Target of SWAT raid charged with murder

Albuquerque police on Thursday charged the man targeted in a SWAT raid a week earlier with an unrelated robbery and murder of a local photographer.

Det. Leah Wise on Thursday night filed a criminal complaint in Bernalillo Metropolitan Court against Qiaunt Kelley, 27, charging him with murder and armed robbery with a deadly weapon.

Wise on June 30 interviewed a confidential informant who told her that five days earlier, the alleged victim Leonard Fresquez gave them a ride to an apartment. The informant is not named in the criminal complaint.

The informant told Wise they heard from another person that Fresquez was robbed. That person said they heard gunshots and went outside to see if Fresquez was OK, according to the warrant. Fresquez was found with three gunshot wounds and later died at UNM Hospital. He was 41.

The informant told Wise they saw someone called “Q” hiding behind a fence holding a gun but “couldn’t be sure it was ‘Q’ because ‘Q’ had a material or a mask wrapped around his face,” Wise wrote.

The informant told Wise they “would provide more information once ‘Q’ was taken into custody.”

Wise asked another detective, Christopher Maes, if he knew who “Q” was. Maes told Wise that “Q” was Kelley.

The SWAT raid happened 11 days later on July 7.

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Wise interviewed the informant again on July 8, and they told her that they knew “Q” was Kelley because he was at their apartment earlier on the day that Fresquez died and in the weeks prior, and “was wearing the same black and white flannel jacket prior to the shooting.”

Wise then showed the informant a picture of Kelley, and they told her it was “Q.”

Another informant, also not named in the complaint, told Wise that they heard the gunshots and saw a young man lying in the street.

A third unnamed informant told Wise that on June 23, they saw another man, Ezekiel Tenorio, saying he wanted to fight “Q.” The informant said they walked away, heard gunfire, saw “Q” run toward them while holding a box they believed “Q” kept his gun, and then found Tenorio with a gunshot wound to his leg.

Wise wrote that the 9mm bullet casings found at the scene of the June 23 shooting “matched” those found two days later at the scene where Fresquez was killed. It is not clear from the complaint how this match was determined.

As of Friday afternoon, there were no hearings scheduled in the murder case, and no apparent charges for the shooting of Tenorio, according to court records.