One Way Out
Homicide tied to violent New Mexico prison gang
By Ryan Lowery | February 14, 2020
A car horn disrupted the quiet July evening. Then came the gunshots. Three bullets that killed Leroy “Smurf” Lucero, leaving his wife without a husband, and his four children without their father. His violent death also shifted the focus of a nearly five-year-long FBI investigation to Las Vegas.
That federal investigation, titled Operation Atonement, began in 2015 when members of the Syndicato de Nuevo Mexico prison gang plotted to kill the cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Corrections Department, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court. Within two years of launching Operation Atonement, statewide, federal law enforcement agents arrested dozens of people believed to have ties to SNM.
According to the FBI, SNM operates under a “blood in, blood out” system wherein a prospective member must assault or kill someone in order to become a full member, and the only way out of the gang is through death.
Throughout the investigation, FBI agents were meticulously building a case against some of SNM’s top leaders, and to help secure convictions, federal authorities convinced several known SNM members and associates to testify against gang leaders.
During the investigation, federal authorities learned SNM members had made plans to kill FBI agents and federal prosecutors. They also planned to kill several government informants and witnesses.
According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court, Lucero was a former SNM leader who’d testified against members of the gang in pretrial hearings, and as a government witness during a lengthy trial. The affidavit even called Lucero’s testimony a “significant factor” in securing convictions against several SNM members.
At the time of Lucero’s death, local law enforcement dismissed possible connections to SNM or any other gang, calling such claims merely “rumors.” However, the FBI affidavit, which was unsealed in September 2019, indicated that agents had little doubt Lucero was killed because of his affiliation with SNM.
“The murder of Leroy Lucero was engineered by leaders within the SNM and perpetrated by members and associates of the gang,” the affidavit concluded.
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The plan to kill Lucero culminated on July 22, Lucero’s birthday. He’d just turned 48 and had spent the day with his family at the lake fishing and barbecuing. He’d returned home some time after 9 p.m., and he wanted to watch a movie, family members told investigators. But during that movie, around 11:30 p.m., a car pulled into Lucero’s driveway and honked.
The sound woke some neighbors in the trailer park near Mills Avenue and Hot Springs Boulevard. Others were already awake and looked outside to see three shadowy figures, dressed in black, standing next to a black vehicle.
According to Las Vegas Police Department incident reports, witnesses told police they heard shouting, and then gunshots.
Witnesses told police that after the shots were fired, the three shadowy figures hopped in the black car and drove away, leaving Lucero to bleed to death on the ground outside his home.
LVPD dispatch audio recordings and call sheet reports show dispatchers received multiple calls about the shooting, starting at 11:32 p.m. LVPD officers arrived about a minute after the first call to 911, and officers encountered a group of people near the trailer home who directed them to Lucero, who was surrounded by blood.
First responders detected a faint pulse and applied pressure to Lucero’s wounds in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Paramedics arrived within minutes and rendered further aid, but attempts to save Lucero were unsuccessful.
The Office of the Medical Investigator has ruled Lucero’s death a homicide by gunshot wound. According to an OMI autopsy, three bullets struck Lucero. One entered his upper chest on the right side of his body. A second struck him in the lower back and partially exited through the lower portion of his chest. And a third bullet traveled through his right forearm. A separate toxicology report showed that Lucero had alcohol, cocaine, methadone and heroin in his system at the time of his death.
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Evidence, including an unfired .380-caliber round and a spent casing from a .45-caliber round was collected at the scene. And as investigators conducted witness interviews, many named the same person as a potential suspect: Marcos Ruiz.
According to the FBI, Ruiz is a member of the Westside Locos gang and an SNM associate, and LVPD officers were familiar with Ruiz as well.
Since 1999, he’d been charged in a number of violent crimes — ranging from aggravated assault with a deadly weapon to voluntary manslaughter — and Ruiz was, at the time, considered a person of interest in the June 15 homicide of Cruz Gallegos.
Left Behind
Police located an unfired .380 round outside Lucero’s home.
Investigators also located a spent .45-caliber casing next to Lucero’s body.
Witnesses identified a second suspect in Lucero’s death as Robert Padilla, a man agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had been investigating since at least the fall of 2018. According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in September 2019, DEA agents believed Padilla to be the head of a drug trafficking organization responsible for trafficking 70 percent of the cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine coming into Las Vegas.
