APD releases details on SWAT standoff and fatal I-40 shooting in Albuquerque

The Albuquerque Police Department on Tuesday released a variety of evidence and details from a SWAT standoff that ended with police shooting and killing an armed man last month.

The standoff and subsequent investigation left Interstate 40 closed for over 12 hours.

"Transparency is important and we want the community to fully understand how dangerous the situation was,” said APD Interim Chief Cecily Barker at a briefing Tuesday. “The suspect had a lengthy criminal history and was legally prohibited from possessing a firearm.”

Barker said 51-year-old Roman Kirby was pointing a gun at drivers and officers while under the influence of methamphetamines. During an autopsy, a bag of meth was recovered from Kirby’s intestines, police said.

Kirby was fatally shot by Deputy Cmdr. Eric Brown after an hourslong confrontation in which officers pleaded with Kirby to drop his gun and surrender.

Brown was hired by APD in 1998 and retired in 2022 but was rehired a year later. He has been involved in three prior police shootings, in 2010, 2017 and 2020.

Kirby's death was the second Albuquerque police shooting of 2026. On Jan. 10, APD officers shot and killed a commercial burglary suspect.

Hours before Kirby was killed, officers were dispatched around 3:30 p.m. after receiving calls that a wrong-way driver crashed on westbound I-40. A witness told police the driver — later identified as Kirby — had been driving erratically prior to the crash.

At some point, police said, Kirby crashed into another vehicle near the Eubank exit and ran.

Dispatchers received another phone call that Kirby had run across I-40 with a gun in his hand, nearly getting hit by two vehicles in the process. 

“It looks like he’s pointing a gun towards me,” the caller said. “It looks like a pistol.”

Around 5 p.m., police located Kirby in an arroyo near Eubank and I-40 and used a loudspeaker to tell him to drop his weapon but he refused. Lapel footage shows Kirby stumbling through the arroyo and multiple officers said he seemed “disoriented.”

The SWAT team was brought in around 6 p.m. and crisis negotiators called Kirby 99 times during the stand-off, APD Cmdr. Jeff Barnard said during the briefing. Police made contact with Kirby around 6:45 p.m. and he refused to drop his gun and told officers he had been shot by police in 1997.

A video from a police helicopter showed Kirby in the arroyo and pointing a gun at officers as they stood above him on the highway. A video from a drone showed Kirby firing at least one bullet at the drone, which was not hit. 

Footage from police also showed Kirby alternate between pointing the gun at the drone and himself several times as police negotiated with him to drop the weapon. Barnard said Kirby “exhibited this behavior several times during the five-hour standoff with police.”

Officers deployed a flashbang and fired several rounds of less-lethal ammunition toward Kirby. In total, police fired 26 less-lethal rounds, 10 flashbangs and 11 additional forms of less-lethal ammunition.

The efforts were ineffective, though footage later showed multiple bruises on Kirby where the less-lethal rounds hit him. At one point, Kirby pointed his gun toward officers inside an armored police vehicle before he stood up and ran west down the arroyo, toward traffic.

In an interview after the shooting, Deputy Cmdr. Brown stated that Kirby was able to evade police while heading west and said the distance between him and officers grew larger by the moment.

“So at this point, I've got an armed violent felon who has demonstrated a propensity to his violence to achieve his goals, and he is moving in the direction of the only traffic, approximately 80 yards that he could see,” Brown said during the interview, according to Barnard. 

“All of that led me to believe that (Kirby) was an imminent threat to the people to the west. So at this point, I made the decision, for all the reasons stated, to deploy deadly force to stop his movement...”

Brown, inside of the armored SWAT vehicle, told Kirby twice to drop his gun or he would be shot by police. Moments later, he fired two rounds that fatally struck Kirby in the back.

“Had he survived, he would have been charged with aggravated assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon, felon in possession of a firearm, negligent use of a firearm, possession of a controlled substance, and leaving the scene of an accident,” Barnard said.

Nakayla McClelland covers crime and breaking news. Reach her at nmcclelland@abqjournal.com or at 505-823-3857.