SFPD to investigate lapel cam lapse in fatal shooting

SANTA FE — Police Chief Patrick Gallagher says his department will investigate why a SWAT officer didn’t have his lapel camera on as he fired 16 shots into the apartment of a man who had barricaded himself inside and had been throwing homemade explosives at officers.

Santa Fe Police Department officers Jeremy Bisagna and Luke Wakefield fired a combined 17 shots from close range at 24-year-old Anthony Benavidez at the Tuscany at St. Francis apartments on July 19.

Lapel video from another officer released this week shows that Bisagna fired 16 shots from a handgun just seconds after Sgt. Nick Wood broke through an apartment window and officers start shouting commands for Benavidez to come out with his hands up. Wakefield fired one round from his rifle after that.

Benavidez, said to have been 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighing 100 pounds, was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

Benavidez was evicted from the apartment the day before by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, had been getting services from social workers and was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center for an evaluation. The State Police, which is investi-

gating the shooting, said Benavidez broke into the apartment after he was released from the hospital.

He stabbed a social worker from the Santa Fe Community Guidance Center who was brought there by the SFPD to help get him out of the apartment. The social worker was treated at the hospital and later released.

Lapel camera footage from Wakefield shows him firing his single shot into Benavidez’s apartment. SFPD provided some footage from Bisagna’s camera, but it’s all from before the shooting occurred.

Gallagher said Thursday that the department will investigate why the shooting wasn’t captured on Bisagna’s camera.

“Every video we have regarding this incident has been released,” Gallagher said. “The reason (there’s no video of the actual shooting from Bisgagna’s camera) is unknown and it will be looked into as part of an internal investigation.” State Police Lt. Elizabeth Armijo confirmed Thursday that her agency is also looking into why the shooting that video doesn’t exist.

It’s not clear from the video why police started firing into the apartment after a standoff of about an hour. Only 13 seconds elapse between the time officers start shouting commands after Wood breaks the window out and the time Bisagna starts firing, according to Wood’s lapel video. The interior of the apartment can’t be seen in the footage and it’s unclear what kind of immediate threat Benavidez may be posing to officers.

“That 20-second period (sic) will be excruciatingly examined,” Gallagher said. “We have all the same questions you do.”

The reported explosives that Benavidez threw at officers during the standoff that led to his death have been described as a bottle of ammonia and a cylinder on fire or a mixture of fireworks and a propane container.