Trial of former APD officer proceeds without in-person testimony from alleged victim

Largely absent this week in the trial of former Albuquerque police officer Kenneth Skeens is the mentally disabled man whose arrest in 2022 is central to the case.

Prosecutors allege that Skeens, 30, illegally arrested 53-year-old Matthew McManus at a Target store as he struggled to purchase a bicycle at a self-checkout register.

Testimony began Tuesday in Skeens’ trial on felony charges of false imprisonment and perjury and a single misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report.

Jurors have viewed hours of security video showing McManus piling cash on the self-checkout register, trying to buy a blue Huffy bicycle.

Prosecutors also showed jurors police lapel-camera video of Skeens and a second officer confronting McManus at the register, then pulling him out of the store as he resisted. Officers then cuffed McManus, asked him for identification, and put him into the back of Skeens’ patrol car.

But McManus himself will not testify in the trial, prosecutors said.

Instead, jurors on Wednesday heard a recording of McManus’ testimony at Skeens’ trial in April 2024. That trial ended in a mistrial last year after the jury failed to reach a verdict on any charge, which allowed prosecutors to retry Skeens this week on identical charges.

“They were very brutal,” McManus said in his recorded testimony of his treatment by police on Aug. 19, 2022. “They didn’t have any right to do all those things to me.”

McManus also said he had “a heart problem, an aneurysm and a stroke.” McManus’ disabilities often make it difficult to understand his speech.

McManus, now 56, faces his own legal problems. He was charged in May 2024 with aggravated assault for allegedly throwing rocks at trailers in the 9000 block of Zuni SE, where he lived at the time, court records show.

A Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court judge in December ordered an evaluation to determine McManus’ competency to stand trial in that case.

Assistant Attorney General Johnna Walker said that questions about McManus’ competency bar him from testifying. A judge ruled Monday that prosecutors could use a recording of McManus’ testimony last year in lieu of calling him as a witness, Walker said.

McManus is represented by an attorney with the Law Offices of the Public Defender. A spokeswoman for LOPD said Thursday that McManus is not in custody but declined additional comment about the status of his criminal case.

Court records also show that McManus was evicted last year from his trailer at Wyoming Terrace for failure to pay rent.

McManus failed to show up for trial on Aug. 8 when a Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court judge ordered him to vacate the trailer and pay Wyoming Terrace $1,405 in past-due rent and attorney fees.

Skeens’ trial is scheduled through early next week in 2nd Judicial District Court before Judge Britt Baca.

Jurors also heard this week from Ty Hunt, who worked as Target’s asset protection specialist the night of McManus’ arrest. Hunt said he gave Skeens permission to “make contact” with McManus, but not to cite him for criminal trespass.

Hunt told jurors he did not observe McManus doing anything illegal inside the store and refused to sign a criminal trespass notice that would have barred McManus from entering the store in the future.

Hunt said he spoke by phone with a supervisor and obtained permission for Skeens to “make contact” with McManus. A short time after Skeens and a second officer approached McManus, the officers removed him from the store.

“They grabbed him and there was a bunch of yelling commotion, and at that point, that’s when they started dragging him out,” Hunt told jurors.

“It was kind of shocking,” Hunt said. “I didn’t think that’s how it was going to go. I thought they were going to make contact and talk with Mr. McManus about what’s going on or something they could help him with.”