCNB in 2006. She covers Valencia County government, Belen Consolidated Schools and the village of Bosque Farms. She is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists Rio Grande chapter’s board of directors.
