Latest / Crime Night / Fifteen bullets for a BB gun

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Fifteen bullets for a BB gun · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Picture this. It is just after eleven pm on June
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: twenty fifth, twenty twenty four. Okay, you are driving down
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: this pitch black, totally desolate stretch of Highway seventy in
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Auto County, New Mexico. I mean there are absolutely no
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: street lights out.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Here, right, just total darkness, exactly.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: It's just a sea of ink right beyond the reach
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: of your headlights, with just that quiet hum of your
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: tires on the asphalt.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that isolation can be really unsettling, it really is.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: So as you're passing mile marker two forty one, your
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: high beams sweep across the shoulder and you see a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: lone figure walking in the.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Darkness out in the middle of nowhere.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a young guy and he's not running, he's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: not stumbling or anything. He is just walking. But you know,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: it's late, it is dangerously dark, and the isolation of
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: that highway just makes you uneasy.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Right, your instinct is just to make sure they're safe, exactly.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: You pick up your phone and you call in a
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: welfare check because you think, hey, I'm getting this kid
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: a ride home, or maybe just making sure he doesn't
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: wander into traffic, which is how.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: It should work. The intention is protection. A welfare check
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: is structurally designed in law enforcement protocols to be a
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: low stress, service oriented response. The primary objective is the
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: preservation of life, not criminal apprehension.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: But the reality of what happened next, which is documented
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: in literally hundreds of pages of case files, dashcam transcripts,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: and court dockets, reveals that this single phone call triggered
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: a chaotic lethal escalation.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: It really did.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So our mission for this deep dive is to examine
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the raw facts surrounding an encounter that morphed from a
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: citizen's concern into a first degree murder charge against a
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: police officer.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: And before we parts the timeline, we really need to
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: establish our baseline for this deep dive. Definitely, we're looking
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: at these case files, the dashcam transcripts, and the official
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: court records with strict impartiality. The objective is to understand
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the mechanics of the event. We're going to explore the
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: overwhelming community outcry that followed, and we will equally examine
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the deputy stated defense right analyzing the use of force
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: continuum from both a legal and tactical perspective without taking
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: sides exactly, we are not taking sides. We're just mapping
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: the raw data to understand how the system operated that night.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Let's go back to the highway.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: According to the time stamped dispatch logs and the dashcam
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: transcripts we have, the Auto County deputy assigned to this
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: call is not treating it as a high threat environment.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: There are no sirens, no speeding. The telemetry data shows
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the cruiser moving at the super casual fifty five miles
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: per hour, which is pretty standard, right, But inside the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: cabin the deputy is blasting the club song into Ghetto
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: by j Balvin and Scrillix at like maximum volume. I mean,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the environment in the car is completely relaxed.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that telemetry and audio data actually perfectly aligns
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: with the dispatch code. Oh really Yeah, Pedestrian welfare check
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: doesn't legally authorize a Code three emergency response. Yeah, you know,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: lights and sirens because there is no known active threat.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. So as the de the approaches mile
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: marker two forty one, his head likes catch the figure.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: He slows the cruiser down. Now, the pedestrian is seventeen
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: year old Elijah Hadley. He's a Mescalero Apache teenager, and
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: given the relaxed atmosphere inside the patrol car, standard community
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: policing protocols would suggest a conversational approach like a simple
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: hey man, you need.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: A ride, exactly, just a casual check in.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But the moment the cruiser's tires stop, the dashcam audio
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: registers an immediate explosive escalation. I mean, the DEPUTYGC yells out,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: start right there, bro stop stop, stop right there. What
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: are you doing? Let me see your other hand, brow,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Let me see your other handog.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: It's just so sudden. The auditory shift is violent. Yeah.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: The transcript shows an instantaneous leap from casual driving to
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: just aggressive tactical verbal commands. It essentially skips several steps
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: in standard de escalation models.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: It really does. So. Elijah has a shirt draped over
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: his arm right and he pulls his hand out from
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: beneath it. According to the scene reports and the forensic mapping,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: he is holding it appears to be a gun.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Which obviously changes the dynamic.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: It does, but the chronological sequence in the case file
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: is paramount Here. The very moment the weapon clears the shirt,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Elijah throws it completely away from his body just tosses it,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: tossing it deep into the grassy median, and in that
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: exact fraction of a second, the deputy fires fore shots.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Elijah goes down immediately, crying out in pain. The deputy
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: screams again to see his hands, and the transcripts detail
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Elijah raising one hand into the air. It is cover
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: in blood. It's literally the only hand he can physically move.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the mechanics of police threat assessment.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: It is supposed to function like a circuit breaker.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: A circuit breaker.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the moment an active thread is neutralized or grounded,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: the circuit breaks, right, and the application of lethal force
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: is supposed to stop. Okay, I see at the exact
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: second Elijah raises that bloody hand, the immediate threat, the weapon,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: which by the way, was later identified as a BB gun,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: is physically disconnected from the suswat Right, it's in the
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: grass exactly. The suspect is on the ground, incapacitated and
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: actively complying with the verbal command to show his hands.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: The circuit should have broken.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, I have to push back on that framework though. Okay,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: we are analyzing this from a quiet room, but out
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: there on Highway seventy. It is pitch black, very true.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: If a deputy sees a weapon, fires and the suspect drops,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't current qualified immunity case law heavily favor the officer's
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: split second perception of the threat, even if we know
