Albuquerque police detail shooting of armed man handcuffed in officer's SUV

For 40 minutes after police handcuffed Matthew “Solo” Garcia — who was irate and threatening to kill himself — officers tried repeatedly to calm him down and even let him smoke a cigarette in the back of a police SUV.

But, despite several officers expressing concern about Garcia’s behavior and his bulging pockets, nobody patted down the 39-year-old.

It turned out Garcia had a loaded gun with a bullet in the chamber.

On Wednesday, the Albuquerque Police Department shared lapel video showing officers Precious Cadena and Zachary Earles firing 11 bullets, from opposite sides and through the open doors of the SUV, at Garcia as a third officer wrested the gun from him.

It appeared, from lapel video, that the officer took the gun from Garcia less than a second before bullets started flying. Garcia was struck 10 times, police say, and died at the scene.

APD Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock, during a briefing on the Oct. 18 incident, said both Earles and Cadena joined the department in 2021. Only Earles has been involved in a prior shooting — he shot and injured a man during a foot chase in November 2023.

Hartsock said the gun wielded by Garcia had been bought by another person in April. That person told APD the gun was stolen but they never reported it. APD is investigating how the gun ended up in Garcia’s hands.

One of Garcia’s last confrontations with APD, according to online court records, began with similar threats but ended with different results.

Court records show in June 2023 an officer tried to arrest Garcia after he was spotted smoking fentanyl along East Central, according to police. Garcia pulled a knife and told the officer to “kill him.”

A backup officer talked Garcia into dropping the knife, and police used a less-lethal round to detain him, according to court records. That case was dropped after the arresting officer didn’t show up for court.

Jeffrey Hass, an attorney for Garcia’s family, said the family hasn’t seen the videos released to the media on Wednesday but has filed a public records request for them.

“With the information that was released tonight, the facts are still clear that Matthew Garcia was shot while handcuffed behind his back, sitting in the back of a squad car, after he admitted he had a gun and it was taken from him,” Haas said in a statement on behalf of the family. “The gun was never pointed at any officer, nor was Matthew capable of aiming or shooting at anyone, nevertheless he was subsequently shot ten times by two separate officers. He should not have been shot and killed.”

Haas said Garcia was a father of two, a 12-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl.

At the time he was shot to death, Garcia had warrants out for his arrest for missing drug court, leading police to try to arrest him.

The shooting of a handcuffed Garcia captured headlines and, within hours, led to a tense protest near the Tewa Motel, on Central just east of San Mateo, that ended in at least two protesters being arrested.

The uproar — fanned partly by a false rumor that Garcia was shot execution-style on the sidewalk — led APD to release some lapel footage of the police shooting a few days later.

APD Chief Harold Medina said the department wasn’t going to “sugarcoat the fact” that Garcia was placed into the SUV without a pat-down.

He said, as shown in the video, Cadena put on gloves to search Garcia when he suddenly banged his head against the SUV, and “in an attempt to calm the situation down, they put him in the car.”

“Officers were trying to do what we’ve asked them to do for the past 10 years under this (Department of Justice) settlement agreement — de-escalate situations,” Medina said.

He later added, “The notion that officers are mistrained and just didn’t search this individual is completely inaccurate. You can see they knew they had to search him, but the incident escalated.”

The investigation into the shooting and what led up to it is ongoing, and no determinations of policy violations have been made.

The shooting

Hartsock said the incident began with a call from the owner of the Tewa Lodge motel, asking for help to ensure the property was safe and up to code.

APD officers and the city’s code enforcement workers began knocking on doors around 11:15 a.m. and 15 minutes later found Garcia in one of the rooms. Lapel video shows officer Cadena detaining Garcia after he gave a fake name.

“If you’re afraid of a warrant or something, just (expletive) let us know, dude,” Cadena tells Garcia in the video.

As Garcia fidgets, Cadena says, “You’re making me nervous” and, at that point, she puts handcuffs on him. Garcia grows irate, yelling, “I didn’t do (expletive) nothing! This is violating my rights.”

Cadena tells Garcia he is being arrested for concealing his identity and puts gloves on to search him when Garcia bangs his head against the police SUV, as seen on the lapel video. Officers tell Garcia to calm down, to “stop acting like a child” and ask him to “work with us.”

“Listen, I’m afraid that you don’t understand there’s no way you’re going to get out of this unless you talk to us and be nice to us,” an officer tells Garcia, who replies calmly, “I’m going to kill myself.”

The officer tells Garcia, “We’re not going to let that happen.”

Cadena then brings Garcia a cigarette, puts it in his mouth and lights it, telling him to be careful not to get burned. After he’s done, she puts her gloves on and takes a chain from his neck that has a pill bottle on it, which he tells her is his mom’s ashes.

“It’s fentanyl pills, dude. I can hear them,” Cadena tells him.

While Cadena tries to find out Garcia’s real name using her computer from the front seat, she asks another officer, “Can you just keep eyes on him, please? He’s moving a lot, and I haven’t searched him yet.”

An officer tells Cadena that Garcia “has a lot of bulges,” and she replies, “He’s (expletive) freaking me out.”

Minutes later, Cadena and Earles, having confirmed Garcia’s identity and found he has warrants, open the SUV door to arrest him, according to the lapel video. Garcia tells police he has a gun, and a third officer struggles with Garcia over the weapon while Earles and Cadena open fire.

Hartsock said the officer struggling with Garcia for possession of the gun later told investigators he saw the barrel pointing in their direction when Earles and Cadena began shooting. Hartsock said Earles and Cadena told investigators that they believed Garcia was going to shoot one of them.

Medina pointed out that Garcia’s case is just the latest where people are “so fearful … instead of going to jail, these individuals would rather lose their life.”

“Are they fearful of the withdrawals? Are they fearful of the lengthy prison stays? I don’t know, but I think it’s something worth somebody at an educational institute researching and kind of finding out why we’re now seeing this current trend of individuals who are so fearful.”