In arrest of suspected gunman, ‘a moment of panic’
In video, officers struggle to handcuff Herrera, who says he voluntarily surrendered
Damian Herrera, suspected of killing five people across Rio Arriba and Taos counties, had crashed a black Chevy truck into a tree along a highway about 13 miles north of Española after leading sheriff ’s deputies on a high-speed chase.
Rio Arriba County Deputy Joseph Aguino got out of his patrol car and pointed his handgun toward the truck. About 40 seconds later, 21-year-old Herrera suddenly charged at him, starting a skirmish in which Aguino accidentally discharged one round from his gun. As Aguino tried to pin Herrera to the ground, it seems in video footage, he told another deputy, “Hurry up, or I’m going to shoot him.”
But Aguino raised his firearm away from Herrera.
The Rio Arriba County Sheriff ’s Office on Friday released two video recordings from officers’ lapel cameras showing Herrera’s arrest after the shooting rampage June 15 that left three of his family members and two strangers dead in three tiny, rural communities in Northern New Mexico.
The videos show officers struggling with an aggressive Herrera, firing a Taser and possibly removing a knife from him. Meanwhile, Herrera insisted to the officers that he hadn’t done anything wrong.
The videos’ release comes more than a week after the state Department of Public Safety released state police reports and an audio recording of a state agent’s interview with Herrera, in
which he said the day’s violence had begun when his stepfather, Max Trujillo Sr., shot his mother and younger brother. Herrera wrestled the gun away from Trujillo and shot the man in selfdefense, he said.
Herrera, of Ojo Caliente, a student at The University of New Mexico-Taos who had no criminal record before the rampage, also complained in the state police interview that officers had rushed at him, tackled him and shocked him with a Taser, even though he had voluntarily surrendered. He had raised his hands in the air, he said.
The five-minute video from Aguino’s lapel camera and a 20-minute recording from Deputy Gabe Wadt’s camera tell a different story, clearly showing that Herrera didn’t peacefully surrender after crashing the truck that police say he stole from a man killed in the shooting spree.
Herrera struggled with the two deputies and one Española police officer at the scene as they tried to handcuff him, the videos show.
Aguino, trying to catch his breath a little later, told Wadt that Herrera had tried to grab his handgun when the two tussled earlier.
“I wasn’t trying to get anything,” Herrera yelled as he was pinned to the ground by Wadt. “You guys [expletive] tackled me. I had to defend myself.”
Wadt’s recording shows officers threw a knife away from Herrera as they handcuffed him.
Just before the end of the recording from Aguino’s lapel camera, Herrera told the deputy there was a .22-caliber rifle in the truck.
Investigators said they later found the rifle in the truck and bullets inside Herrera’s pockets before he was taken inside a patrol car, where he gave state police Agent Joey Gallegos an interview.
Rio Arriba County Sheriff James Lujan said Friday that he hadn’t seen the videos, but he said Aguino had been worried during the incident that Herrera would get ahold of his firearm.
“He didn’t want to shoot him,” Lujan said of Aguino, referring to a moment in the video when the deputy seems to be warning that he will shoot Herrera. “But if he got that gun, he would have killed more people.”
Capt. Randy Sanches said he couldn’t make out some of Aguino’s words in the video, but he said he knows there was “a moment of panic” during the struggle.
Assistant District Attorney Erik Scramlin didn’t return a phone message from The New Mexican seeking comment on the newly released videos.
Michael Rosenfield, one of two public defenders assigned to the case, declined to give any comments Friday when reached him by phone.
Rosenfield filed a motion Thursday saying a doctor’s forensic evaluation shows Herrera is not competent to stand trial. The motion also asks that the case be transferred to a state District Court from a county Magistrate Court in order to continue with proceedings.
During his interview with Gallegos, Herrera told the agent that his stepfather, Trujillo Sr., 55, pulled out a gun as the two fought over spilled gasoline at the family’s home in La Madera. As Herrera’s brother tried to break up the fight, he said, Trujillo shot 20-year-old Brendon Herrera and then shot the young men’s mother, 49-year-old Maria Rosita Gallegos — better known to loved ones as Brenda — as she tried to intervene. Damian Herrera finally wrestled the gun away from Trujillo, he said, and shot the man.
As for the other two victims in the shooting — Michael Kyte, 61, of Tres Piedras and Manuel Serrano, 59, of Abiquiú — Herrera told Agent Gallegos he also shot them in self-defense.
But investigators have provided a different narrative.
Court documents say Herrera shot his stepfather in the chest four times after Trujillo Sr. confronted him about his use of the stepfather’s truck. Herrera’s sister, who told police she witnessed the shootings, said she then saw Damian Herrera and his younger brother scuffle over the handgun. Herrera pinned his brother to a wall and shot him in the neck, Carissa Herrera told police.
Their mother rushed to her wounded son’s side and pleaded with Damian Herrera not to shoot her, holding both hands in the air as she tried to stand. But he shot her in the head, according to an officer’s statement.
After Herrera fled the scene in his stepfather’s truck, investigators say, he ran out of gas and asked Kyte for help before fatally shooting him. Herrera then took Kyte’s black Chevy and headed north to Antonito, Colo., according to police. He looped back to New Mexico through Chama and Tierra Amarilla, and then stopped at Bode’s General Store in Abiquiú, where, police say, he shot Serrano, a security guard for the Georgia O’Keeffe home in the village who had been on his way to work.
If he is indicted, Herrera will face five murder charges. He is being held in the Rio Arriba County jail in Tierra Amarilla without bond, pending trial.