Camper turning from Obama voting cops when shot in the back

[Keith Olbermann]

Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal

James M. Boyd seemed to think he had a deal. The 38-year-old
homeless man – whose illegal camping in the foothills had drawn
Albuquerque police – told officers on Sunday that he was ready
to walk off the mountain. Instead, he was carried off, fatally
wounded after officers opened fire. Boyd, in a long
confrontation with police, ended up face down in the dirt, a
splotch of blood visible on his back, a police dog on his leg.
He held a knife in each hand.

But before that, there appeared to be a chance he’d cooperate,
according to video released by APD on Friday. “All right, don’t
change up the agreement,” Boyd says, as officers have their guns
trained on him. “I’m going to try to walk with you.” Boyd picks
up his backpack and belongings, and he looks ready to start
walking. There are no knives in his hands at this point. “Do
it!” an officer says on the video.

A flash-bang device is thrown at Boyd’s feet, disorienting him.
Officers yell at him to get on the ground, and a dog and officer
approach him. Boyd takes two knives out of his pockets and
appears to wave them. Then Boyd starts turning away from the
officers. That’s when shots ring out and he hits the ground.
Officers continue to yell at him to drop the knives. “Please
don’t hurt me anymore. I can’t move,” Boyd says as he lies on
the ground.

Officers fire bean-bag rounds at him as he’s on the ground, then
let loose a police dog, which grabs his leg and shakes it. He
doesn’t move. Then officers approach and cuff him, blood on the
rock above him. He died the next day at the hospital.

Holding knives

Police Chief Gorden Eden released video of the incident during a
Friday afternoon news conference. Much of it comes from an
officer’s helmet camera. The shooting was justified, Eden said,
because Boyd, holding knives, threatened an officer and the use
of “less-than-lethal” devices hadn’t worked, he said.

“Do I believe it was a justified shooting? Yes,” Eden told
reporters. “If you follow case law … there was a directed threat
to an officer.” Boyd had a criminal history going back almost 20
years, Eden said. He had spent time in both the Doña Ana and
Bernalillo county jails, the chief said. In one incident, Eden
said, Boyd punched and broke an officer’s nose as she talked to
him in an Albuquerque library.

“All of his charges have been violent,” Eden told reporters.
Officers arriving on scene were told that Boyd had an “extensive
history” of violence against police officers, that he was
possibly diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and that he was a
transient. Eden said two officers, Keith Sandy and Dominique
Perez, fired three rounds each during the encounter. Sandy is a
detective with APD’s Repeat Offender Project. He joined APD
after he was fired by State Police amid allegations of double
dipping on pay.

At least one bullet struck Boyd, though Eden said it’s not clear
whether that’s what killed him because medical investigators
haven’t released a cause of death. Police haven’t been able to
locate a next of kin for Boyd. A multi-jurisdictional team is
investigating the shooting, Eden said. Forty witnesses, many of
whom only heard the incident, have been interviewed so far and
“we’re not finished,” the chief said.

Eden’s first incident

The shooting is the first since Eden took over as APD chief late
last month. Albuquerque police have shot and killed 22 men since
the beginning of 2010, counting Sunday’s incident. The city’s
police force is under investigation by the U.S. Department of
Justice, which is examining whether APD has a “pattern or
practice” of violating people’s rights, specifically through the
use of force.

One of the videos shown by Eden on Friday shows the beginning of
the encounter with Boyd. Officers were dispatched on a
“suspicious person’s call,” the chief said. Boyd was sleeping or
lying under something when officers approached. He came out from
beneath the cover and “as the officers began to talk to him, he
threatened the officers with knives,” Eden said.

On the video, officers order Boyd repeatedly to drop the knives.
According to dispatch logs released Friday, Boyd threw a rock at
officers about 20 minutes before shots were fired. Boyd talks
almost constantly during parts of the encounter. Eden said Boyd
identified himself as an agent for the Department of Defense and
other agencies. “I’ve been calling you all for five months,”
Boyd can be heard saying on the video.

Eden said that Boyd asked for State Police to come to the scene.
A State Police officer did and “he stated that the suspect
threatened to kill him also,” Eden said. An APD crisis-
intervention officer also spoke to Boyd, Eden said. Sometime
later, Boyd appears to decide he’s ready to leave and he seems
to think it’s part of an agreement with the officers. He also
suggests it’s the officers who are the threat, not himself.

“In the private world, if you were down at a bar or a bus stop,
I have the right to kill you right now because you’re trying to
take me over,” Boyd says. “Don’t get stupid with me.” An officer
responds: “We’re not going to get stupid.” Boyd then says he’s
going to “walk with you. … Keep your word. I can keep you safe.
Don’t worry about safety. I’m not a (expletive) murderer.” He
picks up his backpack, officers use the flash bang and he pulls
out the knives. About 10 seconds later, as Boyd appears to turn
away, officers fire at him.

Eden said the officers fired a Taser shotgun round at Boyd as
the dog was deployed. Eden said Boyd had “two open-bladed knives
in his hands,” even as officers handcuffed him on the ground.
Officers then used the barrels of their guns to pick over his
belongings, located nearby under a clear tarp.

“The suspect did, in fact, make a decision not to follow the
directions that were provided to him by the officers,” Eden
said. “… On many occasions, he threatened officers. On many
occasions, he refused to follow the direct commands of the
officers.”

During the news conference, Eden took questions from reporters
for four minutes before a public information officer tried to
end the briefing. Eden responded to questions for about two more
minutes before leaving. In a brief interview outside the
conference room, the Journal asked Eden why officers didn’t
spend more time trying to wait out Boyd – what changed that led
them to take the action they did.

Eden said they couldn’t wait because Boyd was moving to leave
and officers couldn’t contain him in the area because of the
rugged terrain. “We still had hikers in the area,” Eden said.
“We did not have a way as we normally do to be able to establish
a strong outer perimeter because of the rocks, the hills, the
loss of line of sight.”

Journal staff writer Patrick Lohmann contributed to this report.

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away.html