Thanks, tommy. It does answer a lot of the questions. So they went there on a call that a boyfriend was not supposed to be there not that they were coming to arrest him on a felony warrant. More will emerge so we'll eventually have a full picture explaining why guns were drawn.
We agree this should have been handled differently and without the use of deadly force. Why not even just let him go if it comes to that? They know where he lives. Emptying seven rounds at such close range in the back. Knowing what that does to internal organs makes you ask why it has to come to that - and now especially.
A couple of tragic stories in Albuquerque that speak to two sides of a many-sided police-citizen interactions:
Two policemen, Michael King and Richard Smith, were sent out to pick up John Hyde for a mental hold. Hyde had already killed three other persons that day, unbeknownst to them or to those who put out the hold. When they arrived at his door, Hyde shot King in the head and killed Smith as he was trying to assist King. Some background on that:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18127174/ns/dateline_nbc/t/deadly-case-mr-hyde/#.X0iardNKgbl
Michael King was known to a family member, who worked with him at one of the high schools where he also was a school guard part-time to his police job. Said he was a very nice person, a proud father and a family man, and great with the kids. At the emotional press conference announcing the deaths of the APD officers was another, Sgt. Carol Oleksak, who after a year of rehab from being shot in the face, was returning to work. Hyde has never been tried being found incompetent and seventeen years later is still not competent enough.
The other tragedy is James Boyd's death at the hands of the APD, which was in ways similar to Blake's. Some differences. Long and the short of it was Boyd was a homeless man living in the open space foothills whom nearby homeowners called the police to take somewhere else. Crisis intervention made some progress but were pulled off by the sergeant after hours long standoff.
Still Boyd agreed to come down and got his backpack. For some reason tasers were then used though and were not effective, beanbags were used, dogs were unleashed and Boyd pulled a knife. Police had remained ten yards or so away. The two officers put four rounds from a rifle into him and Boyd died of massive trauma despite extensive surgery.
More info:
The Shooting of James Boyd
The same community that was shocked by Hyde's murders of two policemen were also shocked when the police
body cam video of Boyd's shooting was released. In the Boyd case, the DA charged the two police officers with second degree murder, which end in a deadlock. A mistrial was declared and the decision was not to retry. Boyd's death was the final case that led to Albuquerque being put under a consent decree.
I expect Sheskey will be charged over Blake despite the background info as the cops were in Atlanta and Minneapolis and Albuquerque. There were alternatives and those were choices they made. Sheskey clearly thought he was justified in taking Blake's life. That will be hard to argue and justify to a community.
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