Santa Fe man shot and arrested in bait car operation, says Albuquerque Police Department
Jul. 7—The Albuquerque Police Department has identified a man involved in a shootout with officers Monday morning as 26-year-old Dalton Cunningham of Santa Fe.
Cunningham is accused of stealing a city-owned bait car Albuquerque police had placed near Central Avenue and Louisiana Boulevard, according to a news release the agency issued Tuesday. He then led officers on a short chase and began firing at their vehicle, the release said.
He was charged with unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, aggravated assault on a police officer, felon in possession of a firearm and resisting or evading police.
After Cunningham broke into the bait car and began driving west on Osuna Road NE, police remotely disabled the vehicle and officers caught up with him, the Albuquerque Police Department said in the news release.
Cunningham, who was holding a black semiautomatic handgun and wearing a multicolored mask, began firing multiple shots at the windshield of the police car behind him, according to the release. Officers fired back, hitting him in the chin, before he fled on foot through an apartment complex.
Officers arrested him and took him to a hospital for treatment of a superficial wound before booking him into the Metropolitan Detention Center.
Cunningham had four outstanding arrest warrants from the Española and Santa Fe police departments on various felony charges.
In May, he was charged with aggravated assault, negligent use of a weapon, criminal damage to property and being a felon in possession of a firearm after he was accused of shooting at the father of his pregnant girlfriend's unborn baby, according to a criminal complaint filed in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court.
He is suspected of stealing a car from the parking lot of Owl's Liquor Store that same evening and crashing it near Trader Joe's before fleeing on foot. He was charged with unlawful taking of a motor vehicle.
Cunningham's most recent charges come from a June 17 incident in which he is accused of fleeing from police at a gas station in Española, according to a complaint. He was charged with fleeing from law enforcement, felon in possession of a firearm, three counts of trafficking a controlled substance and two counts of driving on the wrong side of the road.
Multiple bench warrants for 2019 cases out of Albuquerque also were outstanding at the time of his arrest.
