Reports, video detail year’s first officer-involved shooting
Records depict gunfire exchange on both sides, suspect taunting police
The call to police came in just before 2 a.m.
A 22-year-old woman told the dispatcher she was hiding from her boyfriend in the bathroom of his house on Camino Sierra Vista. He’d strangled her, she said, and he had a gun. Then she hung up.
The woman managed to escape from the bathroom and ran outside, police reports say. She tried to wake up a neighbor, but nobody answered. Then she managed to rendezvous with police.
From the back of an ambulance only 15 minutes later, the woman choked back tears as she explained that she and Alex Maestas, 26, had been drinking at a bar before they went back to his home and got into an argument. Then he got physical, she said.
“The reason why I called is ’cause he was like, ‘You need to die,’ and he was choking me,” she told officers, according from to officers’ police documents body cameras. and video She had a swollen upper lip, blood on her lower lip, a golf-ball sized knot on the back of her head and a long scratch on her cheek, reports say. When police checked on her later in the day, a video shows, they thought they saw burst blood vessels in her eyes and eyelids, a sign of someone being choked to the point at which they start to lose oxygen.
Despite the trauma, the woman told police she didn’t want to press charges. She didn’t want to get Maestas in trouble, she said, according to video. She just wanted to go home.
“It’s going to get charged regardless,” a police officer told her. “… I’m worried about you. If he already did this to you, if he comes back and finds you, he’s going to do worse.”
What followed was an eight-hour Santa Fe police SWAT team standoff at Maestas’ home, punctuated by gunfire on both sides. By midmorning Jan. 27, a Saturday, Maestas was in custody, and New Mexico State Police had been called in to investigate the city department’s first officer-involved shooting of the year.
On Wednesday, state police announced that SWAT Officer Luke Wakefield had fired two shots at Maestas during the standoff, neither of which struck the man. State police are turning over their findings to the district attorney, they said in a news release, as is protocol in investigations into police shootings.
The shooting is Wakefield’s second in less than a year. In July, he was one of two officers who fired shots at
24-year-old Anthony Benavidez during a standoff at a Santa Fe apartment complex. Benavidez’s family has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit over that incident, claiming the man’s death shows city police lack training in interacting with people with mental illness. Benavidez had schizophrenia.
Though tense, the January standoff had a less-lethal resolution.
By 5 a.m., SWAT officers had arrived at Maestas’ house in a neighborhood just west of the Santa Fe Railyard Park, police documents show.
Police attempted to negotiate with Maestas for hours, according to both reports and video, trying to make contact with him over the phone and even breaking a glass door to throw an emergency phone inside his home.
“Maestas would not pick up the phone but could be heard on the phone’s video function — threatening to shoot officers on scene,” Sgt. Nick Wood wrote in his report.
Maestas’ father, who was contacted by officers, said Maestas had a 9 mm handgun inside the residence, police reports say. The documents also state that Maestas had been sending suicide threats on social media and had posted a photo of a Glock 19 handgun on Snapchat.
Around 6:45 a.m., several officers reported that they heard gunshots inside the house.
“I was in fear of being struck by gunshots from Alex. I was still unable to identify where exactly the shots were going but I knew for a fact they were gunshots,” Detective Andrew Gonzales wrote in his report.
Police officers can be heard in videos trying to negotiate with Maestas.
“Alex, this is the Santa Fe Police Department. We want to talk to you. Do not fire your firearm again,” an officer said over a loudspeaker. “Pick up the phone that is inside your house and talk to us. We want a peaceful resolution.”
In the background, someone, presumably Maestas, yelled incomprehensibly.
The standoff continued into midmorning. Throughout the confrontation, officers wrote in their reports, Maestas would yell at them, threatening to kill them and taunting them — daring them to come in and get him.
Around 9:40 a.m., police shot a canister of tear gas, the kind used to quell riots, into the home.
Shortly afterward, Wakefield fired two shots.
Wakefield’s body camera didn’t capture the incident. The device had started falling off just minutes before and was pointed toward the officer’s hand during the commotion.
According to reports, Maestas had opened the door to his home and pointed a handgun at Wakefield.
“Show me your hands; show me your hands right now,” Wakefield can be heard shouting just before the gunshots.
After the shooting, Wakefield said, “He pointed the gun. I don’t know if he shot at me. I think I’m good. He pointed that gun right at me, man.”
The conflict ended shortly after 10 a.m. According to a report by Sgt. Lawrence Barnett, police saw Maestas through a window, holding a gun, and decided to fire a second canister of tear gas through a window.
Afterward, Barnett wrote, Maestas threw a window open and yelled “Kill me” and “Come and get me” to police.
He ran outside the house and stood on top of a car in the driveway, the report says, and Barnett hit him twice in the legs with shots from a bean bag gun. Maestas got off the car and fell on the ground, the report says, and SWAT team members handcuffed him.
A video of Maestas in handcuffs shows him taunting police, asking about their salaries and calling them “broke.”
After he was cuffed, Maestas said, “It’s all good. I’m going to get you.”
Last week, a grand jury indicted Maestas on charges of aggravated battery and false imprisonment. The grand jury did not pursue charges of aggravated assault on a peace officer, shooting at a dwelling or occupied building, or negligent use of a deadly weapon — counts police initially filed against Maestas in the Santa Fe Municipal Court.
Calls to Maestas’ lawyer seeking requests for comment were not returned. Police spokesman Greg Gurulé said Wakefield was not available for an interview, as “per his union.”
Court documents show Maestas has faced a number of DWI and traffic charges in the past.
In 2015, he faced charges of battering a woman at an Albuquerque hotel, but the charges were dropped when the witness failed to appear in court, according to court documents.