Lapel cam footage still leaves questions
Videos do not show what caused cops to fire 17 times into apartment where 24-year-old schizophrenic man was holed up; he died at hospital
Santa Fe police SWAT team officers smashed the window of an apartment where a young man with schizophrenia was barricaded inside and shouted commands at him. Seconds later, an officer began shooting, firing 16 shots through the window with a handgun. Another fired a single, final shot, according to lapel camera video the city department released Wednesday.
Neither the Santa Fe Police Department nor New Mexico State Police, which is investigating the shooting, has said whether the officers’ gunfire caused the death of 24-year-old Anthony Benavidez at a hospital later July 19. But video footage shows the man, who police knew was suffering from mental illness, lying on the floor of his apartment immediately after the shooting.
The department did not release lapel camera video from Officer Jeremy Bisagna, who fired the 16 shots. And video footage the department released does not show what, exactly, prompted officers to fire.
After the shooting, one officer can be heard in a video saying that Benavidez had “something” in his hands.
The videos and other records released Wednesday raise questions about the last hours of a young man in a mental health crisis. Benavi-
dez had been evicted from the apartment by Santa Fe County sheriff ’s deputies a day earlier for failing to make a rent payment. The two deputies, concerned about his behavior and the condition of his home, took him to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center for a “mental hold,” according to a police report released Wednesday and the deputies’ reports, made public last week.
But hospital staff quickly released Benavidez. Police believe he then returned to the midtown apartment the evening of July 18, breaking a window to gain entry. When city officers arrived with a mental health caseworker the morning of July 19 to remove him from the apartment a second time, police say, he stabbed the caseworker and barricaded himself inside the home.
Videos show officers speaking about previous interactions with Benavidez and saying they wanted to get him help.
“Oh man, we’ve dealt with this guy before,” one officer can be heard telling a colleague before the shooting.
“Yeah, we’ve been called out to do welfare checks on him,” the officer said. “What he does, he does the same thing: He barricades himself inside. He doesn’t answer.”
State police, who are investigating the shooting, have said Santa Fe police surrounded the complex, Tuscany at St. Francis, and tried to negotiate with Benavidez for about an hour.
A loud siren and bellowing horn can be heard in lapel camera videos, and one man is heard addressing Benavidez, telling him the apartment is surrounded.
“Anthony Benavidez,” the man says over the loudspeaker. “This is the Santa Fe Police Department. You need to come to the front door with nothing in your hands. You will not be harmed.”
But, state police say, Benavidez responded by throwing two devices out the window that officers thought might be nonfunctioning explosives, endangering officers and the public. “He just threw a bottle out and liquid is pouring out,” one officer said in a video.
Officers moved to make an arrest, but the action turned deadly.
Bisagna, who fired 16 shots, has been with the Santa Fe Police Department since 2007. Officer Luke Wakefield, who has been with the department since 2014, fired the single round.
The videos show officers brought less lethal weapons to the scene, such as stun guns. It’s unclear why they did not use such weapons when moving to arrest Benavidez.
Searches of court and jail records have found no criminal history for Benavidez.
Santa Fe police took a report of a burglary at the apartment complex the evening before Benavidez’s death, when police believe he broke into his old unit. But a Santa Fe police spokesman said in an email Wednesday that officers did not make contact with Benavidez that evening.
Benavidez’s mother, Elizabeth Palma, told last week that she went to visit her son at the hospital July 18, but she learned he had already been released. She said she believes the hospital should have sent her son to the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas for “proper treatment” instead of releasing him.
A Christus St. Vincent spokesman would not comment on Benavidez’s swift release, citing patient confidentiality laws.
During the hour July 19 in which an officer with a loudspeaker attempts to persuade Benavidez to come out of his apartment, video shows officers standing around the apartment, speaking about getting him some help.
“We just came here to talk to him — see if he can go to the hospital,” one officer says.
“I don’t think he’s going to come out.”