ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Around 10 a.m. Saturday, Mayor Keller and Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina were scheduled to have a news conference about curbing crime near the Adam Food Market.

As Medina and his wife were on their way there, he witnessed a shooting, and to avoid gunfire, he ended up crashing into another car.

“As they drove up Central, he noticed a homeless encampment over on Alvarado just north of Central. He noted it appeared to him that the cabinet was blocking the sidewalk,” said APD Communications Director Gilbert Gallegos. 

APD and the city have been enforcing against letting homeless encampments take over sidewalks.

Gallegos says Medina was in the process of notifying the commander of the area so they could remove the encampment when two people started physically fighting.

“As he was turning on his police radio to call it out, he noticed that one of them brandished a gun. One person kicked the other individual and that individual started firing shots in the direction of where the chief was in his truck. At that point, the chief pulled forward in his vehicle. Another car was coming in a different direction, and they crashed into each other,” said Gallegos. 

A man in the other car was hurt. Gallegos says he was taken to the hospital and is expected to fully recover.

The person who was shot at was not hurt. The person who had the gun ran away.

Keller commended the chief’s actions.

“This is actually him on a Saturday morning, disrupting an altercation, a shooting, trying to do what’s right, trying to make sure that folks are okay after on scene. This is above and beyond what you expect from a chief, and I’m grateful for Harold Medina,” said Keller. 

Keller also said this incident speaks to the dire need of making the city safer.

“For us, we need to continue that clarion call for at every single level to do everything we can to make our city safer,” said Keller. “We don’t know any details, but would not be surprised if there was fentanyl, or whatever other illegal substance could have been exchanged. These are the kinds of things that we absolutely have to address. And this is not going to change unless we have major steps that we can take at every level.”

Medina and his wife were not hurt in the crash.

APD says they’re searching for the two people involved in the fight.