Andrew Jowell Madrid, known as AJ, was a 16-year-old sophomore and junior varsity baseball player at Centennial High School in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Described by family and teammates as joyful, kind and playful, he had played baseball since age four and hoped to play in college while pursuing ambitions in engineering, YouTube or pyrotechnics. He was the son of Ignacio and Marcy Madrid and followed his older brother Adrian into the sport.

On the night of March 21, 2025, AJ attended an unsanctioned car show at Young Park where a fight between two groups escalated and at least four people began firing into the crowd. AJ was shot and killed; two other young men, 19-year-old Dominick Estrada and 17-year-old Jason Gomez, also died. Fourteen others, ages 16 to 36, were injured. Investigators recovered multiple firearms after arrests and the district attorney said the defendants would be charged as adults.

In February 2026 a Doña Ana County jury found Tomas Rivas guilty of three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Madrid, Estrada and Gomez under a depraved mind murder theory. The community held vigils and AJ’s funeral mass was at The Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral, where teammates remembered how he played with his hair on fire. A sentencing hearing had not yet been scheduled.

Did anyone at the March 21 car show know AJ or see what happened that night?