New Mexico AG, Doña Ana DA decline to charge Las Cruces officer who killed Amelia Baca
The District Attorney and Attorney General will not pursue criminal charges against Las Cruces Police Department Officer Jerad Cosper after a review conducted by a long-time police officer and use-of-force expert concluded that Cosper acted in self-defense when he gunned down 75-year-old Amelia Baca.
"We have determined that no criminal charges can be sustained under these circumstances. As such, the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General considers this matter closed." A deputy attorney for Attorney General Raul Torrez said in a letter to 3rd Judicial District Attorney Gerald Byers. "However, our review is limited to potential criminal liability and does not address any potential disciplinary and/or civil liability issues."
In a phone interview with the Sun-News, Interim Police Chief Jeremy Story said an administrative investigation into Cosper's conduct began after the shooting, paused for over two years to allow the criminal investigation to conclude, then resumed after the attorney general declined to press charges.
Whether Cosper will face any disciplinary actions depends on the outcome of the administrative investigation.
The rejection of charges is the latest development in the years-long saga around Baca and Cosper that saw many people in the community express misgivings about LCPD, the Doña Ana County Chapter of the NAACP to call for Department of Justice intervention in Las Cruces and a group of citizens lobbies for a police oversight commission.
It also follows two lawsuits, one in state court that saw the city of Las Cruces settle with the Baca family for $2.75 million and one in federal court where a judge found Cosper did not use excessive force when he killed Baca.
Conclusions from the review
According to a copy of the letter and attached report obtained by the Sun-News, Steve Ijames, a 29-year police officer with the Springfield, Missouri Police Department and national police tactics expert, was asked on April 10, 2023, to review the case.
Ijames reviewed the 911 call that started police involvement, the body camera footage from the Baca shooting, and an interview between an LCPD detective and Cosper to make four conclusions:
Cosper's initial response was in line with best practices,
Cosper's decision to position himself between Baca and her relatives and draw his gun was in line with best practices,
Cosper did not use appropriate language that could've de-escalated despite being aware that Baca was experiencing a mental health crisis,
Cosper was justified in shooting Baca, and that the shooting was in self-defense.
Regarding the first item, Ijames concluded that Cosper's initial response to the Baca family home was "consistent with generally and or commonly accepted police practice, and with that of prudent, experienced, and professionally trained police officers facing these or similar circumstances."
According to body camera and past reports on the shooting, Cosper arrived at the Baca home after one of Baca's daughters called 911 at about 6:30 p.m.
"My mother is getting aggressive right now, and she has dementia," the daughter said, according to the 911 call. "I'm hiding in a room because she has threatened to kill me. I don't know if she has weapons from the kitchen, and I have a little one here. I'm with my child. I'm freaking out right now."
As Cosper arrives at Baca's front door, he asks two women standing in the doorway to come outside. The two women, Baca's granddaughter and daughter, comply with Cosper's request. "Be careful with her," the granddaughter says to Cosper as she walks past.
As they do, Cosper sees Baca in the doorway with two kitchen knives in each hand.
At that point, Cosper pulls his gun and shouts, "Drop the knives, drop the knives." Later, he begins shouting, "Drop the knife, drop the f*cking knife, drop the knife, do it now."
Via transcript, Cosper comments on mindset during shooting
For the first time in a public context, Cosper explains his mindset during his brief encounter with Baca.
"She's getting more and more agitated," Cosper tells LCPD detective Kenneth Davis in an interview. "I can tell in her facial expressions. I point at her hands, (then) point at the knives, (then) point down. She's watching my hands. She threw her shoulders back, raised her chin up, like 'I'm not going to listen to you,' shaking her head no."
It's unclear how mentally present Baca was in the 40 seconds before her death. Before and after the shooting, Baca's family members told police that Baca had dementia. After the shooting, one of her daughters told police that she'd recently switched medications and was prone to episodes of severe forgetfulness.
"I continue to tell her to drop the knives. She is still not listening. At that point, I can't remember if she looks down the hallway or transfers the knife first from her left hand into her right hand. She's holding both knives in her right hand," Cosper said in the transcript.
"She's kind of looking down the hallway – what I'm guessing is the hallway, back into the structure; she starts looking back there and making a weird gesture with her hands, doing this or something, she's waving like put down or something, I don't know what she was meaning by that, she then postures back up, throws her shoulders back up, throws her chin back like 'what are you gonna do,' and then starts closing the distance on me."
Cosper and Baca were about 6 feet apart, according to Ijames' report.
"At that point, we were already super close together. She was right inside the door frame. I had the females right behind me yelling, trying to get in front of me, between me and her. So I keep telling them to get back. As she comes forward, is she going to attack me? Is she going to attack these females? I don't know what her intentions are. But she is coming at me with the knives. I fired two rounds," Cosper said.
Later in the transcript, Det. Davis asks Cosper, "At that point when she begins to close distance on you, you were concerned not only for yourself but the two people that were beside you, correct?"
Cosper responds, "That's correct."
