ADVERTISEMENTSkip

................................................................

Gilbert Gallegos, a police spokesman, said the offender’s vehicle was a 2008 to 2010 dark blue Nissan Armada, with a temporary license plate and very dark tint on the windows. The suspect vehicle continued south after the shooting, Gallegos said.

Barnes said he first noticed the SUV in his rearview mirror while driving west on Interstate 40 near Wyoming. He couldn’t see through the tinted windows, but it was moving fast and passing people, at times by driving on the shoulder.

Barnes said the vehicle sometimes swerved across all lanes of traffic or into tight spaces between cars.

“He was driving like a maniac,” Barnes said. “He had to have hit somebody.”

Barnes said he sped up, too, so the SUV wouldn’t pass him. Shortly after they merged onto southbound Interstate 25, he was parallel with the SUV and its windows were down, he said. Barnes said a woman was driving, and a man sat in the passenger seat, holding a gun.

“If you cut someone off you shouldn’t have to worry about dying,” Barnes said.

Barnes said a bullet went through the door of his Nissan Altima. He was struck in the back of the left leg, where the bullet damaged an artery, and then went in and out of his right leg.

“I couldn’t feel my legs. Blood was pouring out of my jeans,” he said. “I was in shock.”

Barnes said he pulled over and was too anxious to unlock his phone. He opened his door, fell out of his vehicle and started signaling for help.

He estimated he lay on the ground in a panic for about seven minutes. He said more than 100 cars drove past, including a police car, before a tow truck driver stopped to help. By that time he had calmed down enough to call 911. He wrapped clothing around his leg to stanch the bleeding, he said.

Barnes said he was thinking about how such a common activity – he drives on the freeway regularly – turned into a life-and-death matter.

“I saw my life flash before my eyes today,” he said after his surgery to repair his left leg.

Barnes isn’t the first Albuquerque driver to be shot while in a moving vehicle.

In 2014, a woman was shot in the face when she was driving on Paseo del Norte between Golf Course and Unser on a weekday afternoon. Police at the time said it appeared that the shooter was firing from a pedestrian bridge or a nearby mesa. The victim survived. And in 2015, 4-year-old Lilly Garcia was shot and killed in an apparent road rage incident. She was a passenger in a vehicle traveling on Interstate 40.

Police seek information

Police are asking anyone who witnessed Thursday’s shooting to call Crime Stoppers at 843-STOP (7867).