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The Reporter's Notebook, Ep. 44: The NMSU-UNM Rivalry Takes a Deadly Turn
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This week, we're talking to Las Cruces Sun-News lead sports reporter Jason Groves and News Director Lucas Peerman.
On Friday, Nov. 18, NMSU's men's basketball team traveled to Albuquerque to take on the Lobos Saturday in The Pit. But that game never happened. On the morning of Saturday, Nov. 19, we learned there had been a shooting on the UNM campus at around 3 a.m. Then we learned that the men's basketball game had been postponed.
As our reporters sprang into action, we began putting the pieces together and learned that 21-year-old Mike Peake, NMSU's starting power forward, had been involved in the shooting that left a 19-year-old UNM student - later identified by New Mexico State Police as Brandon Travis - dead.
Peake was hospitalized with a bullet wound to the leg. On Saturday afternoon, the team's bus was pulled over south of Socorro, according to NMSP, "as part of the ongoing investigation into the homicide at UNM." The bus was later released and allowed to return to Las Cruces. In the days that followed, police arrested two UNM students - 17-year-old Mya Hill and 19-year-old Jonathan Smith. Smith appeared before an Albuquerque judge Wednesday for a pre-trial detention hearing, at which his mother asked that the teenager be released into her custody until the case is resolved. Ultimately, the judge agreed to let him out of jail and release him into his mother's supervised care.
Throughout the week, information trickled out - sometimes from State Police, sometimes from UNM, sometimes from NMSU. At times, more than half of the Sun-News staff was working on chasing down information, piecing it together and exploring various aspects of this story. This lasted for the greater part of Thanksgiving week.
We should note that this podcast is being recorded on Friday, Nov. 25. Any developments that may happen in the not-so-distant future will, obviously, not be discussed, unfortunately.
On a week like this, I couldn't be happier to have Jason and Lucas joining us.
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