The family of a man fatally shot in New Mexico by police officers responding to the wrong house sued the department for wrongful death and other claims in federal court, according to a complaint filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court of New Mexico.
Robert Dotson, 52, was shot and killed in the doorway of his house in Farmington after local police officers opened fire after they said they saw he had a gun.
Police knocked on Dotson’s door at 11:30 p.m. on April 5, according to the complaint filed in court. Dotson grabbed his gun from the top of the refrigerator and went to open the front door. The complaint says “police vehicles were parked down the street and did not have their lights on.”
Three officers standing outside the door immediately opened fire, according to the complaint. Dotson was hit by 12 bullets. His wife, Kimberly, wearing just her robe, came down the stairs to find out what happened, the complaint says, and the officers fired an additional 19 bullets at her but missed.
New Mexico State Police issued a statement saying that Farmington police were responding to a domestic violence call but went to the wrong address.
Used to live in Chaves county for many years. Law enforcement there is even worse than the rest of what you hear in the country for a few reasons. Roswell PD for example would pay for your police training, so these guys and gals would get a free ride to FLETC as long as they were going to join RPD.
However, most of the time they would graduate, start working in Roswell and immediately realize how shitty the town and corruption within RPD was and transfer to another office, usually out of state. It became an issue for a long time where people would just get the free FLETC ride and go off elsewhere, making local PD was so thin that State Police as well as the Sheriff’s Department were having to help out with mundane calls well below their pay grade.
So this causes the other issue, the only cops there consistently are the douchefucks that peaked in high school (and peek at high schoolers, both a joke and the reality, see Cass Mason of Hagerman, NM PD) who have an ego and power fantasy. They have room temperature IQ and AR15s in the back seat. I’m sure Farmington is no different with their police academy candidates.
So this story didn’t surprise me when it happened, sadly. Hope the family gets what they deserve from these shitty cops.