Three people were killed and at least 16 people were injured during a shooting at a park Friday night in Las Cruces, N.M., according to Johana Bencomo, the mayor pro tem.
“Part of me wanted to write that this is something you never really think is going to happen in your city, but that actually feels deeply untrue,” Ms. Bencomo wrote.
The shooting happened around 10 p.m. on Friday near the parking lot at Young Park, the police said on social media.
Officers arrived and found multiple people with gunshot wounds. They were sent to hospitals, including the University Medical Center of El Paso in Texas.
Andrew Cummins, a spokesman for Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, said the center received six patients, all with gunshot wounds, and five of them were flown from the medical center to El Paso.
Witnesses said the shooting took place at a monthly gathering where drivers of modified sports cars show them off.
Around 200 people had gathered for the event, they said, which had a party-like atmosphere. They described seeing an altercation before shots rang out and people began to flee. At least one man had what looked like an assault-style weapon, witnesses said.
“They just started shooting and they just started running around everybody,” said Angel Legaspy, a 20-year-old whose parked car was hit by bullets. The shooting was indiscriminate, “like all over the place,” he said.
Manuel Urbina, who was visiting from Wyoming, came to the park to check out the city’s car scene. He said things were calm aside from the occasional squeal of a skidding car or the roar of its engine. Then he heard shots.
“People were running everywhere,” he said. “We all started to run, and then I saw a young man laid out on the ground.”
The police said they had not identified any suspects or possible motive.
“We’re still trying to identify who the shooter or shooters are,” Danny Trujillo, a public information officer for the city of Las Cruces, said early Saturday.
The police asked anyone who has video or images of the events, particularly any that show the shooting or people with firearms, to submit them.
While the circumstances of the shooting in Las Cruces remain unclear, New Mexico has struggled in recent years with violent crime.
The violent crime rate there was twice the national average in 2023, according to the Council of State Governments Justice Center. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has made combating crime a priority.
Las Cruces became a flashpoint in the state’s debate over crime in February 2024, when a police officer, Jonah Hernandez, was stabbed to death after responding to a trespassing call.
By August of 2024, violent crime in the city was up 46 percent compared to the same period in 2023.
