Life is hard. Life as a homeless man is damn hard. Life as a homeless man living in the mountains suffering from paranoid schizophrenia is about as hard as it gets.
Escaping into the hills of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to set up a campsite, 36-year-old James Boyd mistakenly thought he was safe from the normal dangers of homelessness in the city. He was wrong.
It turned out that it was illegal for James to camp where he had set up shop and it seems he just couldn't process why he had to leave. Over 50 feet away from officers, and well out of harm's way for any of them, James was shot with a flash grenade, seemingly out of frustration. When he turned around to get on his knees, he was shot multiple times and killed. After he was shot, much like Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, and Richard Ramirez, James Boyd was, irrationally so, treated as if he was a grave threat and offered no serious medical attention.
According to the Associated Press, charges will be filed today against the officers who shot James Boyd by District Attorney Kari Brandenburg.
Local news affiliate KRQE reports:
It will mark the first time an APD officer has faced criminal charges for shooting someone in the line of duty in New Mexico’s largest city. APD has one of the highest rates of police shootings in the country, and Boyd’s death was the result of the most controversial in a series of 27 fatal shootings here since 2010.
Prosecutors will charge officer Dominique Perez of the APD SWAT team, and former detective Keith Sandy, who was allowed to retire from the department eight months after the shooting, by “criminal information,” the sources told KRQE News 13.
Filing charges by information is common in many parts of New Mexico, but rare in Bernalillo County. The process is authorized under New Mexico law and allows prosecutors to charge suspects without obtaining an indictment in a secret grand jury proceeding.
Below the fold you will find the HelmetCam footage of the shooting of James Boyd. You will see at 0:48 in the video, the officers are clearly out of harm's way when you hear a voice say, "do it." At that point, James is shot. Within a few more seconds, another barrage of fatal shots is taken and James is killed. It's a despicable case. If these officers acted within their training or within the confines of the law, their training and the laws are unjust.
Comments are closed on this story.