ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Albuquerque Police Department officers responded to an incident at Walmart in April of this year, only to realize a camera had captured what they had said.
“They never turned my f*cking camera off,” an officer can be heard saying through the lapel camera.
The conversations include racial slurs and glorification of violence, shortly after 30-year-old Mark Benavidez was killed by police officers.
“If that means you have to shoot a few, then so be it,” one officer said in the footage.
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Officers responded to the Walmart at Wyoming and Menaul for a suspected pair of robbers. One of them would later be identified as Benavidez. Attempts to detain Benavidez as he was leaving the store resulted in a scuffle between him and officers.
During the incident, Benavidez was seen grabbing an officer’s gun and firing it multiple times into the ground. Benavidez was shot and killed.
“I like violent encounters with violent people,” one officer said in the lapel footage. “That’s why I became a police officer. I’m not here to help old ladies who can’t get across the f****** road. I want to get real scumbags who actually do stuff off the streets.”
It’s not clear who exactly is speaking in the footage, but they don’t hold back.
“I gotta get a wild man,” (unintelligible) someone can be heard saying, as the audio becomes difficult to hear.
It is also unknown who the officers are talking about, but a few minutes later they make another comment in which they use the swear words again.
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“What’s going on here?… (unintelligible) wanted… (unintelligible) it’s getting out of hand,” you hear an officer say.
One of the officers on camera then starts talking about his son having a relationship with a Native American woman.
“My son is dating a Native from Isleta. She gets the check; he gets a f****** free trailer, and some f****** land, a farm there,” he said.
According to the Albuquerque Police Department (APD), an internal investigation is underway. News 13 reached out to the APD on Sunday to answer a few questions about the incident. They say they are not doing interviews while the investigation is ongoing.
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