This week, the city of Las Cruces, New Mexicoagreed to the terms of a $20 million settlement proposed to the family of Teresa Gomez, an unarmed 45-year-old killed in a 2023 police shooting.

Gomez was sitting in a car outside a public housing complex in the early hours of October 3, 2023, when Felipe Hernandez, an officer on a bicycle patrol, told her that she should not be outside the complex at that time and he questioned her. . The officer berated the woman, threatening to make her life a “living hell,” according to a lawsuit. As he slowly backed out of the parking space, the office fired three shots, one of which struck Gomez in the lung, killing her.

The proposed settlement, which the city appointed a reflection of his “deep sense of loss at Gomez’s death” is notable for several reasons. Its according to reports the largest settlement Las Cruces has ever paid and comes as Hernandez, who was released from bond in May of this year, faces a second-degree murder trial in 2025 over the incident.

While police chases are rare in New Mexico — and across America — officer-involved shootings are not. For years, New Mexico has been one of the places with the highest per capita rate of police shooting people.

In 2024, the state was the single deadliest place in the country for fatal police shootings, according to Mapping Police Violence databasewith 12.75 people per million killed by police.

Violence fell disproportionately on people of color, with people of color 3.4 times more likely to be killed by police than whites and Hispanics 1.5 times more likely, according to the database.

A variety of factors influence New Mexico’s high rate of police shootings.

First, there are a lot of guns in the state, which amplifies the tenor of encounters with the police. State ranks in the top half of gun ownership in the USA

The state “is rural, people rely on self-protection,” Maryam Ahranjani, a law professor at the University of New Mexico, said NPR last year after Farmington police accidentally shot someone during a domestic violence call. “From a personal safety standpoint, it makes sense for officers to keep themselves safe as well.”

While the state recently did passed a number of gun safety laws such as background checks on sales and extreme risk laws, earning praise from groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety, New Mexico had third highest rate of gun deaths in total from last year.

Others criticized poor accountability and individual police departments for the problem.

As of 2015, the Albuquerque Police Department was under federal supervisionin part because of the high rate of use of force.

Despite the additional control, in 2022shot 18 people, 10 fatally, a total higher than New York, Houston and Los Angeles, cities with much larger populations. Between 2015 and 2021, Albuquerque had the second-highest rate of fatal police shootings, only behind Las Vegas.

Few officer-involved shootings in New Mexico are punished.

A review found that between 2013 and 2022, only one incident out of hundreds of fatal and nonfatal shootings resulted in criminal charges for the officer involved. Another found that civilians won in less than 20 percent of their attempted complaints about the police.

Economic factors could also play a role.

Studies show that poverty helps create the conditions that lead to both crime and police shootingss. In 2023, New Mexico was the third poorest state in the nation and the poorest state outside the South.

In the face of all this police violence, New Mexico has also sought to open up new solutions.

Albuquerque has one of the most ambitious non-police emergency first responder programs in which unarmed personnel can respond to calls involving the homeless, the mentally ill, and those using drugs and alcohol.

Of the city Albuquerque Department of Community Safetycreated in 2020, accepts most non-violent calls involving mental and behavioral health crises.

However, the state is not the only one struggling. Despite a decade of Black Lives Matter activism focused on reforming police departments, 2023 was the deadliest year of 2013 for officer-involved shootings.