The fourth man, who has not been identified, was killed Friday night. According to a police news release, officers responded shortly before midnight Friday to reports of shots fired in the area of Truman St. and Grand Ave. and found the victim dead. The victim, a Muslim man believed to be in his 20s, was from South Asia, police said. His identity has not been positively confirmed, the statement added. The man’s death came a day after authorities determined there was a link between the murders of Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, and Aftab Hussein, 41, both Muslims and Pakistanis, who were killed in southeast Albuquerque in the past two weeks. Detectives are working to determine whether the killing of Mohammad Ahmadi, a Muslim man from Afghanistan who was killed outside a business he ran with his brother, was also related. The victims in the first three cases were all “ambushed without warning, shot and killed,” Kyle Hartsock, deputy commander of the police department’s Criminal Investigation Division, said earlier. “Our top priority is keeping the community safe, and we’re asking the Muslim community in particular, to be vigilant, to look out for each other. If you see something, say something,” the police chief said Saturday. “Evil shall not prevail.”
The 27-year-old victim was a ‘brilliant civil servant’
Hussain, who was killed on August 1, worked on the planning team for the city of Española, New Mexico, and Mayor John Ramon Vigil was “deeply saddened” to hear of the 27-year-old’s death. “Muhammad was soft-spoken and kind and quick to laugh,” Vigil said in a news release last Wednesday. “He was well-respected and well-liked by his colleagues and members of the community.” Hussain, who has been with the office for a year, studied law and human resources management at Punjab University in Pakistan, the mayor’s release said, before earning a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in community and regional planning from the University of New Mexico. Hussain’s interest, the mayor’s office said, “was in improving conditions and inclusion for disadvantaged minorities.” “Our City staff has lost a member of our family, and we have all lost a brilliant public servant who wanted to serve and improve his community,” the mayor’s statement said. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is also offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible, the organization said, calling the killing spree a “horrific, despicable shooting spree.” “We thank local, state and federal law enforcement for their continued work on this crisis and call on the Biden administration to ensure that authorities have all the resources needed to protect Albuquerque’s Muslim community and stop those responsible for these horrific crimes before they claim more innocent lives,” CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in the statement. CNN’s Michelle Watson and Dakin Andone contributed to this report.