ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – New video showed what happened the night a 15-year-old boy was killed at a southeast Albuquerque laundromat. It showed a senseless death after a fight over a washing machine.
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What started as a typical Saturday night at the laundromat turned violent in a matter of seconds. Newly obtained surveillance video from XXL Washers on San Mateo Blvd. and Zuni Rd. showed exactly what led up to 15-year-old Michael Rowe being shot and killed back in December.
KRQE News 13 spoke to Rowe’s sister days after the shooting, and she said what happened was a senseless act of violence. “There’s never anything that anybody can do that should cause you to take another person’s life,” said Sarah Rowe in December 2024.
Video that night showed Rowe and two girls sitting, waiting for their load to finish up. Moments later, a woman, Jamel Coriz, walks up to the trio. A criminal complaint said that’s when an argument begins over the use of a washing machine.
Coriz went to punch one of the girls, and for more than five minutes, the group continued to throw punches and kicks, back and forth.
Eventually, Coriz walked outside and left, but it didn’t end there. Six minutes later, Coriz returned with her boyfriend, Oscar Orozco. Orozco walked inside the laundromat and confronted Rowe, who was now alone, and chased him outside.
Orozco chased Rowe around vehicles at the back of the parking lot before he fired a gun at Rowe’s back. Video from outside the laundromat picked up Coriz yelling at Rowe for starting it, before Coriz and Orozco got back in the car and took off.
Rowe was taken to the hospital but died shortly after. Orozco is behind bars awaiting trial.
