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NMSU Professor Says LCPD Put Him In Danger

A New Mexico State University faculty member says Las Cruces police needlessly put him in danger by allowing a taxi cab driver sought in a shooting to pick up the academic as a fare before officers stopped the cab and arrested the driver.

According to the Las Cruces Sun-News, Daniel Vega-Albela says he was held at gunpoint and then put in handcuffs for a half-hour after police stopped the cab right after Vega-Albela got it.

Vega-Albela says police knew he had called for a cab and that the driver was about to pick up him. He says police should have called him and told him not to leave the friend's house where he was.

Police spokesman Dan Trujillo says he cannot comment pending the outcome of an internal-affairs investigation.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.