Testimony points to lack of Boyd backup plan
Excerpts of conversation offered in prosecution case
Fifteen minutes before homeless camper James Boyd was shot by two Albuquerque police officers, Detective Keith Sandy and K-9 officer Scott Weimerskirch had Boyd in their sights as he stood near his illegal campsite in the Sandia foothills.
An agitated Boyd held two knives and was refusing to obey police demands that he surrender.
“Nothing dynamic is happening right now,” said the dog handler, according to a video from his APD body camera.
Weimerskirch discussed the idea of using a Taser shotgun to bring Boyd down and apprehend him. If that didn’t work, Weimerskirch said, “we’ve played our hand.”
“We can do it,” said a voice identified on Thursday as that of Keith Sandy.
“We’ve got more tools coming at this point,” Weimerskirch said. “See how quickly they can get here.”
Excerpts of the conversation were offered as evidence in the prosecution’s case against Sandy and former Albuquerque Police Department SWAT officer Dominique Perez, who are
charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in connection’s with Boyd’s fatal shooting March 16, 2014.
The recorded conversation showed the officers didn’t have a plan on what to do next, testified Geoffrey Stone, the APD lead homicide investigator on the case. In his second day on the witness stand, Stone said Sandy, in a post-shooting interview, described what happened minutes later before Sandy shot the mentally ill Boyd.
Sandy told Stone that Boyd pulled two knives from his pockets and assumed a “defensive posture.” Several times earlier in the hours standoff, Boyd had become agitated or fearful and pulled out his knives in the same manner, Stone said his investigation showed.
But up to that point, no APD officer on the scene had fired in response. Stone interpreted the “defense posture” statement as “getting ready to fight.”
Just before he pulled the trigger, Sandy told the homicide investigator that he saw Boyd “square off with him, and started to turn left.” As Boyd was turning to the left, Sandy fired. After firing at Boyd again, Sandy said he pulled the trigger a third time because Boyd was “still standing.”
Special Prosecutor Randi McGinn continued Thursday to focus on the decision by Sandy, a detective in the repeat offender program, and two other APD tactical officers, to pull back the uniformed patrol officers who were negotiating with Boyd. The group of patrol officers and their sergeant initially responded to the scene after Boyd threatened two APD Open Space officers with knives when they confronted him about his illegal campsite. Boyd, 38, had a 10-year history of schizophrenia, Stone said.
McGinn asked about the apparent lack of communication between the two groups of officers.
For instance, Stone testified Thursday that two crisis intervention officers who were initially dispatched to the scene were moved out to the rocky perimeter surrounding Boyd’s camp once Sandy and other tactical officers arrived.
Then, a half-hour before the shooting, K-9 officer Weimerskirch asked APD dispatch to send crisis intervention officers to the standoff.
“If they already had CIT on site, why did they do that?” McGinn asked. “I don’t know,” Stone testified. There was also a request for bean bang shotguns that would provide a less lethal way to take Boyd down. But other officers at the scene were already carrying such shotguns.
“Why didn’t they know there were two bean bag shotguns already there?” McGinn asked. Stone again replied, “I don’t know.”
Stone said it is “very important to communicate what resources you have,” but when asked by McGinn whether Sandy and the others ever “debriefed (the patrol and CIT officers) before sending them away,” Stone replied, “I don’t remember that.”
Stone was the state’s third witness in four days of trial. He no longer is in the homicide division but was prevented from telling the jury why he now works in the violent crime division. Defense attorneys said that was irrelevant. That was their same objection when McGinn asked why APD didn’t have an outside agency investigate the officer-involved fatal shooting.
Testimony earlier his week showed that Sandy, who was a detective in an undercover unit that targets repeat offenders, had been off-duty but arrived at the scene to deliver a Taser shotgun requested by the patrol sergeant. On the way there, Sandy called the acting sergeant of his unit to come to the standoff. Weimerskirch and his police service dog were also summoned. Together, the three assumed control of the standoff, which eventually involved the arrival of Perez and other SWAT team members. Altogether, 19 APD officers were posted at various locations on the hillside and below Boyd’s camp when the shooting occurred.
Stone, under cross-examination, said APD officers “have the ability” to “self-dispatch” to certain police calls.
Sandy retired about nine months after the fatal shooting, after spending about seven years with the APD. Prior to that, he worked for State Police.
Weimerskirch retired last year. Because criminal charges were filed in the case, Perez was fired in 2015 but is appealing his termination.