Fatal shooting first in APD history to be officially ruled as excessive force

A blur of movement. A pointed gun. The intent to kill.

That’s what Albuquerque Police Department Detective Angelo Lovato said he saw before he shot a man who moments earlier held a gun to his own head. Taking cover behind a rock, 68 feet away, Lovato undid the safety on his rifle and — without looking through his scope — fired.

Pete “Jacob” Martinez had been reaching in his pocket for a cigarette, his gun aimed at the pavement, when Lovato shot him in the chest, according to three officers who were working to deescalate the situation and take Martinez into custody. Martinez had been pursued as a suspected shoplifter during APD’s Operation “Sticky Fingers” in 2023, targeting retail crime at a West Side mall.

A monthslong internal probe by APD determined that Lovato used excessive force in violation of APD’s use-of-force policy when he fired the fatal bullet at Martinez, according to the findings of the Internal Affairs Force Division (IAFD).

Lovato was never disciplined because he took military leave with the National Guard following the shooting and did not return to the force prior to retiring on May 1, according to APD spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos.

It was Lovato’s third time shooting and killing someone in 20 years as an APD officer. Lovato was sued for excessive force in the second incident, in which a man wielding a screwdriver was killed, and exonerated by a jury.

Lovato’s attorney declined to comment.

The Journal submitted an Inspection of Public Records Act request for the investigation in May 2024, a month after the probe was completed. The city of Albuquerque did not fulfill the request until this month. Such delays have become common in requesting the findings of internal investigations from the city.

The determination marked the first time in APD’s history that an officer’s use of lethal force in a deadly shooting had been found to have violated policy. There have been instances of lethal use of force being found to be out of policy previously, but only in cases where the suspect was injured.

The only other case that came close to such a finding was the 2022 death of Jesus Crosby, a 41-year-old shot by officers while wielding a pair of nail clippers and in the grips of a mental health crisis. An APD force investigator found the deadly force in that case out of policy, a finding that was reversed by the internal affairs commander and all but one of the department’s top leaders. As a result, the finding was never sustained.

“The killing of Jacob Martinez furthered a decades-old pattern of using excessive police force against people in crisis that was so permanent and well-settled as to constitute a city custom,” according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed last year in 2nd Judicial District Court.

Since 2010, Albuquerque police have shot 145 people, 88 of whom died, according to Journal reporting and APD-provided data. For the majority of that timeline, APD was under federal oversight by the U.S. Department of Justice, which found that officers engaged in a “pattern or practice” of using excessive force.

The DOJ entered into a consent decree with the city to reform the department in 2014, capturing national headlines on the heels of the high-profile shooting of James Boyd, a homeless man who was camping in the foothills. Last month, the DOJ announced it had agreed to end the consent decree, having found APD met its end of the bargain and “has become a self-assessing and self-correcting agency.”

In 2022, the year before Martinez was killed, APD hit a record-high for police shootings, with officers shooting 18 people, 10 of them fatally. Halfway through this year, there have been eight police shootings, six of which were fatal.

Final moments

The chase took a gun-wielding Martinez and several officers through parking lots, an ice cream shop and eventually to the front door of a nearby office building. There, a cornered Martinez pointed the loaded gun to his temple.

“I’m not going to shoot at you guys. Maybe I should kill myself,” Martinez told them, according to lapel camera video. An officer replied, “We don’t want that either, man.”

As officers convinced Martinez to lower his weapon, Lovato arrived, exited his truck with a rifle and lay on the ground behind a rock, Lovato’s lapel camera showed. Meanwhile, Martinez lowered his weapon and told officers he wanted to smoke a cigarette.

Sgt. Armando Hernandez, who was found out of policy for not giving a warning first, fired a less-lethal foam round at Martinez. Less than a second later, Lovato fired the fatal shot that hit Martinez in the chest.

“He’s lifting the gun,” Lovato yelled immediately after he fired his weapon, lapel footage showed.

In interviews during the internal affairs investigation, Lovato told investigators Martinez was planning to shoot nearby officer Steven Reazin due to Lovato’s perception that Martinez had looked at Reazin and pointed the gun in his direction.

Security camera footage shows that Martinez had his gun pointed at the ground, and had transferred the weapon from his right to his left hand to reach into his pocket. The three officers closest to him, including Reazin, told investigators that they did not perceive the movement as a threat and that lethal force wasn’t necessary.

Lovato, taking cover behind a rock 68 feet away, undid the safety on his rifle and fired without looking through his scope, he told investigators.

An ‘unreasonable’ use of force and other violations

“IAFD determined that the use of deadly force was unreasonable based on the evidence that Officer (Lovato) did not observe the entirety of Mr. Martinez’s movement (and) was, therefore, limited,” the misconduct narrative reads.

Lovato’s name is redacted in the IA files, but he was the only officer to use deadly force.

Additionally, Lovato was also found to have violated policy by discussing the shooting with other officers before he could be interviewed, which is prohibited because it may change the officer’s memories of the event itself, the investigation found. A lieutenant had to remove Lovato from the scene because he kept telling officers that Martinez had tried to shoot Reazin.

The actions of several other officers in the shooting were also found to violate APD policy.

During the foot chase, officer Carlos Gudino held his gun out, inadvertently pointing his weapon at civilians in vehicles as he ran, the investigation found. Gudino failed to report this happening, leading to the conduct being deemed a policy violation.

During the standoff outside the office building, Hernandez did not verbally warn Martinez before he fired the less-lethal round, which APD ruled out of policy.

Sgt. Ross Vanderlip and Acting Sgt. Adam Greenhaw, both officers in leadership roles, were ruled out of policy for not directing their officers “to minimize uses of force” during the confrontation, the investigation found. Instead, Greenhaw yelled commands at Martinez.

Finally, officer Reazin did not activate his body camera at the beginning of the confrontation with Martinez, leaving out crucial footage of the encounter, according to the investigation. Though the camera was later turned on, this lapse in footage was ruled a policy violation.

All involved officers were allowed to return to work, including Lovato, who instead took a military leave of absence. It’s unclear what Lovato’s discipline would have been had he stayed, as documents concerning disciplinary recommendations were not released.

Other officers faced “non-disciplinary corrective action,” temporary suspension, written reprimands and mandatory training.

“APD and the City deserve credit for having implemented an accountability system that made and upheld these correct findings,” said attorney Mark Fine, who filed the suit on behalf of Martinez’s family. “The problem is that given (Lovato’s) history with APD, which included egregious dishonesty and misuse of force, the City knowingly put the public in danger when it authorized Detective Lovato to use deadly force in the field.”

The trial in the wrongful death lawsuit is scheduled for December.