Lapel cam shows APD defusing violence

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The media frequently show lapel-camera video of what Albuquerque Police Department officers do wrong – but what you don’t often hear about are the cases where potentially deadly situations end peacefully. 

Those are caught on lapel cameras, too.

In one case, a man told police he wanted officers to shoot and kill him.  They didn’t. 

In another two men were fighting over an Obama bumper sticker when one of the men pulled out a gun.  That situation ended with the man peacefully dropping his weapon.

The first happened Thursday in downtown Albuquerque when a concerned passerby called 911.  She told dispatchers a man was sitting on the sidewalk holding a rifle. 

When officers arrived, they saw the man with a phone in one hand and the weapon in the other. 

When he saw police, he put the gun down.

APD Sgt. Louie Armijo told the man not to touch the gun.  Armijo then approached the man and convinced him to move away from the weapon. 

Lapel-camera video revealed what happened next. 

“Let's not make it any worse.  Why don’t you come over here?  Leave that thing and come over here and talk to me.  Just leave it there and talk to me.  Come on,” Armijo told the man.

Police say that man told officers he wanted to commit suicide by cop that night and wanted APD to shoot him.  The man surrendered to police. 

Officers took him to UNM Hospital for a mental-health evaluation.

The next night, APD officers were called to a restaurant in northeast Albuquerque. 

Officers say two men had gotten into a fight over an Obama bumper sticker, when one of the men pulled out a gun.

When police arrived, they saw Chris Williams, 43, pointing a gun at the head of Edward Rodriguez.  Lapel camera video showed police running and yelling at the suspect.

“Drop the gun!  Drop the gun!  Drop it now!” officers are heard saying.

Williams surrendered peacefully, too.   He was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment and unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon.

Police say Rodriguez, a veteran and a Republican, said he thought the Obama sticker was disrespectful to an American president.

APD says they deal with all kinds of disputes, fights and armed suspects on a daily basis. 

“You could probably not find an officer that does not have at least one if not several stories of potentially deadly incidents that they defused peacefully,” Officer Tasia Martinez, an APD spokesperson, said.