On April 16, 2022, 75-year-old Amelia Baca of Las Cruces, New Mexico, was shot and killed by a Las Cruces Police Department officer after her family called 911 for help during a mental health crisis. The family told dispatch that Baca had dementia; officers who responded did not deploy the crisis intervention team that handles such calls. Body camera video shows Baca armed with two kitchen knives and not complying with commands to drop them. The officer fired two shots; Baca was still alive afterward but did not receive immediate medical aid, and an officer was ordered to drag her from the house.

The officer involved had roughly nine years with LCPD and more than 70 hours of Crisis Intervention Training beyond academy instruction. The Doña Ana County District Attorney and the New Mexico Attorney General declined to file criminal charges after experts concluded the shooting could be justified as self-defense. Baca’s family and their attorney, Sam Bregman, and the ACLU of New Mexico criticized the response and have filed state and federal lawsuits alleging aggravated battery resulting in death and violations of the state constitution and the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Does anyone have information about the response or the use of crisis intervention teams in Las Cruces?