Two New Mexico police officers
accused of killing a homeless man will be charged with murder, the state's
district attorney announced on Monday. They are the first charges against
Albuquerque officers in connection with shootings.
James Boyd, a 36-year-old
homeless man diagnosed as schizophrenic, was shot by the Albuquerque PD after
he became engaged in a four-hour standoff with the officers who caught him
illegally camping in the Sandia foothills. Boyd was armed with two small
knives, which he appeared to brandish towards an officer with a dog. He was
pronounced dead the next day.
At a press conference five days
after the shooting, Chief Gorden Eden told reporters that he believed the
shooting was justified because Boyd made a “threatening” move toward the
officer with the dog. Boyd had an extensive criminal past, and mentioned
killing the police earlier during the encounter.
Bernalillo County District
Attorney Kari Brandenburg filed paperwork Monday charging former Albuquerque
Police Department (APD) Detective Keith Sandy and APD SWAT Team member
Dominique Perez with one open count of murder each in the March 2014 shooting
death of Boyd.
Sandy and Perez will face a
preliminary hearing before a judge who will decide whether there is enough
evidence to proceed with the charges, Brandenburg’s office said in an email
release. No date has been set for the court hearing, the Albuquerque Journal
reported.
Brandenburg filed the charges
via criminal information papers, allowing her to charge the officers without
presenting evidence to a grand jury. Grand juries have declined to indict law
enforcement agents in several high-profile, officer-involved shooting deaths
over the last several months, including in the cases of Michael Brown and Eric
Garner, leading to widespread protests across the country.
Lawyers for the two men argued
that they will both be cleared of wrongdoing.
Sandy “had not only the right,
but the duty to defend a fellow officer from a mentally unstable, violent man
wielding two knives. Keith did nothing wrong,” his attorney Sam Bregman said in
a statement. “To the contrary, he followed his training and probably saved his
fellow officer’s life.”
“This is truly a shame.
Throughout his career, Officer Perez has been called upon to make life-altering
decisions while protecting Albuquerque citizens and his fellow officers,”
attorney Luis Robles said in a statement to KRQE. “And having made one of those
decisions, Officer Perez now faces an open count of murder. Regardless, I am
confident that the facts will vindicate Officer Perez’s actions in this case.”
According to the Huffington
Post, Sandy was fired from the New Mexico State Police in 2007 over allegations
of fraud.
The APD has been under fire
since the Boyd shooting. Less than a week after the homeless man’s death, the
department released video footage taken from the helmet-cam of an officer on
the scene of the crime that shows a cop opening fire on Boyd while his back was
turned. He was the first of three shooting deaths involving the department in
five weeks: On March 25, the APD shot and killed another man, Alfred Redwine,
following an armed stand-off. Three weeks later, Albuquerque police shot and
killed Mary Hawkes, who was suspected of stealing a truck.
The US Department of Justice
conducted a 16-month review into the police department in New Mexico’s largest
city, and recommended a “systematic change” in the final document. The early April
report found that the APD had fallen into a pattern of using force more often
than necessary which, consequently, caused a number of unjustified fatal
shootings by officers in recent years.
APD has been involved in more
than 40 shootings since 2010, resulting in 27 deaths, the Journal reported.
In October, the police
department reached a deal with the Department of Justice to overhaul many of
its practices. The reforms involve new training and recruitment procedures and
field supervision of officers, and will require the department to employ body
cameras on its officers. Additionally, the APD will begin monitoring every use
of a Taser, and officers will have to report every time they point a gun at
another individual, regardless of whether or not it is fired.
