Man hurt in SWAT raid files lawsuit

Police report said officer incorrectly used ‘shotgun breaching tool’ to open door

At the break of dawn on May 6, 2016, an armored vehicle and a SWAT team, more than a dozen men, deep descended on a home in a residential area on the south side of Santa Fe, intent on arresting an alleged heroin dealer.

After knocking on the door and announcing their presence, a Santa Fe police report says, the officers waited “a reasonable amount of time” before deploying a “flash sound diversionary device” and using a “ram breaching tool” to break down the door.

Once inside, the report says, the officers deployed another “sight sound diversionary device.”

Also called flash grenades, such devices produce an explosion of light and sound, and are often used by police to disorient potentially dangerous suspects during raids.

The officers then set about securing the home, rousting and handcuffing multiple occupants while searching for their target, according to reports.

When the raid began, Vincent Vigil was asleep in his

bedroom just inside the front door.

He was one of numerous unrelated people who rented rooms in the home on Camino Rojo, according to a lawsuit he filed Tuesday in a state District Court.

“A loud noise outside his bedroom door roused Mr. Vigil from his sleep,” the complaint says. “Mr. Vigil, groggy from having been awakened from a deep sleep, swung his feet out of his bed and placed them on the floor.” Immediately after, he “felt a searing pain in his left foot and his lip accompanied by a terrifically loud bang at the door.”

Vigil claims in the lawsuit that he suffered injuries to his lip and foot during the raid because Santa Fe Officer Ladislas Szabo, who fired a shot to open Vigil’s bedroom door, incorrectly angled his gun.

“Mr. Vigil suffered extreme pain when his foot was peppered by the shot,” according to the complaint, which names the city of Santa Fe and Szabo as defendants. “Debris from the shotgun blast pierced Mr. Vigil’s lower lip.”

It’s unclear from the complaint and police reports exactly what type of projectile was loaded into the shotgun used to blast open Vigil’s door.

According to a report written by another officer, Szabo used a “shotgun breaching tool” to open the door, and he did so incorrectly.

“I observed that the angle and direction of deployment conducted by SWAT operator Szabo was improper for the type of door,” Officer Benjamin Valdez wrote in his report following the incident.

Vigil “was struck with a fragmentation as a result of the deployment of the shotgun breaching tool,” Valdez wrote.

Greg Gurulé, a spokesman with the Santa Fe Police Department, declined to describe a shotgun breaching tool, saying that doing so would be “commenting,” and the department does not comment on pending litigation.

Szabo did not respond to a message left with Gurulé seeking comment on the case.

Vigil’s attorney, Nicholas T. Davis, said his client is not claiming the officers meant to hurt him, only that they did injure him, and that the city should compensate the man.

“This is simply a case of an injury caused most likely by an incorrect execution of a law enforcement maneuver, and the law in New Mexico allows for recovery [of damages] for those kinds of negligent actions,” Davis said.