An Allsup's employee died Wednesday morning (Jan. 8) after being stabbed in an altercation outside the Allsup's on Paseo Del Pueblo Sur in Taos, according to Taos Police Lt. Stephen Ortega.
Ortega said that video surveillance of the incident shows that at 7:22 a.m., the suspect, Alden Lujan, and the victim exchanged words, walked outside and then swung at each other. When Lujan launched his fist, he held a knife and struck the victim near his collarbone.
”What we do know is that Alden was a customer going into the store,” Ortega said. “According to video surveillance, it looked like he had some words exchanged with the victim. In this, we learned the victim was an employee of Allsup's. What we gathered was this was his very first day there.”
He added, “With that one strike, he struck the victim. It was near the collarbone area. There’s an artery there that I'm pretty sure he hit, so that caused him to lose a lot of blood really fast.”
Taos Police Department and a Taos County Sheriff's deputy responded to the scene. The deputy was able to identify the suspect from video surveillance. They ran his name and a gold Subaru came up as registered to him, the same vehicle witnesses saw leaving Allsup's.
The victim was transported to Holy Cross Medical Center, but succumbed to his injuries at about 8 a.m. Taos Police detectives collected evidence from the scene, including bloodstain samples.
State police was not on scene, but searched through potential home addresses for the suspect and were given information to look for his vehicle. The sheriff's deputy searched through addresses as well. At 8:47 a.m, Ortega said they received a call from Summer Mirabal, Taos Pueblo chief of police.
”They came over the radio saying the suspect wanted to turn himself into the tribal police department,” Ortega said. “When our detectives coordinated with tribal police, they met him over there on the Pueblo, got guided in there and they coordinated that exchange to seal the vehicle, take the vehicle and then take custody of Alden.”
Lujan is being detained in the Taos County Detention Center. The next of kin had not been notified as of press time and the victim’s name remains unreleased.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
All comment authors MUST use their real names. Posts that cannot be ascribed to a real person
will not be moderated.
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.