Officers 'too often used deadly
force in an unconstitutional manner,' report says
By Eliott C. McLaughlin CNN
Albuquerque, New Mexico, police
officers killed a 19-year-old as he "lay motionless on his back," an
unarmed drugstore robber who was walking away from officers and a 25-year-old
veteran suffering from
So says the U.S. Justice
Department, which on Thursday issued a report lambasting the Albuquerque Police
Department for a longstanding history of police brutality and unnecessary
deadly force.
The 19-year-old, Andrew Lopez,
caught Albuquerque police officers' attention while driving with dim headlights
and no taillights; when police tried to pull him over, he led them on a
low-speed chase before parking and taking off on foot, the report said.
Five officers gave chase, and
when Lopez reached a fence and began to turn around, one of the officers fired
three times, hitting Lopez once. The nonlethal shot put Lopez on his back, the
report said, and the officer approached him and fired a fourth shot into his
chest, killing him.
The February 2009 incident,
which resulted in a $4.25 million payout to Lopez's estate, is one of several
incidents the Justice Department cites in concluding that the Albuquerque
Police Department "has engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive
force, including deadly force."
Requests for comment sent to
the police department and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez's office were not
immediately returned, and Phil Sisneros, a spokesman for state Attorney General
Gary King, said in an email, "Our office did not have a role in the DOJ's
report or investigation. We are looking into a couple of the most recent
police-involved shootings, but that is in the nascent stages."
Police brutality in New
Mexico's most populous city made headlines last month when protesters clashed
with police in riot gear for more than 12 hours over the fatal shooting of the
homeless James Boyd, 38.
After the protests, Kenneth
Ellis, the father of the suicidal veteran killed in 2010, told CNN affiliate
KOAT that police brutality had reached "crisis" levels in
Albuquerque.
"Our police department is
out of control. They need help with their tactics," Ellis said.
Thursday's report did not
address the Boyd shooting, which is the subject of a separate federal
investigation.
"The pattern and practice
is the result of serious systemic deficiencies in policy, training, supervision
and accountability. The police department's failure to ensure that officers
respect the Constitution undermines public trust," the report's summary
says.
In the Lopez case, police said
they thought he was involved in a prior incident involving a gun, and the
officer who shot him said that when he confronted Lopez, he believed Lopez was
carrying "the biggest handgun he had ever seen." The car Lopez was
driving did not match the make, color or type of vehicle used in the previous
incident, and Lopez turned out to be unarmed, the Justice Department report
says.
"For too long, Albuquerque
officers have faced little scrutiny from their superiors in carrying out this
fundamental responsibility," the report says. "Despite the efforts of
many committed individuals, external oversight is broken and has allowed the
department to remain unaccountable to the communities it serves."
To conduct its review, the
Justice Department "reviewed thousands of pages of documents, including written
policies and procedures, internal reports, data, video footage, and
investigative files," the report says. It also interviewed command staff,
rank-and-file officers and community members, and held four community meetings
where residents "provided their accounts of encounters with
officers."
The report had four major
findings:
• The department's officers
"too often used deadly force in an unconstitutional manner," and of
the 20 fatal police shootings since 2009, most were not constitutional.
Albuquerque police not only use
deadly force when there's no imminent threat of bodily harm or death, they also
"used deadly force against people who posed a minimal threat, including
individuals who posed a threat only to themselves or who were unarmed. Officers
also used deadly force in situations where the conduct of the officers
heightened the danger and contributed to the need to use force."
• The department's officers
also use less-than-lethal force unconstitutionally. A review of 200
use-of-force reports since 2009 indicates that officers use stun guns on people
who are nonthreatening, posing minimal threat, passively resisting or
"unable to comply with orders due to their mental state."
In one instance, officers used
stun guns on a man who had doused himself in gasoline, setting him on fire and
endangering everyone in his vicinity.
Officers also use
"takedown procedures" in ways that increase harm, and they
"escalate situations in which force could have been avoided had they
instead used de-escalation measures."
• Officers used a
"significant amount of force" against people with mental illness and
in crisis. "APD's policies, training and supervision are insufficient to
ensure that officers encountering people with mental illness or in distress do so
in a manner that respects their rights and is safe for all involved."
• Instances of officers using
excessive force are "not isolated or sporadic." The pattern of police
conduct suggests "systemic deficiencies in oversight, training, and
policy. Chief among these deficiencies is the department's failure to implement
an objective and rigorous internal accountability system. Force incidents are
not properly investigated, documented or addressed with corrective
measures."
To that end, the Justice
Department investigators said they found "only a few instances" of
supervisors scrutinizing use of force and seeking investigations. In almost all
of the cases reviewed, supervisors endorsed their subordinate's version of
events even if an officer's account was incomplete, inconsistent with evidence
or "based on canned or repetitive language," the report said.
The Justice Department lays out
several remedies to address the department's "deficiencies,"
including improving use-of-force policies, training procedures, internal investigations,
recruitment protocol and how it deals with individuals suffering from mental
illnesses.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for
New Mexico and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division launched their
probe in November 2012, and then-Police Chief Ray Schultz released a statement
saying his department was cooperating with federal investigators.