Police officer's killer to serve life in prison

Hey bud.

That’s how New Mexico State Police officer Justin Hare of Logan greeted Jaremy Smith when he found the South Carolina man stranded with a flat tire on the side of Interstate 40 in the early hours of March 15.

Twenty seconds later, as Hare told Smith he would get him a ride to town, Smith shot the officer in mid-sentence. The 33-year-old went to the driver’s side and opened the door, waiting until an approaching semi passed to shoot Hare twice more.

An hour later, State Police found Hare still alive but fatally injured on the side of the I-40 frontage road near Tucumcari, with his SUV crashed into a tree miles away.

Recently released video, reports and court records detail the slaying of Hare, 35, and the manhunt that led to the capture of Smith, who authorities say left a trail of violence that stretched back to South Carolina.

Smith on Friday pleaded guilty to carjacking resulting in death, using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence, kidnapping resulting in death, being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm and possession of a stolen firearm.

In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed Smith would spend life in prison without the possibility of parole.

He still faces the death penalty in South Carolina, where officials say he killed a paramedic before traveling to New Mexico.

After the plea deal was approved in court, the family of Officer Hare told the Albuquerque Journal they had wanted Smith put to death for killing their son.

“I still wish he was dead,” Jim Hare said outside the U.S. District Courthouse in Downtown Albuquerque. “My wish is to watch them put him on a chair, or something, and we look in his eyes while he dies.”

Local officers attend court hearing

Quay County Sheriff Dennis Garcia and Deputy Joseph Otero were among the law enforcement officers who gave aid to the mortally wounded Hare at the scene and at the hospital. They attended Friday’s court proceedings, along with dozens of other law enforcement personnel.

“It was really important for the people involved to be there,” Garcia said.

Garcia said the majority of officers from NMSP’s District 9, which includes Tucumcari, also attended.

Garcia said Smith, escorted by U.S. marshals, entered the courtroom with “a sly smirk on his face” that offended him and other officers there.

“It took every effort for us to not react and be professional,” Garcia said.

Garcia admitted to having mixed feelings to federal prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table for Smith in New Mexico, but he acknowledged such a sentence would lead to many years of appeals.

“It’s the first step of justice for Officer Hare, and that’s right,” Garcia added.

Said U.S. Attorney Alexander Uballez in a news release:

“A life sentence for a life taken does not make our community whole. But the best way to honor Justin Hare’s life is to take care of each other. Today, I commit myself to the people of New Mexico. In the memory of a brave State Police officer whose final act was to help another.

“In honor of the hundreds of law enforcement officers who worked around the clock to protect this community and do justice for their fallen brother. And in the footsteps of the gas station clerks, everyday citizens, who bravely did the right thing in the face of clear and present danger. It is time for us all to join these strangers who did the right thing for people they never met.”

Said Troy Weisler, chief of the New Mexico State Police:

“Officer Justin Hare and Ms. Machado-Fore were tragically killed by Jaremy Smith. While nothing can undo this heartbreaking loss, today offers a measure of justice for their friends and family. Thanks to the efforts of our law enforcement partners and the support of the community, Jaremy Smith will never again take a breath as a free man, and that is as it should be.”

Video tells story of what happened

The following is compiled from recently unsealed federal court records, lapel and dash camera video and police reports obtained by the Albuquerque Journal through an Inspection of Public Records Act request:

• Around 5 a.m. on March 15, a truck driver reported seeing a man waving his hands frantically near a BMW along I-40. Hare responded and found the BMW at milepost 318, west of Tucumcari.

• Dash camera video shows Smith getting out of the BMW and approaching Hare’s passenger side, his face hidden under a hooded jacket. The men greet each other.

• “I got a flat tire, you can help me?” Smith asks in a heavy drawl, adding that he needs a ride into town for a tire. Hare tells him, “I can get you back to town real quick, but nobody’s open tonight.”

• Smith tells him, “That’s fine, I can get to town. I’ll just come back and get the car.” Hare tells him to go to the front of his SUV “real quick.”

• “I’ll meet you there real quick. I’ll get —” Hare says, a gunshot cutting him off.

• Smith shoots Hare again once he reaches the driver’s side and pushes him into the passenger’s seat, driving off in Hare’s SUV with the lights still flashing, according to lapel video. Dispatchers can be heard calling for Hare over his radio and then his phone begins to ring to the tune of “Knockin’ Boots” by Luke Bryan.

• The video shows Smith pull Hare from the SUV and leave him on the side of the frontage road, taking one last look at the officer while standing over him. Dash camera video shows Smith continues driving Hare’s SUV down frontage roads — at one point getting out and shooting out the flashing police lights.

• State Police vehicles can be seen passing Smith on I-40 going the opposite direction and one of them spotlights the SUV before Smith loses control and crashes into a tree at 55 mph. Officers find the SUV abandoned and then backtrack, discovering Hare on the side of the road near a cattle guard.

n An officer kneels beside him, saying, “Hey brother. Hare? Hare?” He calls for an ambulance, telling dispatch that Hare has been shot in the head and neck. Another officer shows up and kneels beside Hare, “Hare we’re here, bro. Keep (expletive) fighting brother. You’re going to be good.”

• Hare died at the Tucumcari hospital.

• Officers used police dogs to follow Smith’s tracks but lost them in the area, finding a torch-style lighter, taser and Machado-Fore’s paramedic jacket strewn about. But calls of a suspicious man in the area began to come in.

• At 1 p.m. a couple in Cuervo, reported a man fitting Smith’s description running through their pasture before they heard gunshots. Another man then reported a burglary at the house he was watching.

• The owner said a pair of steel-toed boots, 9mm ammunition and $100 in change was stolen. He told police the burglar also cooked some bacon, ate two cans of tuna and cleaned out the animal crackers before stealing his truck.

• State Police contacted Smith’s former girlfriend in Albuquerque, and she told them she hadn’t seen him. She said they last spoke on March 13, when Smith called and told her he loved her.

• The woman told police Smith called again at 3 a.m. on March 15, hours before Hare was killed, but she didn’t answer. Police spoke with the woman’s parents, and they said Smith often said he was coming back to Albuquerque to hurt their daughter.

• With Smith still on the loose, the family told police they were going to stay in Santa Fe until he was captured.

• On March 17, an employee at a West Side Albuquerque gas station called 911 to report Smith came in minutes earlier.

• The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office flooded the neighborhood near Coors and Blake and found Smith, shooting and injuring him during a foot chase through multiple backyards. They discovered Smith got there using the truck stolen during the burglary in Cuervo.

• Smith was hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds.

• At the hospital, staff told police they were not comfortable being alone with the injured Smith, who had said “he would kill everyone in the hospital if he could get his hands on a gun.”

• Smith watched a news story on Hare’s death — which mentioned his daughters left behind — as officers stood around the room. Smith told them, “If I was a cop killer or anything, don’t you think yesterday I would have shot at (deputies) when they were shooting at me?”

• Lapel video showed Smith told the officers, “I didn’t shoot that officer,” and he said there was another person with him, out of sight, “peeing in the bushes.”

• “You know we have cameras all around our police vehicle, right?” the officer tells him in lapel camera. Smith replied, “Yeah.”

• One officer told Smith, in lapel video, “Whatever you want to go with brother, you know what I mean? You’re the one that has to see God in the end anyways, it’s not me.

• “In the end, stuff like that will just eat you from the inside out, so however you want to live — keep lying to yourself and everybody.”

Ron Warnick, The Staff of The News, contributed to this report.