Teens charged with murder nearly a year after cyclist on way to work was intentionally hit by stolen vehicle

Video released Tuesday shows the moments leading up to when, New Mexico police say, a stolen vehicle full of youths intentionally struck and killed a bicycle commuter.

The cellphone video was released a day after the teenager who police said was driving was arrested on a charge of murder, Albuquerque police said Tuesday.

The 13-year-old accused of driving and the two others in the car when the cyclist was killed last year are “runaways” and “dropouts,” Mayor Tim Keller said at a news conference.

“These children are murderers,” he said.

The passengers were 15 and 11 at the time. The youngest is too young for criminal prosecution, police said.

The police department announced Tuesday night that the 11-year-old had been taken into custody but that they were still looking for the 15-year-old.

The state Children, Youth & Families Department will take custody of the 11-year-old and evaluate him, police said. That agency took him into custody in June, police said.

Police Chief Harold Medina said at Tuesday’s news conference with Keller that the boy at the time could not be prosecuted or confined effectively because of his age.

The older boys have been charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leaving the scene of a collision involving injury or death and unlawful possession of a firearm, police said in the statement.

The state public defender’s juvenile unit for the Albuquerque area did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Juveniles in children’s court are automatically assigned public defenders, according to the New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender.

Scott Dwight Habermehl, 63, a Ph.D. physicist from Corrales, a community 16 miles north of Albuquerque, was killed May 29. He was bicycling to his job as a military contractor at Sandia National Laboratories when he was struck, police said.

“Scott was riding his bike with his helmet in a bike lane with a safety light on when he was struck by a car, and the car left,” Police Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock said at the news conference.

According to a detailed obituary published by Daniels Family Funerals & Cremation, Habermehl’s contributions at Sandia, where he was also remembered as a mentor and scholar, led to six patents and included work on keeping computer microchips resistant to radiation.

“These are techniques that are still used to this day for national security and space applications,” the obituary said.

He and his partner, Dr. Jamie Philpott, an Albuquerque-area veterinarian, have two grown sons, it said, adding that Habermehl recently completed construction of a home in Leadville, Colorado, a historic town surrounded by some of the Rocky Mountains’ highest peaks, as a family retreat.

The case was initially considered a hit-and-run, officials said.

“The case was actually closed pending further leads,” Hartsock, who oversees the police department’s Criminal Investigation Division and any homicide probes, said at the news conference.

In February, two youths reported the existence of the video to a parent and a school administrator, police said. It was allegedly taken from inside the stolen vehicle that struck Habermehl and later posted to Instagram, Hartsock said.

The video helped investigators identify the three youths and obtain arrest warrants last week for two of them, according to police. The youths had had previous run-ins with law enforcement and were relatively easy to find, the commander said.

Police Chief Harold Medina described the three youths as friends who were on officers’ radar about this time last year.

Police said the recording includes audio in which the 15-year-old can be heard encouraging the 13-year-old, who they say was driving, to “just bump him, brah.” The video indicates the vehicle accelerated before it hit Habermehl, police said in Tuesday’s statement.

“The front passenger, believed to be the 11-year-old who was waving a handgun, ducked and laughed as the front, passenger side of the vehicle struck Habermehl,” police said in the statement.

The statement continued, “There were loud sounds, including metal flexing, as the momentum of the crash carried Habermehl and his bicycle on top, and off, the passenger side of the vehicle.”

The 13-year-old was taken into custody Monday. He was on juvenile probation, and probation officials were able to help police locate him, Medina said.

The 15-year-old whom police are looking last year was suspected in doorbell thefts, participating in a $15,000 burglary of beer, alcohol and cigarettes, and a minor-injury shooting, police said.