Expert: Chan perceived threat from deputy
Defense witness says Martin was upset with his co-worker over teasing; pair fought in hotel room
LAS CRUCES — A psychologist testified Tuesday that he believed Tai Chan, the ex-Santa Fe County sheriff ’s deputy accused of killing a colleague in 2014 after an alcohol-fueled argument at Hotel Encanto, perceived a deadly threat before the shooting.
Philip Trompetter, a police psychologist from Modesto, Calif., told jurors on the seventh day of a high-profile retrial that he saw a copy of remarks Chan made hours after his arrest in late October 2014. Trompetter said he also interviewed Chan in recent weeks regarding the incident. And both sets of information — but primarily Chan’s remarks soon after his arrest, which included a claim that his colleague had tried to kill him — led to Trompetter’s conclusion about a perceived deadly threat posed by Deputy Jeremy Martin.
Chan shot Martin five times that night, firing 10 rounds, as Martin fled their hotel room. Martin died later at a Las Cruces hospital.
Chan is charged with murder, and his attorneys claim selfdefense. Chan’s first trial ended in a mistrial in May 2016.
Trompetter said Chan recounted the night of the shooting, saying Martin was upset about Chan teasing him about how Martin had responded to a doublehomicide call in Santa Fe County. At one point, Martin pushed Chan and then “kicked him in the balls, prompting Chan to leave the hotel,” said Trompetter, recalling what Chan told him. “Upon Chan’s return to the lobby, Martin met him, stating: ‘I love you, bro.’ ”
After Chan went into the bathroom of their hotel room, Martin began banging on the door, according to Trompetter’s account of his interview with Chan. After leaving the bathroom, Chan saw Martin “had the gun in his hand,” Trompetter recounted Chan saying.
Martin then punched Chan, a scuffle ensued, and the weapon was fired, Trompetter said.
“I believe his actions are consistent with the way officers would generally respond with a threat like that,” he told jurors.
Trompetter said police officers are trained to respond to deadly force with deadly force. They continue to fire until the threat is gone, he said.
During cross-examination, prosecutor Davis Ruark asked Trompetter whether a threat would diminish if a person who might have posed a threat got into
an elevator.
“Yes, because that would just be firing into elevator doors,” Trompetter replied.
He also said that in a case where someone had “just punched” another person and ran away, that alone wouldn’t be enough to justify the use of deadly force.
Authorities believe Chan fired at Martin both inside their seventh-floor hotel room and in the hallway. Martin, while wounded, continued down the hallway toward a bank of three elevators, riding one of them down to the lobby. According to police, Chan, still holding his handgun, was later found on a landing to a staircase that leads to a hotel rooftop.
The prosecutor pressed Trompetter regarding an assessment he had made about an aspect of Chan’s remarks — captured in what has informally been dubbed the “Cosper” audio, named after the officer who recorded it in the hours after Chan’s detention. As officers responded to the scene, Chan repeatedly shouted that there was a bomb in the building, which turned out not to be true.
Trompetter said that claim by Chan did seem to be intentional.
“The only calculated decision I was aware of was Mr. Chan saying there was a bomb inside — that he knew not to be true,” Trompetter told jurors.
One of Chan’s attorneys, John Day of Santa Fe, asked Trompetter whether there are reasons officers involved in use-of-force situations will fire a “large number of rounds” at a person.
Trompetter said officers sometimes “can’t tell they hit somebody,” especially if the person continues moving, and continue to fire their weapons. Also, there can be a time delay between when an officer perceives that a deadly threat has ceased and when the officer stops firing.
Trompetter was the first expert witness to be called by the defense. Testimony by a series of prosecution witnesses, for scheduling reasons, was interrupted to allow Trompetter to testify, said state District Judge Fernando Macias, who is presiding over the retrial.
Jurors also heard from Nika Aljinovic, the state medical examiner who examined Martin’s body.
Aljinovic said Martin’s body had five wounds where bullets had entered his body. Martin also had bruises on his right knuckles and abrasions on his right side and left knee. He had two cuts above one eye.
A black powdery substance found on Martin’s hands wasn’t tested. Aljinovic said a police officer inquired about having the substance tested later on, but it was too late to do further testing.
Las Cruces Police Department Detective Irma Palos testified about her role as lead investigator in the homicide investigation. The detective, who said she arrived at Hotel Encanto around 1:30 a.m. Oct. 28, after the initial response by police officers, reviewed various details about what she found in the hotel room and elsewhere.
Defense attorney Monnica Garcia asked Palos why she hadn’t told the grand jury early on about a self-defense claim Chan had made soon after he was taken into police custody.
Palos said she didn’t know the full contents of the Cosper audio recording until after the grand jury proceeding.
“I had not reviewed the tape that he makes those statements [on],” she said.
Palos became a central figure in the Chan case earlier this year when it was revealed that she had filed a whistleblower lawsuit in October, alleging, among other charges, that she was denied resources to investigate a “high profile murder investigation” in October 2014 because she had previously reported sexual misconduct within the detectives’ unit at the police department.
On Tuesday, Garcia questioned Palos about delays in the police department’s DNA testing of some items, such as a piece of bedding from Chan’s hotel bed that contained his blood. Also, a cellphone belonging to Chan contained blood but wasn’t tested.
Palos said her priority was to obtain other data from the cellphone. As for some items of evidence that weren’t sent earlier to the state crime lab for testing, “that was an oversight on my part,” Palos told jurors.