Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said that an emergency order she issued earlier this year is working during an update on the gun violence public health emergency Monday.
Since the executive order declaring a public health state of emergency due to gun violence, Lujan Grisham, Senior Public Safety Advisor Ben Baker and Department of Health Secretary Patrick Allen announced an uptick in arrests and firearm seizures since the executive order went into effect in September.
Lujan Grisham said that although gun violence issues remain challenging, she and her team “believe unequivocally that the public health order is working.”
“Does anyone in this room— or if I were going to say what I think New Mexicans believe— are we out of the woods in terms of the public safety issues we are challenged by? We are not. And if that wasn’t made painfully clear just by the stats every day, it should have been made painfully clear to every New Mexican this past weekend,” Lujan Grisham said, referencing a shooting in Albuquerque that left a 16-year old boy dead.
The incident took place Friday night in the parking lot at Atrisco Heritage High School when the victim and a friend, another 16-year old, were allegedly playing with a gun when a shot was fired killing the victim, according to reporting from KRQE.
This was one of many of the types of incidents involving gun violence in Bernalillo County that led Lujan Grisham to declare gun violence a public emergency.
There have been 2,490 arrests made in Bernalillo County since September with 502 arrests made in September, 892 in October and 1,006 in November.
The arrests were from three law enforcement entities: New Mexico State Police, Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department and Albuquerque Police Department.
There were 219 guns seized since the order went into effect with 24 seizures in September, 57 in October and 90 in November.
New Mexico State Police collected 439 guns at gun buyback events across the state.
Another set of gun buyback events has been scheduled for Jan. 6 in Albuquerque, Española, Farmington and Las Cruces.
