all right this is daniel from copwatch
and the video that we're gonna break
down today is an officer-involved
shooting that occurred last month april
of 2022 in las cruces new mexico so this
case is extremely controversial in the
community and the reason is because the
individual who was involved who was shot
by the police officer is a 75-year-old
woman suffering from dementia in a
roamed home that was armed with knives
also the family has come out and wants
murder charges for the police officers
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so here we are in las cruces and here's
the 9-1-1 call that family members made
to the police
9-1-1 emergency what city
las cruces new mexico
what is the location for your emergency
um for fir okay
what's going on
i really need an office officer an
ambulance or someone because my mother
is getting aggressive right now she's 75
and she has dementia
dementia i'm hiding in a room because
she's threatening to kill me does she
have any weapons
i don't know if she got weapons from the
kitchen and i have a little one here
child i'm asking are you with your child
yes i'm at my child but i'm freaking out
right now
and do you know she's on any type of
medication
i'm not sure if she took her medication
this morning
my daughter she's in her room and my
mother's still out there with the knife
okay
so she does have a knife in her hand i
believe so because it sounds like it
yeah she actually does have a knife okay
do you know what she's doing with the
knife
um hitting the floor saying she's gonna
kill me
okay man i should be arriving soon okay
do you know if an officer is also coming
yes an officer will be there and then uh
a
um we do have a medical unit on the way
just in case
okay thank you
let's try throwing hot water now
hot water
yes
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police department
arrive at a call for service like this
one of the main objectives is to
separate the individual who is
threatening or has a weapon from anyone
else who might be in the house set it
down
shut it down now
back up
back up drop the knife
drop the knife
so the reason that officers would want
to separate the individual who's
threatening people or is armed with a
weapon away from anybody else who might
be in the house is because it takes away
any more potential victims and if
necessary police officers at that point
can back off they can set up a swat call
they can treat this as a barricaded
subject essentially the immediacy of the
threat goes down once there are no other
potential victims inside the house
so a reasonable question to ask is why
didn't the police officer utilize a
taser instead of a firearm in this case
well emilia was armed with a knife and a
knife is considered a deadly weapon so
it was appropriate and within all police
training for the officer to have a
firearm in his hand instead of a taser
also department policy does not allow
police officers to have both a firearm
and a taser in their hand at the same
time
police officers are dispatched to and
involved in dynamic and rapidly evolving
situations almost nothing is ideal there
is no circumstance that goes exactly as
planned exactly as is in training but
ideally for a call for service like this
police officers would have a force array
what that is is multiple officers with
multiple different weapon systems so
some officers would have a firearm maybe
a 40 millimeter and maybe a taser in
this situation there was a second
officer who arrived on scene and this
would have been a great situation for
that second officer who arrived to have
a taser and to possibly utilize that
he wasn't able to utilize the taser or
any other less lethal options
so in a situation like this it's too
simple to say that police officers shot
a 75 year old woman and that it wasn't
justified it's also too simple to say
that police officers shot a 75 year old
who was holding a knife so it's
undoubtedly justified there's actually a
middle position a position that asks
honest and uncomfortable questions and
here are some of the things that i would
want to know some of the questions that
are important to the investigation are
at the time that the officer arrived on
scene why did he go to the house alone
and not wait for any backup also it's
important to know if at the time of the
officer-involved shooting did the
officer know if there were other
individuals inside the house including a
child
also these cases are evaluated not based
on 2020 hindsight but they are
investigated by what a reasonable
officer would do in the moment so the
family did a press conference and
publicly demanded that murder charges be
filed against the police officer so let
us know what you think in the comments
was this a justified officer involved
shooting and if you want to watch the
full video unedited click the link