Davis then asks, "Do you remember, like just before, them closing distance, anything else that they might have said or to intervene or anything?"
Cosper responds, "With me yelling at her, I know that she was saying something. I could see her saying something, but I couldn't make out what it was, and with her screaming (gestures to his right), I had other officers approaching, at that point, screaming at them to get back. There were all types of things that were being said; I couldn't really make out what was being said or trying to be communicated or anything like that."
In a separate part of the interview, Cosper also addressed his use of profanity.
"I know that I threw in a few vulgar words. With everything that was going on, I wasn't getting a response. She was clearly agitated, but I know that I said it multiple, multiple times. Time frame in my mind was like I was there for 5 minutes," Cosper said.
In fact, the interaction lasted 39 seconds.
Ijames says Cosper's conduct here was inappropriate
"The secondary (focus) phase of interacting with Ms. Baca – specifically the tone and manner of communication – was inconsistent with generally and or commonly accepted police practice, and with that of prudent, experienced, and professionally trained police officers facing these or similar circumstances.
Ijames pointed to several sets of police standards that state the best practices for interacting with subjects in the throes of mental crisis. The International Association of Chiefs of Police says officers should:
Take steps to calm the situation.
Assume a quiet, non-threatening manner when approaching or conversing with the individuals.
Move slowly and do not excite the individual.
Provide reassurance that officers are there to help and that the individual will be provided with appropriate care.
Ask the individual's name or by what name they would prefer to be addressed, and use that name when talking with the individual.
Communicate with the individual in an attempt to determine what is bothering them.
If possible, speak slowly and use a low tone of voice.
Reminds officers to take steps to calm the situation
Ijames also cited Florida State University's Dementia Resources for First Responders, which says first responders should,
Use short, simple sentences and use body language and facial expressions to calm the person.
Calm the environment. Keep noise and distractions to a minimum.
As shown in the body camera video, Cosper did none of this in the 39 seconds before shooting Baca twice in the chest.
"Officer Cosper verbally interacted with Ms. Baca using loud, repetitive, and profane commands," Ijames said in the report. "The initial dispatch information and brief family contact upon arrival indicated that Ms. Baca was affected with mental illness, dementia, and/or was a person in crisis.
"There are methods of communicating with such persons that increase the probability of positive outcomes – and they can be done while covering armed subjects and without compromising officer safety," Ijames said.
Ijames also criticized Cosper for not using Spanish to communicate with Baca. He said that it would be reasonable for all LCPD officers to be trained in Spanish and, at least, know key phrases and commands. A Sun-News report in June 2022 found that 10% of LCPD's officers were certified to speak Spanish, although the police chief at the time said many were familiar with the language.
Ijames contends the shooting was in self-defense
Ijames pointed to two factors to argue that Cosper's killing of Baca was self-defense.
First, Ijames pointed to the factors outlined in a U.S. Supreme Court case that established qualified immunity, a doctrine that insulates police and other government officials in questions of civil rights violations. Ijames identifies the three-pronged test of qualified immunity as,
"The severity of the crime at issue,"
"Whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others," and
"Whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight."
According to Ijames, who is not a lawyer, the situation satisfied all three points. However, in civil proceedings involving qualified immunity, a judge must first find that the officer used excessive force before diving into the qualified immunity test. Ijames makes no mention of this in his report.
A federal judge found that Cosper did not use excessive force in a civil lawsuit against the city of Las Cruces earlier this year. And even if he did, the judge said Cosper would've been entitled to qualified immunity.
Ijames also pointed to the positioning of the incident. Cosper and Baca were about 6 feet apart, according to Ijames. Cosper did back up a few feet during the encounter to position himself between Baca and her relatives. Another officer also positioned himself behind Cosper, attempting to prevent Baca's daughter and granddaughter from intervening.
According to the interview transcript, Cosper felt compelled to stay close to Baca.
"I had thought about trying to create distance myself by trying to back up, but I had the females right there that were trying to get between me and her. I didn't feel comfortable trying to back up into them. I also didn't want to lose sight of where she was at because I didn't know if she was going to go down the hallway. She was making those looks down the hall," Cosper said.
"My consideration was she was still armed, is she going to take out her aggression on someone barricaded in the back room, so I didn't feel comfortable leaving the area that I had already taken over, and with the two females behind me, I didn't think it was even an option to start backing up at any point at all," he said.
Seconds before he killed Baca, the body camera of the second officer shows that Baca's relatives did back up, changing the dynamic of the encounter.
"There is nothing to indicate that he was aware of that," Ijames said in the report. "Likewise, had he been aware that they had been pulled back, his obligation to keep his eyes on Ms. Baca to ensure that she didn't go back down the hallway and endanger people inside prevented him from moving out of a position of observation."
10.26.2023 - Ltr. to Hon. Gerald Byers Third Judicial DAO NMAGO-202210-00523 by Justin Garcia on Scribd
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: No charges against Las Cruces officer who killed Amelia Baca
