{"id":13317,"date":"2023-12-31T18:21:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T18:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/?p=13317"},"modified":"2023-12-31T18:23:46","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T18:23:46","slug":"sad-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/sad-exit\/","title":{"rendered":"SAD EXIT:"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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New Mexico Suspends Police Officer for shooting a Nigerian Immigrant in cold blood over ‘unpaid can of Beer’<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


*’37-year-old victim was the oldest son of Nigerian immigrants who settled in West Hartford, Connecticut, a father to a 3-year-old son, a nursing supervisor at an elderly nursing home facility’<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


*State’s attorney general announced charges against one of the police officers at the scene, calling actions an \u201cunjustifiable use of force\u201d and \u201cyet another example of poor police tactics”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


*Suspect, Las Cruces Officer Brad Lunsford turned himself in to County Sheriff\u2019s Office October 3, charged with voluntary manslaughter with an additional count of firearm enhancement and released on his own recognizance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


*”Officer Lunsford allegedly shot Presley Eze, a Black man, outside a Chevron gas station after an employee called 911 to report Eze left the store with a beer he did not pay for-\u201dAttorney general\u2019s office<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


*BY GEORGE ELIJAH OTUMU\/AMERICA Senior Investigative Editor & MIRIAM AHMY\/CRIME Correspondent, USA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


THOUGH IT TOOK OVER 12 MONTHS before the truth came to the fore. Latest reports from the office of New Mexico Attorney General, Ra\u00fal Torrez said during a news conference recently narrated how Las Cruces Officer Brad Lunsford allegedly shot Presley Eze, a Black man, outside a Chevron gas station over unpaid can of beer.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


More than a year after a Black man died at the hands of police outside a New Mexico gas station, the state\u2019s attorney general announced charges against one of the police officers at the scene, calling his actions an \u201cunjustifiable use of force\u201d and \u201cyet another example of poor police tactics.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Las Cruces Officer Brad Lunsford turned himself in to the Do\u00f1a Ana County Sheriff\u2019s Office October 3, his attorney, Luis Robles told CNN. He was charged with voluntary manslaughter with an additional count of firearm enhancement and released on his own recognizance, New Mexico Attorney General Ra\u00fal Torrez said during a news conference the same day.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


On August 2 last year, Lunsford, who is White, allegedly shot Presley Eze, a Black man, outside a Chevron gas station after an employee called 911 to report Eze left the store \u201cwith a beer he did not pay for,\u201d the attorney general\u2019s office said.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Lunsford, the first officer to arrive at the scene, questioned Eze, and after he was unable to verify his identity, \u201cLunsford and another officer forcibly removed Eze from the vehicle in order to detain him\u201d and \u201ca scuffle ensued\u201d where Eze wound up on the ground, \u201con top of one of the responding officers,\u201d according to the attorney general\u2019s office.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


A second officer who was present during the shooting has not been charged with a crime, arrest warrant documents show.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cDuring the ongoing struggle Eze placed his hand on the second officer\u2019s taser though it was not cycled or deployed against either officer,\u201d Torrez\u2019s office said, and \u201cin response Officer Lunsford drew his service weapon and shot Eze on the back, left side of his head at point-blank range.\u201d
Officers had removed a closed pocketknife from Eze\u2019s possession before the incident turned physical, according to arrest warrant documents. Eze was unarmed when he was shot.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Lunsford remained on active duty until the charges were filed and is now on paid administrative leave, CNN affiliate KOAT reported.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


The incident, which was captured both on police bodycam video and witness cell phone footage, is one of the latest examples of police across the country facing accusations of excessive force as encounters with Black Americans ended in deadly violence.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Since 2005, 185 law enforcement officers have been arrested for murder or manslaughter resulting from an on-duty shooting in the US and only 59 have been convicted of a crime resulting from the shooting, according to data from Philip Matthew Stinson, a criminal justice expert at Bowling Green State University who has tracked the data for years.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cThis was somebody\u2019s son, this is somebody\u2019s brother, and this is somebody\u2019s father,\u201d Torrez said during Tuesday\u2019s news conference. \u201cI think it\u2019s important for people to understand who he was as a human being, and not to simply distill his life into seconds of a video captured on lapel or captured at a gas station.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Eze, 37, was the oldest son of Nigerian immigrants who settled in West Hartford, Connecticut, a father to a 3-year-old son, a nursing supervisor at an elderly nursing home facility, a frequent churchgoer and a \u201cgentle giant,\u201d according to a family attorney and friend, John Sodipo.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cThis was a very horrible situation,\u201d said Robles, Lunsford\u2019s attorney. \u201cIf you kind of watch the video you sort of realize there really is no other place to shoot than where the shot was actually placed.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


At this time, there is no evidence of malice or racial motivation, Torrez said, however if circumstances change, the charging documents can be amended, he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cI was in the Army in Africa and I know what it means to handle a gun,\u201d Eze\u2019s father, Isaac Eze said during Tuesday\u2019s new conference. \u201cYou shoot somebody on the head, you want him dead.\u201d
Documents filed in 2019 show Lunsford was named in a complaint for his role during a domestic disturbance call in 2014. In the complaint, the plaintiff names Lunsford and other officers in an incident where they were shot and allege Lunsford exercised excessive use of force. The complaint was dismissed in 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


CNN reached out to the Las Cruces Police Department, which deferred comment to Lunsford\u2019s attorney.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Robles could not comment on any previous complaints but acknowledged their existence, he told CNN.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cThe officers introduced violence at every level,\u201d a statement from the Eze family said. \u201cThe family of Presley Eze trusts in the justice system and trusts that the death of Presley Eze will reveal once again that this country must reconcile its past use of slave patrols to terrorize Black bodies with the modern police use of deadly force to kill defenseless Black men.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


As part of the investigation into the incident, special agents with the New Mexico Attorney General\u2019s Office consulted with use of force experts, who watched the available video footage, and concluded Lunsford\u2019s use of deadly force was not reasonable under the circumstances and there were other, less lethal avenues available to contain Eze, the attorney general\u2019s office said in an online statement.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Robles said he had hoped the experts would have taken into account the officer\u2019s eyewitness statements along with a review of the videos.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cThe body worn camera videos can\u2019t and don\u2019t show much of anything,\u201d Robles said. \u201cAnd then there is a cell phone video, which shows some things but wouldn\u2019t you want to know from the officer\u2019s point of view, what he was able to see with his own two eyes?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Joe Kennedy, an attorney for the Eze family called for a reexamination of Las Cruces Police Department policies as it pertains to use of force.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cWe don\u2019t want to miss any more opportunities to actually examine this activity, this police activity, this police detention from the moment if starts for areas where de-escalation can happen where it doesn\u2019t have to go into a struggle,\u201d Kennedy said during Tuesday\u2019s news conference. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to go into an officer body slamming Presley Eze on the pavement and creating an extremely volatile dynamic situation that no one was in control of until a bullet was put in this man\u2019s head.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Eze family attorney Shannon Kennedy said they plan to sue Lunsford as an individual.
*Additional reports by CNN<\/strong>.
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New Mexico Suspends Police Officer for shooting a Nigerian Immigrant in cold blood over ‘unpaid can of Beer’ *’37-year-old victim was the oldest son of Nigerian immigrants who settled in West Hartford, Connecticut, a father to a 3-year-old son, a nursing supervisor at an elderly nursing home facility’ *State’s attorney general announced charges against one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[129,159,44,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-13317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-nigeria-2"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13317"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13325,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13317\/revisions\/13325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}