Police shoot man on Calle Ojo Feliz, say he refused to put down gun
May 12—Santa Fe police shot and wounded a man Friday who, they said, was threatening suicide and refused to put down his gun.
Officials did not identify the injured man or disclose his condition.
Officers responded around 2:30 p.m. to a report of a suicidal man who had "discharged a firearm" near the Los Arroyos Compound apartments on Calle Ojo Feliz, police said in a news release Friday evening.
The person who reported the incident said a man had told him to call 911 because he wanted to kill himself, showed a gun and then walked into a nearby arroyo and fired it, according to the statement.
Upon arriving, officers heard the man fire the gun multiple times, the statement said. They requested help from paramedics at the Santa Fe Fire Department, and then found the man, who refused to put down his gun.
They tried to deescalate the situation by talking to the man, the statement said, but at least one officer fired a weapon, striking the man.
Police and firefighters rendered aid to the man, who was taken to a local hospital. No police were injured, the statement said.
The incident prompted a large response from both city officers and New Mexico State Police, including about a dozen police vehicles, canine unit vehicles, a firetruck and an ambulance.
Two women checking their mailboxes around 4 p.m. Friday next to a swarm of police cars said they each heard "pops" but were unsure what happened.
"I've lived here 30 years, [I've seen] nothing like this," one woman said. "This is a real quiet, residential area. ... I mean, 30 years, I've never seen this many police cars."
The other woman said she was in a laundry room when she heard several pops. The Los Angeles native added she did not believe it was semi-automatic gunfire because she was used to that particular sound from her hometown.
"There was one early — earlier — and then there were five or six," the woman said.
New Mexico State Police are investigating the incident. The Santa Fe police officers involved have been placed on administrative leave, under standard protocol, the city police department said in the statement.
State police did not respond to a request for more details on the incident Friday evening.
The shooting prompted police to close much of Calle Ojo Feliz around Botulph Road as well as Arroyo Chamiso Road from St. Michael's Drive to Calle Ojo Feliz. Police also taped off a trail near the apartment complex with crime scene tape.
The last police shooting involving Santa Fe police officers was in June 2021, when police shot and killed Francisco Javier Lino-Gutierrez on a sidewalk near Loretto Chapel after a foot chase downtown.
Earlier that day, Santa Fe County sheriff's deputies also shot and killed a man on Siler Road following a chase.
