Police chief: Subject threatened 'suicide by cop'

CLOVIS — It was not a welfare check but “a call for a suicidal subject,” potentially armed.

That’s what preceded the recent incident for which the city’s police department is now being sued, Chief Doug Ford told The News on Friday.

“This was not a welfare check call initially. This was totally opposite of that,” said Ford. “It was a call for a suicidal subject, with the mother telling us that he was probably armed and threatening suicide by cop. ...

“That’s what people need to understand, that when we’re given that information then we need to act accordingly.”

Ford referred to a complaint filed last month in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, alleging “deprivation of civil rights” in a Feb. 22 incident that brought several Clovis police officers and a K9 unit to a local apartment and resulted in the hospitalization with dog bite injuries of Dan Lucero.

The complaint says that “Lucero was clearly unarmed” and did not “make any verbal or physical threats to the officers” but still endured a “vicious dog attack” under direction of K9 officer Brent Aguilar.

The complaint alleges a “practice of excessive force” by CPD, battery and assault by Aguilar and excessive force by Aguilar and Officer Travis Loomis.

If that call for service did not indicate the potential of a weapon or the intention of “suicide by cop,” Ford said, then “we wouldn’t have had the type of response we had.”

Lucero’s attorney Matthew Coyte said he was familiar with lapel video of officers responding on scene but not the 911 call that preceded it. Even so, on consideration of the nature of that call he still critiqued CPD’s response.

“Somebody that is seriously mentally ill that might be suicidal, the last thing that you want to do is to introduce excessive force into the situation as it just makes it more likely that somebody will die,” Coyte told The News. “The very fact that they had this phone call should put them on notice that they should behave with restraint, and therefore the use of the dog at all was ridiculous. ... The police chief needs to learn that if somebody makes a call like this, that they send out a level-headed responsible officer to the scene and not someone like Mr. Aguilar.”

Coyte referred in his complaint to previous allegations of excessive force by Aguilar, who is named in three other pending lawsuits in federal court.

“It doesn’t,” make Aguilar’s job any easier, said Ford, who pointed to attitudes scrutinizing law enforcement in recent years.

“Unfortunately we are now in what I consider a litigation-happy society.” he said. “I believe Officer Aguilar does a good job. Officer Aguilar is a good police officer. He’s trying, like any of my officers, trying to do the best job he can do and take care of the public and take care of the issues we deal with.”

The use of force in the February incident is still under internal review by CPD, Ford added.

Attorney Mark Basham, representing CPD and the officers named in the suit, declined comment Monday on the pending litigation.

Police on Tuesday declined a request from The News to interview Aguilar.