Reports: Officer searched man before jail standoff

CLOVIS — During the hours-long suicidal standoff Wesley Flores held this month at the county jail, he asked repeatedly for three things: A cremation, a do-not-resuscitate order and a cigarette.

So say two of the numerous Clovis Police Department reports released Friday, detailing the arresting agency's end of the armed hostage situation Feb. 1 that concluded when Flores shot himself in the face with a pistol he pulled from his clothing.

The reports also show Clovis Police Officer Sanford Wagner searched Flores for weapons before transporting him to jail, but Wagner wrote that he could not remember if he searched Flores' "right side very well."

The incident started just before 2 p.m. on Feb. 1 when Officers Wagner and Jared Herrington responded to a house on Clovis' Jonquil Park Drive. Dispatchers had been told Flores, 28, was suicidal and possibly armed.

"Before arrival, I was notified by dispatch the subject was possibly on Heroin and I was given the warning 'Armed and Dangerous, Use Caution,'" Herrington wrote in his report from later that day.

On Wagner's arrival, the two officers entered the house with Flores' sister's permission and there found Flores, 28, who told them he wanted to smoke. They followed him outside.

Due to the nature of the call, the officers "insisted" on searching him, Wagner wrote in his report.

"I asked Wesley if he knew about his grandfather's Kimber Micro carry pistol ... and he stated he did not know what I was talking about," Wagner wrote.

On Jan. 25, Flores' grandfather had reported as stolen a Kimber Micro .380 caliber firearm, along with some checks and cash, CPD Capt. Roman Romero wrote in a criminal incident report dated Thursday.

That was the same pistol Flores pulled from near his ankle when Detention Officer Sean Rowland attempted to start a pre-booking pat down around 2:45 p.m. that day, Romero noted.

Sanford wrote about searching Flores in his incident report.

"I started on his left side and checked left leg first and made sure I checked his crotch area. I checked his waist area on the left side and believe I checked his right side," he wrote, "I do not remember if I checked his right side very well."

Reports do not show if Flores pulled the gun from his right side or elsewhere.

Dispatch had informed the officers of an active bench warrant for Flores' arrest (for failing to appear at court on charges of a previous alleged theft from his grandfather) and they put him in handcuffs, records show.

"I held (Flores') right arm behind his back while Officer Wagner handcuffed him," Herrington wrote.

"Officer Wagner got Wesley a cigarette and allowed him to smoke while I went to bring Officer Wagner's Clovis Police Unit to the alley."

Wagner then "waited till (Flores' family member) brought out Wesley's sandals outside," and brought him, in police handcuffs, to the jail.

Wagner entered the jail with Flores in a police cruiser through the sally port and left him in the "pat down room" — a small vestibule before the jail's larger booking area — with Rowland while he filled out paperwork in the booking office.

"I heard a Curry County Deputy asked why (Rowland) was up against the wall and it was determined that I had not found a firearm on Wesley during the pat down and the search incident to arrest," he wrote.

Flores briefly held Rowland hostage before the latter managed to exit the vestibule, leaving Flores to point the gun at his own neck and head area for almost four hours more.

"I saw that (Rowland) was flushed and breathing heavily," wrote Officer Rick Smith, who led the hours of ensuing negotiations with Flores. "He was covering his face with his hands and was obviously reacting to the stress of the incident."

Jail Administrator Mark Gallegos said Rowland returned to work soon after the incident.

Smith struggled to get compliance from Flores during the negotiations.

"I asked him what he wanted and he told me he wanted to smoke a cigarette," Smith wrote in his report.

"I told him that if he put the gun down, stepped away from it, and walked out of the room toward me, I would get him a cigarette and we would walk outside so he could smoke it. He told me no."

Asking him again what he wanted, Flores "responded that he wanted a DNR ... and he wanted to be cremated," Smith said. "I told him that was not a good resolution for him or his family. ... I told him that was a very permanent decision for a very temporary problem."

Hours into the talks, Flores dismounted the camera in the vestibule room, turned off the lights and stopped responding to Smith, records show.

"Because of Flores' agitation, his choice to not surrender, or minimize further actions by Officers, and three hours of negotiation I offered suggestions to Sheriff (Wesley) Waller that we may need to take another tactical action in effort to convince Flores to surrender himself," Romero wrote.

Soon after, "the determination had been made by the Sheriff to go ahead with the plan to release (pepper spray) with the wanding system into the room."

Within moments of that spray being discharged into the room, Flores shot himself in the lower right jaw.

He was badly injured, but he's recovering now, and he remained conscious in the immediate aftermath too.

"He was still coherent and was asking for us to help him," wrote Officer Trevor Thron, describing the officers' entry to the vestibule after the gunshot.

Officers found blood on the floor of the vestibule and a molar, but believe the bullet may have been lodged somewhere in Flores' face, according to the police reports.

At the conclusion to his report, Romero noted the use of the pat down vestibule between the jail's sally port and booking area "was pivotal in keeping Flores contained."

He also noted "it may be suggested that detainees be searched on entry into this primary processing area before the handcuffs are removed."

Romero told The News Friday he did not know exactly what sequence Rowland followed with handcuffs in the pat down room. Gallegos told The News this month that Flores was in police handcuffs when he entered the vestibule, and the procedure dictates he be in jail handcuffs when he departs the vestibule to the booking area.

Romero also said in his report that officials were notified Wednesday that Flores would be discharged from the hospital in Lubbock where he was being treated following the incident, "with a trachea tube installed in his neck."

Flores' defense attorney said this week in court documents that Flores' recovery time would be extensive, up to a year. In documents filed Friday, a May 8 docket call was scheduled for the charges on which Flores was arrested Feb. 1.

Sheriff Waller said this week that additional charges pertaining to the incident were pending, but police noted in their reports that Flores could be charged with aggravated assault with a firearm.

Romero declined Friday to say if Wagner would be in any way sanctioned following the incident, stating it was a personnel issue. He also declined to say if any new police pat down procedures would emerge from the event, as the information "may jeopardize Officers, the public, or could be used, in a more negative scenario, by bad people to circumvent search procedures."

"I understand the repeated query about Officer Wagner," he told The News. "In the end, we must remember that Wesley Flores chose to take actions that injured himself."