Charges filed against Las Cruces officer who shot man at close range during scuffle

In cellphone video, two officers wrestle with a Black man outside a gas station in Las Cruces. One officer loses his Taser, and the man’s hand grabs it as he tries to hold himself up.

The other officer pulls out his gun, puts it to the back of the man’s head and pulls the trigger, killing him instantly.

The man, 36-year-old Presley Eze, had been accused of stealing a beer.

Now, more than a year later, Las Cruces Police Department Officer Brad Lunsford has been criminally charged for his actions.

Lunsford, 38, faces one count of voluntary manslaughter with a firearm enhancement in the Aug. 2, 2022, killing of Eze. He was reportedly booked into custody and released from the Doña Ana County Detention Center.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, whose office filed the charges, said Lunsford “committed a real unnecessary escalation of force and violence” by shooting Eze as he held onto a fellow officer’s Taser.

“This was a tragedy that should never have happened; it should never have happened,” he said during a news conference Tuesday morning. “And I want everyone to understand that, when (Eze) lost his life on the pavement outside of that gas station, the original call that came out was for petty theft.”

Attorney Luis Robles, who is representing the city of Las Cruces, said Lunsford was on duty until Tuesday but has since been put on paid administrative leave as charges were filed.

Robles, who is also representing Lunsford in a civil lawsuit brought by Eze’s family, said Lunsford’s actions were reasonable.

“Very much so,” Robles said.

He said Eze tried to take the officer’s gun before grabbing the Taser, acknowledging none of which was clear in the cellphone video but shared by both officers in interviews afterward.

Robles said he is concerned that criminal charges were filed against Lunsford before the Multi-Agency Task Force finished its investigation into the shooting more than a year later.

He acknowledged it was “unusual,” but not unheard of, for such an investigation to be ongoing after a year but said it was due to Eze’s toxicology report not being available yet.

Attorney Shannon Kennedy, who is representing Eze’s family, called the reason for the delay “such bullshit.”

The most ludicrous excuse we have ever heard, and it’s insulting to this family,” she said.

Kennedy said the toxicology would never be reliable because police left Eze’s body on the pavement for several hours in 106 degree heat.

She said Eze’s family “deeply appreciate Attorney General Torrez breaking the silence surrounding the killing of Presley Eze and trust that the justice system will work.”

“They understand and appreciate the Attorney General’s charging decision and trust, in the words of Dr. King, that justice will correct everything that stands against love,” Kennedy said in a statement.

During the news conference, Torrez said filing criminal charges against law enforcement “is always very complicated and very challenging in this country.”

He said the community will have “a strong and understandable sense of anger” upon seeing video of the shooting and asked the public for “calmer heads to prevail.”

The day of the shooting, Las Cruces officers responded around 4:20 p.m. to a Chevron gas station near Interstate 10 and University after an employee reported a beer theft, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed in Doña Ana County District Court. The employee said a man, later identified as Eze, took a beer and was drinking it at the gas pump.

Agents said officer Lunsford arrived and approached Eze, who was in a vehicle and told Lunsford he didn’t steal the beer. Officer Keegan Arbogast arrived and Lunsford told Arbogast he was going to detain Eze, who had repeatedly misidentified himself.

Both officers pulled Eze out of the vehicle as he asked them why he was being detained and a scuffle ensued, according to the affidavit. The three fell to the ground, with Eze on top of Arbogast and Lunsford behind him, as the struggle continued.

In the cellphone video taken by a bystander, Arbogast’s Taser can be seen on the ground before Eze grabs it with his left hand and moves it to his right hand. Lunsford can be seen punching Eze in the face before pulling out his gun, putting it to Eze’s head and pulling the trigger.

At no point in the video is Eze seen aiming the Taser at the officers or trying to discharge it. Agents said Lunsford had less-lethal options, a Taser of his own and a baton, on his belt that he could’ve used on Eze instead.

On Sept. 29, agents with the Attorney General’s Office shared the video with a retired Illinois police chief who “serves as an expert in applying Constitutional Standards, State Law, policy, and practice to police and jail incidents.” The retired chief, according to the complaint, said the initial investigation into the shoplifting “could’ve been more thorough” before Lunsford moved to detain Eze, who had not shown any signs he was “violent or a threat to officers.”

Agents said the chief observed the Taser in Eze’s hand but said that he was using the arm to hold himself up and the Taser wasn’t pointed at police. The chief said there were multiple options of less-lethal force available and Lunsford actions were “not justified due to the circumstances.”

During Tuesday’s news conference, Torrez asked people not to forget that Eze was a brother, a father and a son.

“I think it’s important for people to understand who he was as a human being and not to simply distill his life into seconds of a video captured on lapel… because that’s not defining of everything about who he is,” Torrez said. “Even though in this context, it will be what people know about him most in his life; he was bigger than that and he was more than that.”