In the early morning hours of September 10, 2024, a grim discovery was made at Manuel Herrera Jr. Park on the Southside of Tucson, Arizona. A 9-1-1 call reported an unresponsive male at the park, and responding patrol officers found 35-year-old Angel Reyes Martinez with gunshot trauma. Despite the life-saving efforts of the officers and the subsequent arrival of the Tucson Fire Department, Martinez was pronounced deceased at the scene.
His family was located and notified of his death.
As detectives from the Homicide Unit began their investigation, searching for witnesses and forensic evidence, a complex and violent story began to unfold. They learned that just hours before his death, around 1:00 a.m., Angel Martinez had been involved in an armed robbery at a smoke shop on E. Speedway Blvd. Martinez and an accomplice, both armed, entered the shop and demanded money. During the robbery, they physically assaulted a store employee, who sustained non-life-threatening injuries from sharp-force trauma and was also shot at but not hit by the gunfire.
Through their investigation, homicide detectives identified Martinez's accomplice in the robbery as 26-year-old Alejandro Ray Gamez. They also came to believe that it was Gamez who had fatally shot his own partner in the crime, Angel Martinez, at the park just hours later. Further investigation revealed that Gamez was a suspect in a series of other recent armed robberies throughout the metro Tucson area.
The search for Alejandro Gamez came to a dramatic end on September 14, 2024. At approximately 5:00 a.m., an officer on patrol on Tucson's Westside located a vehicle associated with Gamez. The vehicle pulled into an apartment complex on N. Stone Ave., and as additional officers responded, Gamez exited the vehicle and opened fire on a TPD Sergeant's patrol car. Following the shooting, personnel from the Tucson Fire Department pronounced Alejandro Gamez deceased at the scene. No officers or any other community members were injured during this final confrontation.
