Violent Friday night leaves two dead

A violent Friday night left two people dead and others injured in Clovis and Portales as authorities investigated three separate shooting incidents in less than six hours.

Police identified the Portales victim as Quintasha Harris, 38. Police did not release the name of the Clovis victim but said he was a 16-year-old boy who died as a result of a car crash during a shooting incident.

No arrests had been made in connection with either death by mid-afternoon Saturday, according to District Attorney Andrea Reeb.

Reeb said none of the three incidents were related.

The first shooting was reported at 5:33 p.m. Friday when Portales police responded to the 600 block of West 17th Lane “for a female individual with a possible gunshot injury,” according to a Portales PD news release. The female, later identified as Harris, was transported to Roosevelt General Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Police on Saturday characterized the incident as “domestic related” and were interviewing a witness who was “continuing to cooperate with investigators ...”

Just 20 minutes after the first shooting was reported, Eastern New Mexico University police were called to a shooting near the San Juan Village Apartments.

“Law Enforcement located a juvenile victim who had departed the scene prior to their arrival. The juvenile was treated for non-life-threatening injuries as a result of the incident,” university officials stated in a news release. Authorities said they had “identified person(s) of interest,” but did not provide additional information.

Then at 11:16 p.m. Friday in Clovis, officials received a 911 call from someone reporting they were being shot at. “The caller continued speaking with Dispatch, relaying that they had been shot and were in the area of Grand Street and Martin Luther King (Jr.) Boulevard,” a police news release stated.

Police soon located a black Mercedes near Upsilon Street and Hagerman Avenue that had struck a power pole. Those inside the car were transported to Plains Regional Hospital where one later died, police said.

“A second vehicle believed to be associated with the Mercedes delivered a gunshot victim to the hospital and fled the scene,” a police news release stated. Clovis Police Chief Doug Ford said Saturday afternoon that victim had been treated for his injuries and was released from the hospital.

Police said in the release, “The scene on Martin Luther King Boulevard showed that multiple gunshots had been discharged in the area.”

Ford said “two or three” vehicles may have been involved in the shooting and that investigators were conducting interviews Saturday. He said no one had been detained in connection with the incident.

The region has now seen four homicide victims in 16 days. On April 28, a Clovis man was arrested and charged with killing Ricky Johnson, 58, and Kennedy Hodge, 53, near Fifth and Ross streets in Clovis. Danny Price, 54, was arrested soon after the slayings and remains jailed.