{"id":25603,"date":"2024-09-21T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-21T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/walmart-shooting-believed-to-be-domestic-violence-case-farmington-police-say\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:22:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:22:04","slug":"walmart-shooting-believed-to-be-domestic-violence-case-farmington-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/walmart-shooting-believed-to-be-domestic-violence-case-farmington-police-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart shooting believed to be domestic violence case, Farmington police say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Farmington
Farmington Police Department officers gather under the tree as they continue their investigation of a shooting at west Walmart on Thursday afternoon. The preliminary report states a 53-year-old Shiprock man shot a woman he had a prior relationship with before turning the gun on himself. (Curtis Ray Benally\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span>Curtis Ray Benally<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A shooting in a busy Walmart parking lot is believed to be an incident of domestic violence, Farmington police say after completing its initial investigation.<\/p>\n

A 53-year-old man, who was from Shiprock, was reportedly in a \u201cprior relationship\u201d with a 40-year-old woman, and he allegedly confronted her at work. The woman is an employee at the West Main Walmart, and she was shot around 12:30 p.m. Sept. 19 in her car outside of the business.<\/p>\n

The man turned the gun on himself after shooting the woman. He died, and she was left hospitalized in serious condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know what we were going to find when we got the call to get over there,\u201d Farmington police chief Steve Hebbe said. \u201cAnything that happens like this is shocking. To do this in a public place with other people around, it was shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hebbe said investigators have not been able to speak to the woman, who had life-threatening injuries. Farmington police also have not been able to release the names of the man or the woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still trying to get all of the next of kin notified and trying to speak with her when she\u2019s able,\u201d Hebbe said.<\/p>\n

The Walmart closed for nearly 24 hours after the shooting as police conducted its investigation.<\/p>\n

Farmington PD has made a concerted effort in 2024 to focus on domestic violence after four homicides in less than 12 months involved either family members or domestic partners.<\/p>\n

The department is providing training for young officers on how to deal with and investigate domestic violence, while also working with victim\u2019s advocates.<\/p>\n

Hebbe said he would also like to develop \u201can experimental program \u2013 a project we can run with the courts to identify violent offenders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDomestic violence is going to be an area of emphasis for us this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

December 2023 and January 2024 brought a rash of domestic violence-related homicides, according to Hebbe.<\/p>\n

The first was Dec. 13 at a home in the 2800 block of Parque de Oeste in Westland Park, where Brigitte Johnson, 34, was found fatally stabbed. Police have not made an arrest in this case, but they have identified a \u201csignificant person of interest\u201d in Johnson\u2019s death. Police are investigating a \u201cdomestic association\u201d with that case, according to Hebbe.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 1, Farmington police investigated another homicide at a trailer in the Alexander Trailer Park, 1124 Fairgrounds Road. In this case, Orson Dickie, 25, is accused of killing his brother Payson Dickie, 27, with a box cutter. This case is moving through the courts and a status conference is set for Oct. 15 in the Eleventh Judicial District Court.<\/p>\n

By Jan. 10, there was another homicide. This time Shane Jake John, 26, allegedly killed his girlfriend\u2019s brother, 28-year-old Matthew Martinez, at the Encore Motel, 1900 E. Main St. John\u2019s jury trial is set in February 2025 in the Eleventh Judicial District Court.<\/p>\n

The third homicide of 2024 came on Jan. 15, when Farmington PD found Kelsie Todacheeny, 33, dead inside a home on East 20th Street.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

injured, shooter died of self-inflicted gunshot wound<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,923,799,28,2846],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-domestic-violence","tag-farmington","tag-headlines","tag-walmart"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79012,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25603\/revisions\/79012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25603"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}