Live coverage: Day 3 of APD shooting death trial

APD Detective Brett Lampiris-Tremba testifies Monday, March 11, 2013, during the trial for a civil wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Iraq War veteran Kenneth Ellis III. Lampiris-Tremba fatally shot Ellis in the neck on Jan. 13, 2010. (Pat Vasquez-Cunningham/Albuquerque Journal)

Judge Shannon Bacon talks to lawyers on both sides during the Kenneth Ellis III trail before clearing the courtroom of press and non-court staff. (Pat Vasquez-Cunningham/Albuquerque Journal)

 
Journal reporter Jeff Proctor is in the courtroom at the Ellis trial. He will be live tweeting and filing updates on this page.

Read Proctor’s complete stories from earlier days in the trial:
Day 1: Trial opens in APD shooting death
Day 2: Expert questions officer’s hiring

12:30 p.m.
APD officer Brett Lampiris-Tremba testified in court this morning that he trusts the training he has received from the department — and that he “made the best decision at the time” when he chose to shoot Iraq War veteran Kenneth Ellis III in 2010.

Ellis’ family sued Lampiris-Tremba, officer Byron “Trey Economidy” — who pinned Ellis’ Corvette into a convenience store parking lot as part of an auto theft investigation — and the city of Albuquerque in the aftermath of the shooting.

State District Judge Shannon Bacon ruled last month that the fatal shooting was unlawful — leaving a jury to decide how much money the city will have to pay Ellis’ young son, whether the traffic stop was legal and whether APD should be on the hook for negligently hiring Lampiris-Tremba and keeping him on the force after several incidents prior to the shooting.

Lampiris-Tremba spent this morning on the witness stand under what was at times withering direct examination by Joe Kennedy, one of the Ellis family’s attorneys.

Kennedy pointed out that APD officers are trained to deal with people in crisis by designating one officer to speak with them.

Ellis held a gun to his own head during a nine-minute encounter with police in the 7-Eleven parking lot at Constitution and Eubank NE. Several officers yelled at him to drop the gun, while others tried to speak with him, according to testimony in the trial, which began last week.

Lampiris-Tremba testified today that he was trying to “play off what other officers were saying” to Ellis during the encounter. That’s a tactic the officer said he had seen work before.

“At what point do you decide to deviate from your training?” Kennedy asked Lampiris-Tremba.

“I don’t know how to answer that question, Mr. Kennedy,” the officer replied.

In court this morning, Lampiris-Tremba said he shot Ellis for several reasons: because he was afraid for his own safety and that of his fellow officers; because in a cellphone call to his mother during the encounter, Ellis told her he loved her and that he didn’t want to go to prison — which Lampiris-Tremba perceived as an escalation of the situation; because Ellis took a step toward Detective Gerald Roach; and because Ellis “twitched.”

Kennedy pointed out that in Lampiris-Tremba’s statement to investigators the day after the shooting, he never mentioned the step toward Roach. In fact, according to a transcript of the interview Kennedy read in court this morning, Lampiris-Tremba had told investigators that Ellis had taken a step in his direction.

Lampiris-Tremba also said in the interview the day after the shooting that he felt like the encounter had gone on too long.

“How does that comport with ‘time is on our side?’” Kennedy asked, referring to standard APD de-escalation training Lampiris-Tremba said he had received.

“You’re right about completing,” Lampiris-Tremba responded. “More time is better … I thought the situation was getting worse. I did think that I was in trouble — from getting shot or killed — and I do know that time is on our side. But based on other behavioral cues, I didn’t think a successful resolution was possible.”

The exchange drew gasps and murmurs from the packed courtroom.

Among those in attendance this morning was Police Chief Ray Schultz, who sat in for more than an hour of testimony for the first time during the trial.

Prior to questioning Lampiris-Tremba about the specifics of the shooting, Kennedy got the officer’s agreement that Economidy’s stop of Ellis hasn’t been a “routine traffic stop.”

Lampiris-Tremba had called Economidy on his police radio to ask him to stop Ellis, who had knocked on the door of an apartment Lampiris-Tremba and other undercover officers were watching as part of an auto theft investigation.

Lampiris-Tremba testified that he didn’t have probable cause to believe Ellis had committed a crime, but added: “I do think I had reasonable suspicion.”

Kennedy’s questioning began with details of several incidents that occurred prior to APD hiring Lampiris-Tremba, including the fact that he lied about smoking marijuana on an employment application to join the department in 1992. Lampiris-Tremba was hired after his second application in 1997, even after he admitted to the previous lie.

Kennedy then went over three separate times Lampiris-Tremba crashed police vehicles. Each of the collisions was deemed to be the officer’s fault.

And more details came out in court this morning about the time Lampiris-Tremba falsified a time card in 2002. The officer had entered his name into a log book for a vacation day he never took. He also entered a supervisor’s initials to sign off on the request.

When a supervisor later questioned him about it, he lied to the supervisor.

“I wasn’t trying to defraud the city,” Lampiris-Tremba testified. “I just didn’t think my supervisors would approve it.”

Lampiris-Tremba was suspended one day for the infraction.

Lampiris-Tremba also was suspended one day and ordered to take additional training on the use of Tasers after an incident in 2004 in which he shot a man who he had stopped on suspicion of stealing a car with an electronic stun gun.

The man was on his stomach and on the ground when Lampiris-Tremba Tasered him. The officer said the man refused to remove his hands from the area of his abdomen — which the officer conceded would be considered “passive resistance” under APD policies.

The policies don’t allow officers to use Tasers on people who are passively resisting, but APD brass at the time determined the incident didn’t rise to the level of excessive force.

Lampiris-Tremba was disciplined for failing to call medical personnel for the man — who was not arrested — and for failing to properly document the taser use.

Lampiris-Tremba is expected back on the stand at 1:30 p.m. Check back to this page for live coverage of today’s testimony.