He Stopped to Help and Never Made It Home: How Officer Justin Hare’s Simple Act of Kindness Cost Him His Life

It was 5:30 a.m. on March 15, 2024, when Officer Justin Hare pulled his patrol vehicle to the side of Interstate 40 in Tucumcari, N.M., to help a stranded motorist.

As the five-year New Mexico State Police veteran drove up behind a white BMW, Jaremy Smith immediately exited the car to approach 35-year-old Hare’s passenger window. Smith asked the officer for a ride into town so that he could take care of his flat tire, and Hare willingly agreed.

“Go ahead and go to the front of my car real quick, I’ll meet you up there real quick,” Hare said, according to officer body cam footage featured in the season 1 premiere episode of Crime in Progress on A&E Crime + Investigation. The story is told exclusively through police body cam and surveillance footage.

Before Hare could finish his next sentence, Smith whipped out a stolen 9mm pistol and shot the policeman. He then hurried to the driver’s side, fired off two more rounds and pushed Hare’s body into the passenger side. Smith proceeded to get behind the wheel and drive off with Hare still inside.

Hare’s radio went silent, and dispatch was unable to get a hold of him, prompting several units to respond to his last known location on I-40. Around that time, Smith was already seven miles away disposing of the officer’s body on the side of a road. Meanwhile, Hare had managed to activate his police cruiser’s duress signal, secretly notifying dispatch that he was in danger.

Smith got back into Hare’s car and took off. Another officer witnessed the marked vehicle speeding in the opposite direction, and a chase ensued. Ten minutes later, the perpetrator crashed the car into some bushes and fled on foot.

Meanwhile, Hare’s bullet-ridden body was found on the roadside by his friend and fellow NMSP Officer Xavier Garcia, who was visibly shaken up but reassured Hare that he was OK, according to the victim’s body cam. A second officer arrived shortly after and pleaded with Hare to “keep fighting.”

Hare was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead that same morning, intensifying the manhunt for his murderer.

“The last words Officer Hare uttered on this earth was to offer help to a person he thought was in need. That person killed him in cold blood,” Chief Troy Weisler of the New Mexico State Police told reporters during a press conference on the fatal shooting.

After fleeing on foot, Smith broke into a cabin and stole a truck 20 miles away in Cuervo, N.M. Authorities believed he was heading 130 miles west to Albuquerque to see an ex-girlfriend.

On March 17, 2024, authorities got a break in the case when an Albuquerque gas station clerk recognized the fugitive purchasing cigarettes. She called 911, and multiple responding officers tracked him down to an area neighborhood. However, Smith did not surrender willingly. He frantically scaled and hurdled the walls of several residents’ backyards in an attempt to evade capture, sending police on a wild foot chase.

During a shootout with cops, Smith suffered a non-fatal gunshot wound and was taken into custody.

On March 27, 2024, loved ones said their final goodbyes to Hare at his funeral attended by approximately 2,000 people in Albuquerque.

Fighting through tears, Garcia eulogized his friend.

“He was a man with a loving heart and a caring soul. An extraordinary father, spouse, son, brother and co-worker. While Justin is gone now, we were with him and he did not go alone,” Garcia said, according to a video from his funeral service featured in the episode. “He remains in our hearts and our minds and will live on eternally.”

According to federal prosecutors, in the days leading up to Hare’s murder, Smith perpetrated a separate incident where he kidnapped a woman, stole her vehicle and shot her to death with a stolen firearm in South Carolina. He took off across state lines before arriving in New Mexico two days later. Prosecutors said that Smith killed Hare to “avoid arrest on an equally brutal murder.”

On January 17, 2025, Smith pleaded guilty to carjacking resulting in death, using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence, kidnapping resulting in death, being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, and possession of a stolen firearm, according to prosecutors.

The Department of Justice chose not to seek the death penalty, and in April 2025, Smith was sentenced to life in prison at United States Penitentiary, McCreary, in Pine Knot, Ky. He will not be eligible for parole.