Does a photo of a man holding an AR-15 rifle show a suspect in the mass shooting in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on March 21, 2025? No, that's not true: Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story told reporters the man was interviewed and ruled out as a shooting suspect. The shell casings recovered at the crime scene by investigators were all from handguns and none were from rifles, Chief Story said.
The claim appeared in many posts, including a post (archived here) shared on X.com on March 22, 2025, which included this caption for the photo:
So some ghetto bitches shot people in Las Cruces.
This is a photo of the alleged suspect.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X.com screenshot taken on Fri Mar 21 18:25:26 2025 UTC)
Chief Story said at a news conference on the morning after the shooting that it began with an altercation between two groups gathered in a city park. Three people were killed and another 15 were wounded by gunfire, he said.
He addressed the viral image that had been circulating on social media. "The person holding an AR-15 in the photo that's being distributed has already been interviewed. At this time we do not believe he was involved in the shooting, although it's obviously a problem that he's out there with an AR-15 in his hand."
Watch Chief Story's statement:
