Jul. 28—Albuquerque was jarred on Mother’s Day 2022 by news that two teenagers were fatally shot by a gunman who then turned the gun on himself in a busy shopping area near Cottonwood Mall.
Alexia Rael, 17, and her cousin, 16-year-old Mario Salgado-Rosales, were murdered in a car after shopping at Party City for Mother’s Day gifts on May 8, 2022. Police found the teens and the gunman dead at the scene.
Albuquerque police soon learned that the gunman, Bradley Wallin, a 52-year-old bank supervisor, was “infatuated” with Rael and had stalked her for weeks, even swapping cars to evade a judge’s restraining order.
At the time of the killings, Wallin had been accused of sexually abusing Rael and two other underage girls.
Rael’s mother, Vanessa Salgado, alleges in a new lawsuit that Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputies ignored a legal requirement that they use New Mexico’s red flag law to seize multiple firearms Wallin was known to possess.
Salgado’s attorney, Carey Bhalla, said that deputies could have taken actions to protect Rael, either by petitioning a judge to seize his firearms, or by arresting him on child abuse charges.
“It’s amazing to me that there were no steps taken to either take this guy’s guns away or take this guy off the street,” Bhalla said in a phone interview with the Journal.
The 2nd Judicial District Court lawsuit identifies as defendants Bernalillo County, Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and Manny Gonzales, who was the county sheriff at the time. The suit seeks unspecified damages.
Tia Bland, Bernalillo County’s spokeswoman, declined to comment about the lawsuit. Bland said BCSO also had no comment.
Red flag law
New Mexico’s Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Order Act (ERFPO Act), also known as the red flag law, can be used to remove firearms from a person found by a judge to be a danger to themselves or others. Only a law enforcement officer or the district attorney’s office are allowed to file ERFPO petitions, and they must be approved by a district court judge.
In this case, the law required deputies to file an ERFPO petition, the lawsuit contends.
The state’s ERFPO law requires law enforcement officers to file an ERFPO petition if there is “credible information from a reporting party that gives the agency or officer probable cause to believe that a respondent poses a significant danger of causing imminent personal injury to self or others.”
The lawsuit alleges that Salgado and Rael — the reporting parties — provided deputies with credible information “that Wallin was armed, dangerous, and had been monitoring (Rael’s) movements.”
Law enforcement has been slow to embrace the state’s red flag law, but usage has increased over time. The ERFPO Act became effective in May 2020, two years prior to the double murder.
In 2023, 47 ERFPO petitions were filed statewide, including 30 in Bernalillo County, according to data published by the Administrative Office of the Courts.
This year through June 28, 47 petitions were filed, including 31 in Bernalillo County.
Timeline
The lawsuit sets out a five-week series of events that preceded the killings.
On March 31, 2022, Rael told her mother that she had been sexually abused since she was 10 years old by Wallin, Salgado’s live-in boyfriend, the lawsuit said. Salgado confronted Wallin that evening and told him to “collect his things and leave.”
The following day, Salgado called 911 to report the abuse. Three BCSO deputies, including a detective, came to her home that day.
Salgado and Rael told deputies that Wallin had sexually abused her and a second underage girl. They also told deputies about an incident the night before in which Wallin confronted Rael outside her workplace and warned her not to tell anyone about the sexual abuse.
Salgado also showed the deputies where Wallin kept multiple firearms. Deputies failed to secure the guns and failed to inform Salgado or anyone in the house about New Mexico’s red flag law, the suit alleges. Salgado was unaware of the law.
Salgado filed a petition in 2nd Judicial District Court on April 4, 2022, on behalf of her daughter, alleging that Wallin possessed two handguns and had sexually abused Rael. A judge issued a temporary restraining order that day.
Deputies “didn’t tell (Salgado) they could file an ERFPO on her behalf,” Bhalla said. “Never once did they advise her that they could do that for her. I think they were required to under the law, and I also think that common sense dictates that they should have.”
The suit also alleges that BCSO Detective Patrick Delp failed to interview Wallin or his roommate in the five weeks he investigated the child abuse allegations. Wallin and Salgado lived together for 12 years. After Salgado kicked Wallin out of her home, Wallin moved in with a man referred to in the suit as his roommate.
After the homicides, an Albuquerque Police Department detective interviewed Wallin’s roommate, who said that Wallin was “infatuated” with Rael and believed that nothing was wrong with his sexual relationship with the girl.
The roommate also told police that Wallin routinely carried a gun and frequently drove by Salgado’s home and Rael’s workplace to keep tabs on the girl, the suit alleges. Wallin eventually rented an apartment that was five minutes by car from Rael’s workplace.
Wallin was aware that Salgado had obtained a restraining order against him and feared that she would force him to surrender his firearms to law enforcement, the roommate told police. Wallin also traded in his car to avoid Rael’s notice, the roommate said.
“All of these facts could have easily been discovered had (BCSO) attempted to investigate Wallin” or interview him about Rael’s allegations, the suit alleges.
