On the afternoon of Saturday, February 1, 1986, 23-year-old Albuquerque Police Department officer Kenneth Shawn Mcwethy was shot and killed while on duty. Mcwethy, a third-year officer and a final-year sociology student at the University of New Mexico, had been investigating a robbery at an auto-parts store and pursued a suspicious man. After making a U-turn and parking his patrol car on Pacific Avenue near Broadway Boulevard SE to face an alley, he was ambushed by a man who had hidden in nearby bushes. The attacker fired from about ten feet away; Mcwethy’s protective vest stopped the first five rounds, but additional bullets struck his chest. He was taken to the University of New Mexico Hospital and died of his wounds.

A suspect was arrested and tried twice for Mcwethy’s murder, but both trials ended in hung juries and no murder conviction resulted. The same man pleaded guilty to armed robbery and being a habitual offender and later received a lengthy prison sentence; he died in prison on July 28, 2002. Does anyone have memories of Officer Mcwethy or information about the case that could add context to this timeline?