Las Cruces car wash fight that ended in death was over dog feces according to court documents

Court documents reveal that a fight at a Las Cruces car wash on Wednesday was over dog feces.

Police charged a car wash attendant, 57-year-old Leo Molina, with an open count of murder after he allegedly shot and killed 39-year-old Gregory Cleto Fernandez.

It happened on the 500 block of North Valley at Hadley in North-Central Las Cruces.

Police said Gregory Cleto Fernandez, 39, drove a pick up to the car wash. He was parked in one of the bays when he allegedly got into a fight with the attendant, 57-year-old Leo Molina.

Molina allegedly pulled out a gun and shot Fernandez in the upper torso, according to police.

Fernandez died at a nearby hospital. Molina was also injured during the fight and required medical treatment at a hospital. Police said he will be jailed when he is released.

ABC-7 spoke with Fernandez’s sister over the phone Friday but she did not want to speak on camera. She said the family is taking Fernandez’s death extremely hard.

According to court documents, witnesses told Las Cruces Police Molina began arguing with Fernandez.

The fight quickly escalated with the two shoving each other.

Witnesses say Fernandez tried to walk away from Molina twice, but Molina allegedly shoved Fernandez into a wall, grabbed him by his shirt and swung him to the ground.

Witnesses say the two began wrestling on the ground when shots were fired.

According to court documents, Molina told police he was agitated because he told Fernandez several times not to wash dog poop out of the back of his truck at his car wash. Fernandez did it again Wednesday.

Molina told police he went to the city’s codes department last Friday and complained about Fernandez washing poop out of his truck at the car wash.

Molina told the codes department it happened more than once and “that it needed to stop.” He also said he wanted something done right away.

The codes employee told Molina she would send an officer to respond and they would determine what to do about it.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, if this doesn’t go the way I want, I have a gun and I’ll take care of this myself,” Molina allegedly told the codes employee, according to the court documents.

The codes employee responded, “please don’t” and Molina left the office.

ABC-7 reached out to the codes department for comment and referred ABC-7 to the police department.