Did UNM Police Botch their Response to Deadly Shooting on Campus? Mom of Victim Thinks So

Albuquerque –

Late Monday, the law firm of Rothstein Donatelli sent the media a letter saying they are representing the single mother of the 14-year-old that was killed at a University of New Mexico dorm. The letter highlights that the mother called the University of New Mexico Police Department (UNMPD) during the shooting and she said UNMPD did not respond to the scene until hours after the shooting took place.

“The LaMotte family is saddened and suffering from the unexpected death of their son, Michael LaMotte, who was gunned down by an active shooter at the University of New Mexico (“UNM”) campus on July 25, 2025. Michael was a kind-hearted 14-year-old boy, and his passing is a tremendous tragedy to the family and our community.

The LaMotte family, through counsel, are investigating the events that occurred on UNM’s campus to determine precisely what happened in the moments leading up to Michael’s untimely death. While the family is mourning the loss of their son, they have reason to believe neither UNM nor law enforcement responded to this shooting in a timely manner. In the early hours of July 25, 2025, Michael’s mother—Ms. LaMotte—called 911 about the shooting. The dispatch officer referred her to UNM Police Department (“UNM PD”). When Ms. LaMotte reported to UNM PD that Michael may have been the victim of a shooting, UNM PD did not respond. Hours passed between Ms. LaMotte’s initial calls to law enforcement and the police arriving at the dorm room in which the shooting took place. This lengthy delay demonstrates that the incident was not handled with the appropriate level of seriousness demanded by an active shooter on a college campus.

The failure of police and UNM to take Ms. LaMotte’s complaints seriously is unimaginable. In addition to the delayed reaction following Ms. LaMotte’s calls, law enforcement also failed to timely inform Ms. LaMotte about her son’s death. In fact, she first learned about his passing from local media outlets, despite the fact that she was on scene waiting to hear news of her son’s condition. The disorienting shock and grief of this tragedy combined with the manner in which information has been publicly released has caused indescribable frustration and sorrow for the family. Such actions by law enforcement and UNM have further aggravated the devastation of losing a child to such preventable violence on UNM’s campus.

While the LaMotte family is critical of law enforcement and UNM for how this case was handled, the family wishes to thank the New Mexico State Police for swiftly apprehending the shooter. The family respectfully requests privacy during this time of grief as they cope with this nightmare.”

On July 25th, 2025, we attended a press briefing with New Mexico State Police and UNMPD. They released preliminary information about the shooting and during the Q&A portion UNMPD was asked about their inconsistency in the timeline of responses.

One reporter asked UNM Police Chief Joseph Silva if they knew whether it was an active shooting or an isolated incident.

“Initially, the only thing I can tell you at this time is that it was a very dynamic situation. There were different multiple calls, and, they we didn’t know at the time whether they were connected or not. So that had to be vetted out. So, yeah, it did take a minute to figure out what was going on, but, you know, the first thing that we always look at is the safety and security of the campus. So, we were looking at, when, we need to, issue an alert and what information we have that we can issue a valid alert,” said UNMPD Chief Silva.

Another reporter questioned the timeline released on social media saying the shooting took place just before 4:00AM. During the press conference it was revealed that police found blood and broken glass around 1:30AM. The reporter followed up by asking if UNMPD responded to the call around the 4:00AM timeframe.

“Again, I think as I mentioned earlier, there was several calls that were coming into our dispatch center. So we were trying to vet those out to see if they were connected or not,” said Chief Silva

He was not sure how many calls came into the UNM dispatch center and Chief Silva said they would get that information to the media. Chief Silva did reveal one of the calls was a disturbance in a parking lot and could not give an exact timeframe of when other calls came in regarding this incident.

We and other media outlets still have not received any updates from UNMPD on the response times to the shooting.