Brothers sought in fatal shooting

Man killed, woman injured; police say suspect and sibling may have fled to Mexico

Geoff Grammer | The New Mexican
Posted: Monday, April 11, 2011 - 4/12/11

A man who police say was deported to Mexico in 2005 may be heading there again.

An arrest warrant charging Apolinar "Antonio" Islas Hernandez, 29, with an open count of murder has been issued after police say he shot and killed a man in the Coronado Condominiums, 2800 Cerrillos Road, early Monday morning.

As of late Monday, Santa Fe police had not released the name of the man who was killed nor the name of a woman who was shot and is listed in stable condition at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.

A motive for the shooting has not been identified by police, but a small-caliber handgun was recovered at the scene, and a van belonging to Hernandez was found several blocks away, near an apartment in the 1300 block of Luana Street, where he and his brother, 27-year-old Abel Cazares Hernandez, are believed to have gone after the shooting.

"They are from Mexico, and it is certainly a possibility they are trying to flee there," Deputy Police Chief William Johnson said. "That doesn't mean we have received any specific information to that effect, but we are following up on a number of leads and possibilities."

By the time the Santa Fe Police SWAT team obtained authorization to enter the home around 7 a.m., nobody was inside.

While Santa Fe police say they know little about Abel Hernandez, they learned from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials that Apolinar Hernandez was deported for an unspecified reason from El Paso in 2005.

A resident alien card with Apolinar Hernandez's picture on it was found by Santa Fe police, according to Deputy Police Chief Gillian Alessio, but the card was fake and contained information from an unknown woman out of state.

The photo from that fake identification card was used Monday morning by police on a "wanted poster" for the man, who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and 160 pounds. His brother, Abel Hernandez, has not had an arrest warrant issued for him, but is being sought by police for questioning. The brothers are considered armed and dangerous, and investigators urge anyone with information on their whereabouts to call police at 428-3710.

Alessio said 911 calls of shots fired in the apartment, where a small group of people were gathered, came around 12:15 a.m. Monday. When police arrived, they discovered the Hernandez brothers had already left the scene. However, officers did recover the gun witnesses say Apolinar Hernandez used to shoot the man and woman.

Police would not disclose the number of shots fired, how many times the victims were shot, where they were shot or what witnesses disclosed as the cause of an argument that led to the shooting.

Neither Hernandez brother has been booked into the Santa Fe County jail or has a criminal record in Santa Fe, according to online databases.

Contact Geoff Grammer at 986-3076 or ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at SantaFeCrime.com.

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