A police officer in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has been charged with voluntary manslaughter within the deadly taking pictures of a Black guy at a fuel station closing August.
Lawyer Common Raúl Torrez introduced the fees in opposition to Brad Lunsford, a Las Cruces Police officer, Tuesday on the conclusion of a use-of-force investigation.
Torrez additional accused the Doña Ana County district lawyer of obstructing the state’s investigation into the incident and refusing to show over key movies and photographs.
“Sadly, we weren’t supplied with a whole investigative report containing the entire movies and photographs that may be important to judge this situation,” he mentioned.
Lunsford was once the primary officer on scene the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 2, 2022, after a Chevron fuel station attendant referred to as 911 to document a person named Presley Eze had left the station with a lager can he hadn’t paid for.
Lunsford and some other officer faced Eze and “forcibly got rid of” the unarmed, shirtless guy from his automobile after they might now not examine his id, in keeping with a press unencumber from the lawyer common’s workplace.
Amid an resulting scuffle, Eze and probably the most responding officials ended up at the flooring.
The lawyer common mentioned Eze then “positioned his hand on the second one officer’s taser” ― regardless that it was once now not deployed or pointed at any person ― at which level Lunsford drew his gun and shot Eze within the again left aspect of his head at point-blank vary.
“The killing of Presley Eze is a tragedy and serves as but some other instance of deficient police techniques leading to an unjustifiable use of drive to subdue a person resisting arrest for the fee of a minor crime,” Torrez mentioned in a unencumber. “As New Mexico’s leader regulation enforcement officer, I’ve an obligation to carry everybody answerable for violations of the regulation and that comes with law enforcement officials who move the road.”
In line with a separate lawsuit in Might accusing Las Cruces of overlaying up the incident, an lawyer representing the town claimed Eze, a nurse, introduced an “armed and threatening danger” and the officials had “no actual selection however to make use of fatal drive.”