A teenager who recorded himself shooting out the window of a passing semi truck was taken into custody by Albuquerque police on Tuesday.
The incident happened in New Mexico back in January of this year, but the teenager, 18-year-old Koby Garcia, was taken into custody this week on April 24th.
According to KRQE News, trucker Jeff Gutierrez, who reached out to LiveTrucking to share his story, and his wife, co-pilot Yvonne Spiwak, say the two were traveling along Interstate 40 near Albuquerque when a car full of teenagers pulled up beside them and shot out their driver’s side window with a pellet gun.
“I was just kind of like… what? What’s going on here,” said Gutierrez of the incident.
“It was terrifying. There’s glass blowing … it’s just blowing everywhere, so we’re just trying to be calm,” said Spiwak.
“Jeff does have a heart condition, anything could have happened.”
“If I hadn’t remained control, under control, and I had lost control of the truck, you would looking at something a whole lot worse,” said Gutierrez, who has been driving semi trucks for seven years.
Police were able to locate the responsible shooter thanks to a video posted to the World Star Hip Hop Instagram page by a friend of the culprit.
The video, which police say tagged an account thought to be an old username of Garcia’s, shows three young men in a car before panning over to the window of the semi truck. One of the boys then shoots a pellet gun off screen, and the driver’s side window of the big rig can be seen shattering into multiple pieces. The boys can then be heard laughing and cursing as the video shuts off.
Garcia was a basketball player and a junior at Grants High School at the time of his arrest, though his status with the team following the arrest is not known. He is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque on a $30,000 cash only bond.
“Think!” said Gutierrez when asked what he had to say to others who might engage in this sort of reckless behavior.
“To those kids out there that think that in some way this is funny – it’s not.”