James Boyd Shooting: Two Albuquerque Cops Charged With Murder Of Homeless Man
” Two Albuquerque police officers have been charged with murder in the shooting death of James Boyd, a homeless man killed during a standoff in March. The Albuquerque District Attorney’s Office filed one count of murder each against SWAT team member Dominique Perez and former detective Keith Sandy on Monday.
The Associated Press reported (via Yahoo News) Jan. 12 that Albuquerque D. A. Kari Brandenburg says she will take the case straight to a judge for preliminary hearing and by-pass the usual Grand Jury process. Brandenburg says she wants the hearing to be open to the public.
” Unlike Ferguson and unlike in New York City, we’re going to know. The public is going to have that information,” District Attorney Kari Brandenburg said. She was referring, of course, to the recent high-profile cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, both cases where men were killed by police officers and where both officers were eventually left not indicted by grand juries in their particular cases.
At the same time, neither of the two men accused of shooting and killing James Boyd, have been arrested. Sam Bregman, a lawyer representing Keith Sandy, said, “I’m looking forward … to the DA’s office presenting one single witness that says this is murder.”
However, the most damning evidence against the Sandy and Perez may be a video taken of the incident — from a police officer’s helmet camera — which shows a knife-wielding man known by Albuquerque police to be mentally ill (due to several run-ins with the suspect in the past) in a stand-off with several policemen in the Sandia Mountains. James Boyd, the man holding the upper ground and the knife, is being approached by several law enforcement members, all with their handguns drawn and pointed at Boyd. Although a defense attorney would later characterize Boyd’s actions as dangerous to the approaching officers, most viewing the viral video saw it as use of excessive force and outright murder, because Boyd had verbally agreed to surrender and had even gathered a few things when stepped toward the police officers and was shot by bean bags, tasers, and six live rounds.”
Let’s hope that there can be some small measure of justice served for Mr Boyd . For those unfamiliar with this senseless killing you can catch yourselves up with our previous posts here , here , here , here and here … and read more about the impending prosecution of Keith Sandy and Dominique Perez at the Examiner .
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