Some Texas law enforcement officers may have some explaining to do after a police shooting that occurred in Clovis, New Mexico. The officers were chasing a suspect and began doing so in Texas. At some point the chase crossed into New Mexico and ended when the officers shot and seriously injured the subject.Now, the mother of the shooting victim, a Portales resident, is speaking out that her son was unarmed at the time he was shot. If true, this could pose a serious problem for the officers involved in the shooting. The New Mexico Personal Injury Lawyer Blog has previously posted articles about the standards that govern New Mexico police chases. Not surprisingly, there is a similar test that applies to the use of force by New Mexico police officers.
To summarize the test, New Mexico police must use force comparable with the harm they are facing. Essentially, if the officer is threatened with deadly force, must New Mexico standard operating procedures allow the use of deadly force. When an officer uses inappropriate force, there may be a basis for a New Mexico police misconduct case.
Many times the central issue for New Mexico police misconduct cases hinge not on the force that the officers used, but rather, whether they were justified in doing so.