http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/inside-twisted-police-department-kills-unarmed-citizens-highest-rate-country?akid=12552.294211.gefyqH&rd=1&src=newsletter1028309&t=3
When an Albuquerque police officer shot his 22-year-old son to death,
Mike Gomez was determined to crusade for justice. Three years later, he
is simply despondent.
“It’s so frustrating,” Gomez told me. “There’s no accountability
here. There’s no justice. There’s no respect. There’s no humanity here.
There’s nothing. It’s so disgusting that they get away with it.”
A single father, Mike Gomez struggled for years to help his son,
Alan, cope with a substance abuse problem. When Mike Gomez left town on
May 10, 2011, Alan Gomez fell back into his addiction and was overcome
with paranoid delusions. He began pacing back and forth on the front
lawn of his brother's house, holding a conversation with an imaginary
person about gang members assembling to kill him. Alarmed family members
eventually phoned a dispatcher from the Albuquerque police, who
summoned police to what she mistakenly believed was a hostage
situation.
From across town, an off-duty cop named Sean Wallace heard the alert
blare through his scanner, then barreled over to the scene before a
crisis intervention officer could arrive. Without provocation, Wallace
opened fire, killing Alan Gomez with a high-powered rifle as he entered
the house through a screen door. The troubled young man was holding
nothing in his hand but a plastic spoon.
the rate of officer-involved shootings by Albuquerque police is eight times that of the NYPD and two times higher than in Chicago,
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