$900K Settlement to Family of New Mexico Man Shot By Rogue Policeman

The city of Albuquerque, New Mexico has agreed to pay $900,000 to the family of an unarmed man who was shot and killed in 2011 by a policeman the family claims should have never been hired.

In an complaint filed with the U.S. District Court of New Mexico, plaintiff Rachel Higgins, the personal representative of the estate of the man who police killed, Alan Gomez, claimed that in a push to hire more police officers, the city of Albuquerque lowered its standards and hired many unqualified officers, as well as ones who were let go from other departments under questionable circumstances.

According to the complaint, one of those new hires was defendant Sean Wallace. Wallace was formerly employed as by the New Mexico State Police. During his time there, Wallace made arrests without cause, assaulted suspects, and initiated false prosecutions. He also shot and killed an unarmed man. Wallace was also investigated for falsely billing the state for attending law enforcement classes he himself was being paid to teach.

Facing numerous lawsuits over Wallace's actions, the state police informed Wallace he would be terminated unless he left on his own terms. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Wallace resigned in 2007.

Fully aware of his checkered past, Albuquerque nonetheless hired Wallace as a police officer. Soon thereafter, in January 2010, Wallace shot another unarmed man, Wayne Cordova. At the time of that shooting, the mentally ill Cordova was on a rooftop, crying, and asking to be killed, but never armed.

The city of Albuquerque cleared Wallace of any wrongdoing, however, after Wallace claimed that Cordova had an unidentified object in his hand which Wallace thought was a weapon.

Then, in May of 2011, Wallace came in lethal contact with Gomez. After receiving a report that Gomez, also mentally ill, was preventing his brother and his brother's girlfriend from leaving their house, Wallace and numerous other officers responded to the scene.

Gomez was then observed repeatedly stepping outside the residence and smoking a cigarette. As Gomez was reentering the house and the steel screen door closed behind him, Wallace, without approval from his superiors, shot Gomez in the back and killed him.

Later, Wallace said he thought that Gomez had a large kitchen spoon in his hand, and that he misidentified the spoon as a weapon. According the complaint, the Albuquerque police department (APD) had a "custom of misidentifying harmless objects as weapons," usually after officer-involved shootings.

Gomez's father, Michael, who was a co-plaintiff in the case, had been active in efforts to reform the APD.

Despite the $900,000 settlement and the fact that this was Wallace's third shooting, prosecutors cleared him of any wrongdoing in the Gomez case.

City attorney David Tourek said the settlement was made for economic purposes, "The best economic, legal, and policy decision for the city and APD was to resolve this case through settlement,” he said.

The complaint was first filed in New Mexico state court before being removed to federal court by the Defendants. Gomez's family was represented in the case by Joseph and David Fine of the Fine Law Firm in Albuquerque.

See: Higgins v. Wallace, U.S.D.C., Case No, 12CV70 (D. NM, 2012)

Source: Albuquerque Journal, www.abqjournal.com.

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