On July 25, the University of New Mexico’s main campus was closed and under a shelter-in-place directive due to a fatal shooting at the Casas del Rio dormitories.
The shooting resulted in the death of 14-year-old Michael Lamotte and an injury to a 19-year-old.
The UNM Police Department responded to the call at 1:36 a.m and the shooting’s perpetrator was taken into custody at around 2:30 p.m. the same day — approximately 13 hours after the police first responded on the scene.
Although campus has now resumed normal operation, the shooting has left some students feeling unsafe — according to a Daily Lobo Instagram story post asking for UNM students’ thoughts on campus safety — and hoping UNM will do more to prevent such occurrences.
Sophomore Roger Apodaca, wrote that he was sleeping in the dorm across from where the shooting occurred.
“I just remember seeing a ton of emails and looking outside to find a bunch of caution tape with police everywhere,” Apodaca wrote.
Apodaca wrote he sheltered in place till 6 p.m. that day.
“(The shooting) really tanks UNM’s safety,” Apodaca wrote. “I get that we’re next to Central and stuff but someone was murdered in the dorms. It already doesn’t feel safe being on campus at night, but what happened makes the dorms feel like a gamble, and makes me wonder if I’m sleeping in a place I can trust at all.”
In response to the post, UNM senior Matthew Archibeque wrote that they have been a student at UNM on and off for nine years and now feel like buying a bullet proof backpack.
“There hasn’t been a single instance where I’ve heard of UNMPD helping victims in any real capacity and for me, this incident just proves that further. We’re reaching a point where bulletproof backpacks are becoming more reasonable than expecting anything beneficial from administrations or police.” Archibeque wrote.
Hannah Loftus, a UNM sophomore and member of UNM Students Demand Action, said she feels “on edge” about returning to campus. Loftus said she and other SDA members have been calling lawmakers to pass bills like the GOSAFE Act — an act that seeks to regulate the sale, transfer and manufacturing of gas-operated semi-automatic firearms — to try to prevent gun violence from happening, especially in places where there are students.
“Maximizing security is not proactive,” Loftus said. “You have to prevent these things. Installing new cameras is great, you can catch whoever commits these crimes and is killing people quickly because you can recognize their features and find them, but somebody’s still dead.”
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Sol Samuels, a senior at UNM, said she feels safer now that she is not living in the dorms. She said when she was living at Lobo Village, one of her friends was shot in the dorms in February and suffered non-fatal injuries.
Samuels said she doesn’t think banning guests from campus is a solution because when Lobo Village did not allow guests after the February shooting, people were “sneaking” guests in the trunks of their cars.
“I think Lobo Village had a lot of these sorts of parties that just wouldn’t get stopped by (resident advisors) because they don’t want to intervene and then it gets to the point where people are showing up that shouldn’t be there,” Samuels said.
Florian Knowles, a UNM Senior who lived in Lobo Village this spring, wrote that he remembers seeing police outside his window during the February shooting and is now more concerned about who his neighbors are.
“During the day I actually don’t really have any concerns, but everything changes when I’d get to my apartment because that’s when things happen. It sucks to feel like your safety is at the whim of other’s choices because everyone is so tightly packed together,” Knowles wrote.
During a press conference on Aug. 1, UNM President Garnett Stokes said she hopes students who feel unsafe will let her office know.
UNM Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Teresa Costantinidis said during the press conference that UNM recently received funding from the New Mexico Legislature to upgrade their campus emergency system and start the project this year.
UNMPD Chief of Police Joseph Silva said during the press conference that UNMPD trains RAs in some of their active shooter response exercises so that they “understand” what the police response is going to be when they respond to a shooting.
Loftus said she thinks this shooting might have been preventable from a lawmaker’s standpoint more than UNM’s standpoint through drug tests, mandatory gun safety classes and gunlocks being used to allow a cool-down period of at least 48 hours after buying a gun.
“So then you’re not going to buy a firearm when you are upset about something or maybe strung out under the influence and then going to use it to kill people,” Loftus said.
Paloma Chapa is the multimedia editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at multimedia@dailylobo.com or on X @paloma_chapa88
Leila Chapa contributed reporting to this article.
Paloma Chapa is the multimedia editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at multimedia@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @paloma_chapa88
