Three cousins, one shared kitchen, and a pot of enchiladas. That’s how the night of August 27 began in an apartment at the Copper Hills complex in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Ervin Joaquín Gutiérrez, 22, insisted that his dish was spicier than Nathaniel Cavazos’s, 25. Cavazos replied that they had eaten exactly the same thing. A third cousin tried to defuse the tension by suggesting they take the dog for a walk. It did no good: the argument escalated into a fistfight, and Cavazos ended up beating Gutiérrez until he bled.
What followed happened within seconds. Gutiérrez told him “We’re family! How could you do this to me?” and shot him three to four times in the back as Cavazos tried to get away, from just three meters away. Police found him that night, shortly before eleven, unconscious in a pool of blood on a walkway between buildings. Gutiérrez fled before officers arrived, but was arrested two days later and faces an open murder charge.