According to the affidavit, Padilla and Ruiz are cousins, and the DEA alleges Ruiz often aided Padilla in the distribution of drugs and acted as one of his “enforcers” in Las Vegas.
Federal court documents show that while Padilla was the target of a DEA investigation, the FBI didn’t start investigating him until Lucero was gunned down.
The FBI investigation concluded that Padilla and members of his organization “assisted the SNM by committing violent crimes in furtherance, or at the direction of, the SNM.”
An affidavit filed by FBI agents stated that Padilla may not have been a member of SNM, but agents believe he and members of his organization were often hired by SNM to carry out murders and other violent crimes.
As for the third shadowy figure, several witnesses identified him as Gary Coca, another familiar name to police.
Like Ruiz, since 1996, Coca had been charged with a number of serious crimes including kidnapping, drug trafficking, armed robbery and voluntary manslaughter. According to the FBI, Coca has been arrested at least 31 times in New Mexico and agents believe he was a member of Padilla’s drug trafficking organization, and a prospective member of SNM.
At least one witness identified Marcos Ruiz as the driver of the car leaving the scene that evening. According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in September 2019, DEA agents believe Ruiz works for an alleged drug trafficker, Robert Padilla. Federal authorities say Ruiz often aided Padilla in the distribution of drugs and acted as one of his “enforcers” in Las Vegas.
While some witnesses reported seeing Marcos Ruiz behind the wheel of the car leaving the scene that night, others identified the driver as Robert Padilla, a man agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had been investigating since at least the fall of 2018. According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in September 2019, DEA agents believe Padilla is the head of a drug trafficking organization responsible for trafficking 70 percent of the cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine coming into Las Vegas.
Federal court documents show that while Padilla was the target of a DEA investigation, the FBI didn’t start investigating him until Lucero was gunned down.
A third man was believed to have been involved in the death of Lucero, and some witnesses told police it was a man named Gary Coca.
According to the FBI, Coca has been arrested at least 31 times in New Mexico, and agents believe he was a member of Padilla’s drug trafficking organization, and a prospective member of SNM.
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In the days after Lucero was killed, police searched for the vehicle witnesses reported honking at Lucero’s home that night: a black four-door car.
On July 29, LVPD stopped a black four-door car near Grand Avenue and Alamo Street, but the driver fled on foot. The officer wrote in a report that he believed the driver of the car was Gary Coca.
The car was towed to a New Mexico State Police impound lot and police searched the vehicle’s identification number. The car was registered to a one-time girlfriend of Robert Padilla, and according to a search warrant affidavit filed in federal court, a search of that car turned up a handgun matching the characteristics of one of the guns used to shoot Lucero.
Coca was arrested in Albuquerque about two weeks later on a warrant from San Miguel County. Police had been looking for Coca since July 16 after a man checked into Alta Vista Regional Hospital with a gunshot wound. The man told police Coca had punched him in the face before shooting him in the torso with a handgun.
While in custody in Albuquerque, Coca was questioned by investigators about Lucero’s death, according to an LVPD investigation report obtained through a public records request.
Coca told investigators he and Lucero were childhood friends, but denied killing him, telling investigators he was getting high with a friend at the time. Coca admitted to knowing Padilla and Ruiz as well, telling police they’d grown up together.
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To date, no one has been charged in Lucero’s death.
Chief of Police David Bibb said the case had been entirely handed over to the FBI. Frank Fisher, an FBI spokesman, said Lucero’s death is still under investigation by the FBI, but said he could not provide any further details on the case.
Representatives from the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment on this story, but federal court records show that Coca, Padilla and Ruiz are currently in federal custody on charges not related to the slaying of Lucero.
Coca was placed in federal custody in September and is currently awaiting trial on federal charges of interference with commerce by threats or violence and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
Padilla was arrested in September and is currently awaiting trial on federal charges of possession with the intent to distribute fentanyl, distribution of fentanyl and distribution of cocaine.
Ruiz was arrested by LVPD in August and charged with first-degree murder in a separate case where he’s accused of killing Marcos “Mark” Carrillo and attempting to kill Gilbert Montoya during an Aug. 3, 2019, double shooting in Las Vegas. Court records show Ruiz was placed in federal custody on Jan. 17.
Fourth Judicial District Attorney Richard Flores told the Optic that in some cases, federal prosecutors will request that local charges be dropped so the Department of Justice can prosecute at the federal level, but Flores said he had not received a request by federal prosecutors to drop charges in the murder case against Ruiz.
