BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. – Two Bernalillo County deputies shot and killed a South Valley man last year.

Now, Jared Romero’s family has filed a new lawsuit claiming a breakdown in communication failed an Army veteran struggling with his mental health.

In 2019, KOB 4 covered Elisha Lucero’s death. Just like Romero, deputies say she had a knife – suffering a mental health crisis – and those deputies feared for their lives when they shot and killed her outside her uncle’s South Valley home.

Now, under a new sheriff, this lawsuit alleges a breakdown within the same department led to Romero’s wrongful death.

“Well, I was in my kitchen and I heard, you know, gunshots,” said Susan Musante, a South Valley resident. 

Musante remembers peering through her fence on April 16, 2023. 

“Someone made what they call a well check. Which should really be a well check, not a dead check,” Musante said.

Bernalillo County deputies show up to Romero’s house after his father called, worried about him.

According to the lawsuit, the Army veteran struggled with PTSD and had a delusional disorder. Romero had been getting treatment, but the month prior, he showed up at the BCSO substation telling deputies he needed to turn himself in for a crime he didn’t commit.

The lawsuit states he was “clearly in distress and in a paranoid state,” and that deputies took him to him the hospital. A month later, the lawsuit says Romero’s father told the 911 dispatcher he worried his son might hurt himself.

“He has a knife to his throat.”

Romero comes out of his house with a knife to his neck, telling officers he wants to die.

“Our neighborhood had a huge loss,” Musante said. 

Musante says she is a licensed clinical counselor, and an expert in mental health treatment.

“We don’t have adequate response to these things,” Musante said.

There are procedures in place to activate crisis intervention deputies, and a database for law enforcement to know when they are walking to into a situation with someone who might be in crisis.

The lawsuit claims a 911 dispatch may have miscoded the Romero’s call for help, and deputies should have known what they were walking into.

That’s a concern the sheriff raised days after the shooting.

“I just know it came out as a welfare check. And I don’t know what a welfare check means to you, but to me, that’s something a little bit more general. So we need to make sure in our policy procedures we need to make sure that is exactly what we are going to,” BCSO Sheriff John Allen said.

A spokesperson for BCSO says they do not comment on pending litigation. However, right after this shooting, the department announced a new behavioral health and compliance manager to better help the department with these types of calls.