Attorney General Torrez was joined by Gallup Police Chief Erin Toadlena-Pablo, McKinley County Sheriff James Maiorano III, Ohkay Owingeh Director of Public Safety Jace Trujillo, and Farmington Police Department Sergeant Eduardo Arreola.
Source: N.M. Department of Justice
Photo: Courtesy
Gallup, NM — Today, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez provided an update in Gallup on the progress of the New Mexico Department of Justice’s (NMDOJ) Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC), highlighting specific cases that show how the program is helping local law enforcement solve crimes. Attorney General Torrez was joined by Gallup Police Chief Erin Toadlena-Pablo, McKinley County Sheriff James Maiorano III, Ohkay Owingeh Director of Public Safety Jace Trujillo, and Farmington Police Department Sergeant Eduardo Arreola.
“Gun violence doesn’t respect city or county lines, but for too long, our response to it did,” said Attorney General Raúl Torrez. “Today’s results show what changes when we meet that violence with advanced technology and real-time collaboration across jurisdictions. A gun recovered here helped solve a homicide in Albuquerque. A traffic stop here closed a case that had gone cold for months. When a shooting leaves almost nothing behind, a single shell casing can still tell us where else that gun has been, and that’s often the difference between a case that goes cold and one that gets solved.”
Attorney General Torrez announced the CGIC, the first housed within an attorney general’s office in the country, in December 2025. At that time, the NMDOJ also announced it had secured federal funding to acquire four National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) machines, placed with the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office, the Gallup Police Department, the Roswell Police Department, and the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office.
In the months since, the CGIC has entered more than 2,000 ballistic acquisitions into the statewide NIBIN network, connecting 527 criminal incidents across New Mexico. About half of all CGIC leads cross jurisdictional lines, meaning the same firearm has been tied to crimes in more than one community. Leads generated through the CGIC have produced a 41 percent arrest rate, and more than half of all firearms tied to a CGIC lead have been recovered and taken off the street. In one case, the CGIC traced a single firearm to 17 separate criminal incidents; that firearm has since been recovered and is no longer in the community.
The network has also grown steadily: thirteen departments entered casings for the first time in July alone, bringing the total number of partner departments to roughly 30 statewide. The NMDOJ has conducted five test fire operations to date, with six more in the planning stages, safely testing and entering 732 firearms into NIBIN. By early winter, that number is expected to approach 2,000.
“The partnership with the Attorney General’s office has been critical in our fight against crime. The NIBIN machine has brought law enforcement agencies together because crime and criminals do not stay within one jurisdiction,” said Gallup Police Chief Erin Toadlena-Pablo. “It is imperative for us to communicate effectively to solve both cold cases and new cases, and we hope to see more law enforcement agencies participate in this initiative.”
“The McKinley County Sheriff’s Office is excited about its partnership with the NMDOJ in the NIBIN Program,” said McKinley County Sheriff James Maiorano III. “Our Office has already received three referrals from guns in our possession connected to crimes in Gallup, Albuquerque, and Phoenix, Arizona. We are hopeful that these leads will bring us to the doorstep of suspects, bringing victims and their families the day in court they deserve.”
“Firearm incidents don’t always stay within jurisdictional boundaries – crime travels everywhere. The access to the NIBIN machine and corresponding network has been extremely helpful for our reservation, allowing us to further our investigations,” said Ohkay Owingeh Director of Public Safety Jace Trujillo. “As a smaller tribal community, it is great to have the collaboration with these other agencies to help protect our community. I also want to thank the Attorney General for his agency’s work on getting this up and running.”
“This is a vital tool that allows departments to address violent crime,” said Farmington Police Department Sergeant Eduardo Arreola. “We appreciate the collaboration that made this important technology available.”
The CGIC uses forensic evidence to identify connections between firearms used in crimes across the state, helping investigators identify suspects, witnesses, and other critical leads. The NIBIN machines deployed through the statewide network capture, analyze, and cross-reference ballistic evidence from crime scenes, giving law enforcement start-to-finish intelligence on guns used in violent crime.
Case Examples
Gallup Police Department
Albuquerque Case Nos.: Adrian Daniel Brown: D-202-CR-2025-02080 and Joshua Allen Curtis: D-202-CR-2025-02079
In May 2025, Albuquerque police investigated the homicide of Christopher Sturluson but never recovered the weapon used in the crime, stalling the case. A year later, Gallup police recovered a firearm from a road rage shooting that sent rounds into a vehicle carrying children. NIBIN matched that firearm to the Albuquerque homicide, giving APD the evidence link it did not have before. Two unsolved shootings in two different cities became one case because NIBIN connected them across jurisdictions.
No charges have been filed in the Gallup road rage shooting; the vehicle involved was not located until after the shooting and was unoccupied when found. In the Albuquerque homicide, a grand jury has indicted Adrian Brown, 17, and Joshua Curtis, 18, for the murder of Christopher Sturluson.
Case No.: Jamie Delgado D-1113-CR-2026-00212 (Gallup PD DWI)
In March 2026, a shot was fired into a Gallup home during a confrontation. No weapon was recovered and there was no clear lead. Three months later, a routine traffic stop in Gallup turned up multiple firearms, including two in a vehicle carrying juveniles. NIBIN matched one of those firearms to the March shooting, tying a proactive stop directly to an unsolved violent crime.
San Juan County Sheriff’s Office
Case No. Thomas Vigil: D-1116-CR-2026-00536 (San Juan County Homicide)
In June 2026, San Juan County deputies stopped a man firing an AR-15-style rifle along US-64 near Bloomfield. Deputies lacked probable cause to seize the weapon but collected the shell casings, which NIBIN linked to a ShotSpotter activation in Albuquerque weeks earlier. On July 4, a house party shooting in Waterflow left one person dead and another wounded; the suspect fled before deputies arrived. Casings from the Waterflow scene matched the same rifle NIBIN had already tied to the June traffic stop and the Albuquerque shooting, connecting one gun to three violent incidents across two jurisdictions.
That ballistic trail helped build the case behind a first-degree murder charge against Thomas Vigil, who remains in pretrial detention. Several unmatched 9mm casings from the Waterflow scene indicate at least two more firearms from that night have not been recovered; the case remains open.
Case No. Jasmil Arroyo: D-1116-CR-2026-00384 (San Juan County Aggravated Assault)
In April 2026, two people drove to a San Juan County address to confront a coworker. One got out of the vehicle, brandished a handgun, and fired two rounds toward the group before fleeing. Deputies detained both suspects and later recovered the handgun under a search warrant. NIBIN matched the gun to the scene casings, and investigators learned it had been purchased just 30 days before the shooting. Jasmil Arroyo was arrested on four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and negligent use of a firearm; the case is pending jury trial.
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