Officer Given Paid Leave After Killing Teen, Participates in NRA-Sponsored "Killer Cop Competition" [View all]

[RandySF]

Around 3am one night in May 2011, 22-year-old Alan Gomez was outside his brother Eric’s house in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Nervous because she believed Gomez was acting erratically, Eric's girlfriend called the police. After about an hour, Albuquerque police officer Sean Wallace arrived.

Wallace saw Alan Gomez leave the house and then turn to go back inside. According to a subsequent Department of Justice report, Gomez was unarmed and did not pose an immediate threat to the officers or anyone inside the house. Sean Wallace, however, fired a shot, striking Gomez in the back. Gomez died on the scene, while Wallace was never punished.

Wallace is a K-9 officer, part of a team that works closely with paramilitary SWAT units. He doesn’t have a reputable record. In 2004, he shot and killed an unarmed man while with the New Mexico State Police. The victim’s family received $235,000 from a wrongful death lawsuit. By 2007, Wallace made a "lateral transfer" to the APD—meaning he wasn’t required to undergo background checks or psychological evaluations. (Last March, the APD officer who shot and killed James Boyd, a homeless man suffering from mental illness, was also a lateral transfer.) In 2010, Wallace wounded another unarmed man.

When Mike Gomez heard Sean Wallace was going to represent the Albuquerque Police Department in an annual National Rifle Association-sponsored tournament this week, he was horrified. The Albuquerque Police Pistol Combat Tournament, which is being held September 10-18, is designed for public and private law enforcement, as well as select U.S. military members, to compete against each other, shooting human silhouette targets in a wide range of scenarios. Past scenarios include “Drunk Buddies,” in which friends of a drunk individual getting arrested approach the cop wielding knives and “shouting ‘kill the cops.’” Another scenario, “School Gang Violence” takes place in a high school. The event also includes a weapons expo show and concludes with an awards ceremony in which officers are given trophies and certificates.


http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/officer-who-killed-my-son-got-3-days-paid-leave-then-he-tried-take-part-killer-cop?paging=off