Video shows deadly confrontation with police in downtown Albuquerque
[anvplayer video=”5129501″ station=”998122″]
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Body camera video shows the moment police officers confronted a man in an SUV outside the Hotel Andaluz in downtown Albuquerque in June.
Officer: “I don’t want to have to shoot you, man, put it down.”
Suspect: “No!”
Officer: “Please put it down.”
Suspect: “No.”
Officer: “Can you please put it down.”
Suspect: “No.”
Police said the man, 58-year-old Frank Baty, was armed with a gun and refused to drop it. In the video, you can hear Baty saying “no” as officers plead with him to put the gun down.
Moments later, an officer opened fire.
Officers started first aid on the scene, but Baty died at the hospital from gunshot wounds.
In a video posted on Twitter by police that morning, Albuquerque Police Department Chief Harold Medina said officers were on another call for service at the hotel when the shooting happened.
“Officers were actually clearing that separate call when a vehicle approached the officers,” Medina said. “A male subject from within the vehicle advised officers something to the effect that the individual had a firearm, a gun, and the officers were going to have to shoot him.”
Medina said the gun Baty had appeared to be an airsoft gun, and it appeared he used officers to take his own life.
“We can send resources out to help with individuals, this is not the first case this year of an individual using officers as a means to take their own life,” Medina said. “We know there has been an increase in suicide across the nation and it’s unfortunate that may, again, be the case here in Albuquerque. “