Daniel Borunda

El Paso Times

Erik Salas Sanchez was shot three times in the back by an El Paso police officer in 2015.

A lawsuit claims the death was part of pattern of excessive force against the mentally ill.

Other cases include the shooting of a handcuffed man and stun gun used on a man who hanged himself.

A civil rights lawsuit claims that the death of a man shot in the back by a police officer is part of a troubling pattern by the El Paso Police Department of using excessive force against people with signs of mental illness.

The shooting of Erik Emmanuel Salas Sanchez is part of a larger concern regarding police use of force when dealing with mentally ill people, said lawyers Enrique Moreno and Lynn Coyle, who are representing his family.

The lawsuit claims excessive force incidents have jumped in the past four years and mentions several cases, including a suicidal man who died after being shocked with a Taser while he was trying to hang himself in 2015. It says El Paso police have used deadly force at a higher rate than the national average in recent years.

Salas, 22, was shot twice in the back and once in a buttock inside his family's Lower Valley home on Jesuit Drive on April 29, 2015, according to an autopsy report.

Salas' lawyers claimed that police officials' description of the case as a burglary was a misrepresentation of what was actually a mental health incident.

"This is a community issue that goes beyond this case," said Moreno, adding that the lawsuit also seeks to change the way El Paso police respond to people having a mental health emergency.

"If this lawsuit changes some of the practices that make this less likely to happen again in the future, it will be a good outcome," Moreno said. "This was from the inception a mental health call. If we had better training, better procedures, better leadership, Erik Salas would be alive today.”

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The lawsuit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court against the city of El Paso, Officer Mando Kenneth Gomez, who according to documents shot Salas, and Officers Alberto Rivera and Pamela Smith, who also were at the scene. The lawsuit does not list a monetary amount sought.

The lawsuit does not name Police Chief Greg Allen as a defendant but states that he is the policymaker responsible for setting department policy, practice and customs.

Sgt. Enrique Carrillo, a spokesman for the Police Department, said the department does not comment on pending litigation and would not comment on the allegations in the lawsuit.

A state grand jury indicted Gomez on a manslaughter charge Feb. 28 in what appears to be the first El Paso police officer ever indicted as a result of an on-duty shooting. The indictment went unannounced until an El Paso Times report last month.

“I have not seen the civil case. I can’t comment on that," said Gomez's attorney, Jim Darnell. "There is a criminal case pending and we believe that Officer Gomez will be exonerated when all the facts come out. He acted as a good police officer should and he is a good police officer.”

Gomez, 37, has been with the Police Department for 10 years. He has been assigned to administrative duties.

The manslaughter case is scheduled to go to trial Aug. 7 in 120th District Court.

Controversial confrontation

Salas' lawyers dispute the version of events in an EPPD news release stating that Salas was allegedly armed with a metal object, threatened to kill officers and was shot when he charged at an officer responding to a call of a home burglary in progress.

The department news release did not disclose that Salas was shot inside his own home.

According to the lawsuit, Salas was taking an anti-depressant and was showing signs of mental health issues. His neighbor across the street called police, and she reported that Salas had been inside her home but had left. She did not tell police that a burglary had occurred, according to the lawsuit.

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After speaking with the neighbor, officers went across the street and spoke with Salas' mother, Celia Sanchez, who was outside and told officers that her son had been acting strange lately and that she had tried to find mental health services for him, the lawsuit states.

While police spoke with his mother, Salas began to talk to his mother from behind a screen door and told officers to leave, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit claims that Salas was not armed and did not threaten police. Salas was 5 feet 7 and weighed 117 pounds.

Allegedly frustrated by Salas' insistence that they leave, officers pushed Sanchez out of the way and entered the home, where Salas' twin sister, Nora, was standing in the living room with a newborn in her arms, the lawsuit alleges.

Officers drew their weapons upon entering the home. Salas went into the kitchen and Officer Rivera, who was in the adjacent dining room, tried to shoot him with a Taser stun gun, according to the lawsuit. The Taser hit Salas' clothing but did not make full contact.

Salas was allegedly moving toward a back hallway when Gomez fired five rounds, hitting Salas three times. Salas fell to the ground, then was kicked and handcuffed, the lawsuit claims.

No firearm, knife or other weapon was found at the scene, the lawsuit states.

An EPPD custodial death report described a different confrontation.

The report states that the neighbor found Salas inside her house and talked him into getting out of her home; she then locked the door and called 911 when Salas tried to get back inside.

The first arriving officer saw Salas cross the street and try to hide by a vehicle outside his home, the report states.

Salas was "acting with erratic behavior and making threats" to the officer and backed up to the front door when two other officers arrived, the death report states. Salas' mother opened the door and let him inside.

"The female allowed the officers to enter based on their investigation," the report states. Salas still was acting erratic "and was seen taking possession of an object believed by the officers to be a handgun or weapon."

The report states that Salas allegedly charged at an officer who fired his Taser, which did not make full contact. Salas "then stopped, turned his attention to another officer and charged him. This officer fired his service weapon striking (Salas) multiple times."

The police description of the case as a burglary was "deliberate mischaracterization" of what officers knew was a mental health encounter, Coyle said. “The truth is this was a skinny young man shot in his home in the back," she said.

A pattern of excessive force?

The lawsuit alleges that the number of excessive force cases involving El Paso police has jumped in the past four years. In 15 years prior to 2012, there were 32 excessive force cases compared with at least 21 cases, including 14 deaths, from 2012 to 2016.

The lawsuit specifically mentions the high-profile fatal shooting of a handcuffed prisoner, Daniel Saenz, outside the Downtown jail in 2013 and eight other cases of people shot, wounded or hit with a Taser during possible mental-health episodes.

The lawsuit also mentions the shooting of Francisco Ramirez, who allegedly was holding a knife when police arrived at a suicide-in-progress call on Nov. 5. Ramirez was shot and wounded by police, who did not de-escalate the situation, the lawsuit claims.

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The two men killed in police shootings in El Paso last year both had mental health issues, the lawsuit states.

On April 16, 2016, Eric John Wilson, 22, was allegedly suicidal, claimed to be have an AR-15 rifle and two handguns and said that he wanted to shoot police and die, according to a custodial death report filed by the Police Department. Wilson was shot when he held up his illuminated cellphone after police ordered him to show his hands while he was pacing back and forth on a sidewalk in front of his home on Tierra Taos Drive on the West Side, according to news archives, the lawsuit and the death report.

On May 9, Arthur R. Williams Jr., 33, was shot when he came out of his home holding a BB gun after his mother called police during a family dispute at a home on Dizzy Dean Place in the Northeast.

The cases show "a custom and practice" that indicate an overt pattern of excessive force against residents who police know have mental health issues, said Christopher Benoit, another lawyer on the Salas case.

The lawyers said that some of the information on excessive force was incomplete because the city didn't provide all information they had requested regarding residents' complaints.

Improved training and practices to deal with the mental health-related situations not only would better protect residents but also police officers, who are often the first who arrive to deal with a mental health emergency, Salas' lawyers said.

"If there was a good protocol in place, it could have all ended very differently," Coyle said about the Salas case. "All of this could have ended differently. Everybody loses by not having good leadership on this issue.

"If a loved one is having a mental health issue, we need to confidently be able to contact the police and expect when they arrive that they will de-escalate a situation," she said.

Daniel Borunda may be reached at 546-6102; dborunda@elpasotimes.com; @BorundaDaniel on Twitter.