New Mexico Fugitive Made a Late Night Food ‘Run for the Border’

U.S. Marshals from California Inland Empire Team 8 and the Investigative Operations Division, working in conjunction with information received by the Las Cruces, New Mexico South West Investigative Fugitive Task Force (SWIFT), were led to a motel in Riverside County, where New Mexico’s Most Wanted Fugitive Jose Alfredo Morales was laying low and had been traveling with a large group of people.

Late in the evening, Task Force officers observed the fugitive leave the hotel room with a small child and walk across the street to the Taco Bell.

Task Force officers immediately approached him, quickly identified him and placed him under arrest for probation violation/failure to appear-aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The small child was returned to family members.

The arrest occurred without incident. Morales was booked into the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility and is pending extradition to New Mexico.

U.S. Marshals Service
Image Credit: U.S. Marshals Service

Morales was wanted by New Mexico Probation & Parole in Las Cruces for shooting that occurred in or from a motor vehicle resulting in Injury, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon resulting in great bodily harm or death, child abuse not resulting in great bodily harm or death, probation violation/absconder, evading arrest, misconduct Involving weapons, and DWI.

It was also reported that Morales allegedly threatened to kill his girlfriend with a knife, at the Petro gas station on West way Blvd. and I-10 approximately one ago.

This is how local authorities discovered that Morales was in the area and that he was a wanted fugitive.

US-Marshals

The United States Marshals Service is the nation’s oldest federal law enforcement agency. Annually, U.S. Marshals arrest more than 50 percent of all federal fugitives and serve more federal warrants than all other federal agencies combined.

Additional information about the U.S. Marshals Service can be found at http://www.usmarshals.gov.

America’s Oldest Federal Law Enforcement Agency