The APD could not wait for six months without shooting and killing a suspect. Nope.
The day after Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg charged James Boyd's killers Dominique Perez and Keith Sandy with open counts of murder, other APD officers, now identified, chased down and killed one John Okeefe in an alley off a busy street.
They have said that Okeefe had at officers with a stolen revolver, and thus he needed killing, but witnesses say they didn't see Okeefe with a gun. The police have said that Okeefe was wearing body armor, but witnesses say they didn't see any body armor on his corpse moments after he was shot down.
According to reports, one of the shooting officers had a previous excessive force settlement, the other had shot and killed a carjack suspect in 2011. Whether these were the officers seen chasing Okeefe and heard firing in one citizen video has not been stated. Other officers arrived and may have been the ones who killed him, as at least one witness says that officers in an SUV were firing at Okeefe as well.
Police have said they had to cut the body armor off Okeefe to treat his wounds, but the body armor they have displayed publicly shows no verifiable cuts.
According to witnesses, Okeefe was not treated by either the police or by EMTs who arrived six to ten minutes after the shooting. His corpse was checked for a pulse and left in the alley.
One of the stories going around in the media claimed that two men were reported to police behaving "suspiciously" which triggered police pursuit. One "suspect" was quickly apprehended. The other ran away and fired at officers -- apparently with a stolen handgun, a working replica Colt .45 revolver -- according to police. One of the reports today says that the other man was arrested, but another story says he was transported to the hospital for assessment for feelings of dizziness, and then he was released.
I saw a video of the other man on a gurney being transported to an ambulance, and he looked to me to be a cop. I thought immediately that the whole thing might have been a sting, and that John O'Keefe was possibly targeted for a police assassination, perhaps in retribution for the recent police officers wounded in the line of duty, or even in some kind of sick retribution for charging Sandy and Perez for killing James Boyd.
The man who called police said that he saw the two men pass by his business and climb over a barrier in the rear. He had surveillance video. He went to check on what was up, and found a pile of what looked like expensive jewelry and other items -- not mentioned in any police report to date -- and thought he'd better call 911. Police arrived shortly and gave chase and John O'Keefe was killed.
It's all very strange.
Of course Okeefe was a convicted felon who needed killing. Isn't it always the way?
Meanwhile, the City Administrator barred DA representatives from the crime scene apparently in retaliation for charging Perez and Sandy for killing Boyd. Chess, eh?
Meanwhile, the blue on blue shooting the other day has raised plenty of questions -- such as why the lead detective fired and wounded another detective -- but there have been few answers.
The officer who was wounded two weeks ago has been released from the hospital to go home and get some rest.
Strange days.
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