Tony Torrez, Road Rage Shooting Suspect, To Remain Behind Bars

Torrez, 32, was arrested on Wednesday for the deadly road rage incident.

Now, authorities are citing his history and that of a convicted felon accused of shooting and critically wounding an Albuquerque police officer this week as examples of a criminal justice system they say is broken, underfunded and can leave law enforcement and the public more vulnerable to violence.

Local officials are calling on state lawmakers to enact reforms after the girl was killed and an officer was shot in the same week, unnerving many in New Mexico’s largest city.

A statement released by the Albuquerque Police Department said that Torrez “confessed to investigators he was responsible for the murder”.

“I would ask one thing”, he said.

Mayor Richard Berry said the slaying “cut to the core” of the community.

Lindi Walsh worked with Lilly’s mother, Veronica Garcia, at a drugstore five years ago and keeps in touch with her through Facebook.

Lilly was riding in the backseat with her 7-year-old brother after they were picked up from school Tuesday when someone in a Toyota opened fire on the family as they traveled down the main east-west freeway in Albuquerque.

The suspect’s sedan was “sportier” with dark tinted windows and a spoiler on the trunk, and the vehicle has a gray University of New Mexico license plate with the Lobo logo on the left hand and may contain the digits “200”.

A day later, Officer Webster was shot by Davon Lymon, a repeat offender, outside a pharmacy during a traffic stop, authorities said.

“His condition remains the same”, Eden said.

“All of that is stuff that has been tried and failed”, he said. “We’ll spend $40,000 locking up a man, guarding him, and keeping him behind bars, but we won’t pay $10,000 for him to be rehabilitated. You can not solve this problem by locking up the population”.

He spoke to The Associated Press in Spanish as he stood outside the family home, which is just south of the highway where the shooting occurred in a newly developed area of west Albuquerque near a park. The gun went off three times during the struggle, and Torrez was “choked out” and disarmed, according to the criminal complaint.

Torrez was accused in 2006 of pulling a gun on a man in a parking garage, but those charges were dismissed because the victim and witness did not cooperate with prosecutors, according to online court records.

Police said Tony Torrez was arrested Wednesday and admitted to the shooting in the death of Lilly Garcia. A grand jury indictment says he assaulted another man with a handgun and also applied force to a woman with the weapon or touched her with it, intending to injure her.