In rare move, New Mexico police officers to stand trial

A judge heard closing arguments Tuesday in the hearing for Sandy and Perez who are facing a murder charge in the case.

A New Mexico judge on Tuesday ruled that two Albuquerque police officers must stand trial on murder charges in the on-duty shooting death of a homeless man -which sparked angry protests in the city and helped lead to reforms.

Prosecutors say Perez and Sandy shot Boyd despite signs he was surrendering following a long standoff.

An analysis by Stinson and the Washington Post found that only 11 of 54 officers charged with murder or manslaughter over the past decade have been convicted.

In case the less lethal weapons didn’t work, Sandy would keep his rifle aimed at Boyd, he said. In the recording made by a dashboard camera in a patrol auto, Officer Sandy refers to Boyd, who had spent much of his adult life in a psychiatric hospital, as a “f*****g lunatic”.

“The pendulum has swung too far”, she said. The lawyers said the officers were following their training and protecting their colleagues when they shot Boyd.

In fact, as the World Socialist Web Site has reported, Lewinski, “who charges $1,000 per hour to testify at trial, specializes in offering psychological justifications for police shootings, in which he purports to determine what each of the participants thought and observed”.

Since 2010, there have been more than 40 police shootings in Albuquerque. “Reasonable people” do not shoot others in the back, McGinn argued. As officers close in on Boyd, yelling for him to “get on the ground”, he appears to turn away from them just as Perez and Sandy open fire with rifles loaded with live ammunition.

Boyd was clutching two knives when he was shot while camping in an unauthorized area of the city’s Sandia foothills. “So had James Boyd not turned around at that moment to set down his bags, he would have been shot in the penis”. “The judge cut his testimony short because of objections by McGinn, who called his testimony “hogwash” and quoted comedian Jon Stewart: “‘There is B.S. out there, ‘ is what he said, except he used the real words, and when you smell it, you need to call somebody on it”.

Police were forced to use tear gas to breakup demonstrations later in the year in Albuquerque before the nation watched similar scenes in Ferguson, Missouri, after a white police officer killed an unarmed 18-year-old black man.

“I hope it sends a strong message to law enforcement generally that here in New Mexico the courts are actually going to actually hold officers accountable”, Simonson said, according to KRQE.

“I think it was a very hard decision for the judge and for everybody”.