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: in hindsight the weapon was in the grass.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Well. Yes, the Supreme Court case Gram v. Connor absolutely
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: establishes that use of force must be judged from the
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene. Right. It
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: acknowledges that police make split second judgments intense, uncertain circumstances.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: So the initial four shots, legally speaking, fall heavily into
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: that protective gray.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Area because he saw a silhouette Exactly.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: An officer sees a gun silhouette in the dark, and
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: the law he generally provides wide latitude for that initial reaction.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: But the incident reports detail what happens next, and that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: is where the gray area just completely vanishes.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the timeline shifts.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: After those first four shots. The deputy doesn't move forward
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: to secure the suspect. He doesn't kick the weapon further
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: away or render immediate aid. No, he retreats to the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: rear of his cruiser. He pulls out a first aid kit,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: takes cover behind his open driver's side door, and gets
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: on the radio.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: He's buy in time.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He calls for backup, stating he has a subject down,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: but then explicitly tells dispatch he doesn't know where the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: gun is or if the subject could still pick it up.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: And meanwhile, the audio logs indicate Elijah is lying on
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: the asphalt, severely wounded, on just rolling in agony.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: It's horrific. While Elijah's rolling on the ground, the datcam
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: audio picks up the deputy yelling don't go to that gun,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and then he unleashes a second, massive barrage of gunfire. Yeah,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: before any backup you and it's arrived. The seventeen year
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: old is dead on the highway. When the medical examiner's
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: autopsy report was finalized, it revealed the absolute devastation of
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: that second volley.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: The extent of the damage.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Elijah wasn't just struck by those initial rounds. He absorbed
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: a minimum of fifteen bullets.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: A minimum of fifteen The sheer volume of gunfire fundamentally
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: shifts the legal calculus here. Oh so, there's a concept
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: used in military and police training called the ODA loop, observe, orient, decide.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Act Okay, I've heard of that.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: An officer must constantly cycle through this loop between the
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: first volume and the second volley. The deputy had time
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: to retreat, retrieve a medical kit, use the radio, and
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: issue new commands.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Right. That's a lot of actions exactly.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: That is plenty of time for the ODEA loop to reset.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: The split second judgment defense becomes incredibly fragile when actual
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: minutes separate the trigger.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Poles, which makes the initial response from law enforcement all
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the more baffling. When an event like this occurs, the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: public's first understanding is shaped in hirely by official press releases.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Two days after the shooting, the New Mexico State Police
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: issued their statement. They confirmed the deceased was seventeen year
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: old Elijah Hadley, and they confirmed the weapon recovered was
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: a BB gun. Okay, But when detailing the lethal force used,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the official document stated quote the deputy fired at least
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: one round from his duty weapons, striking Hadley.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: At least one round. That phrasing is a deliberate mechanism
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: of bureaucratic narrative control. It has to be by framing
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: fifteen plus ballistic impacts as at least one round, The
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: agency is technically avoiding perjury while actively suppressing the narrative temperature.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I found myself just staring at that sentence in the file.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: How does a public information officer justify calling fifteen bullet
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: wounds at least one round?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: This wild?
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It feels like a massive omission of the reality on
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: that highway.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Public relations units and law enforcement agencies utilize these sterile
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: placeholders to manage public shock before the raw transcripts and
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: autopsy reports become public record. If they release statement saying
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: a deputy shot a teenager fifteen times on a dark
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: highway over a BB gun, the immediate public reaction is uncontrollable.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: At least one round buys the agency time.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Well, it didn't last. When media requests finally forced the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: release of the actual incident logs and dash cam transcripts
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: weeks later, the community exploded. I can imagine the outrage
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: was visceral, but to fully grasp the tragedy embedded in
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: these files, we really need to look at the BIA
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: records and community background files to understand who Elijah Hadley
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: actually was.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Because a name on a casualty report strips away all
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: human context which is absolutely vital for understanding the sequence
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: of events that put him on that road in the
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: first place.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly so, Elijah lived on the nearby Mescalero Apache Reservation.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Background files show he came from a massive, incredibly hard
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: working family, five siblings, all juggling jobs, military service, and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: financial struggles. And the timeline is just devastating. The very
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: next day was his little brother's birthday.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Oh wow. And the prevailing question investigators focused on was
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: the presence.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Of the weapon, right yeah, like, why did he have it?
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly why is a seventeen year old walking down an
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: unlit highway holding a BB gun?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Well, the Bureau of Indian Affairs police records actually solve
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: that mystery, and it pants a highly specific picture of
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: his mindset. We have DiiA case files showing that exactly
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours before this fatal encounter, Elijah was the
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: victim of a violent battery.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: He was attacked.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, the investigative file includes photos taken of him with
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: his face severely cut and bruised.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: See from a behavioral analysis standpoint, that data point changes everything.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: You have a teenager who is physically traumatized just a
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: day prior. He is walking alone in the pitch black
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: and isolated area. The bb gun was not an offensive
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: weapon meant for a robbery or an assault, No, not
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: at all. It was defensive posturing, a visual bluff. He
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: carried it to ensure he wouldn't look like an easy
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: target for a secondary assault.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: That is so sad, And the geography of that night
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: adds this whole other layer of systemic tragedy that is
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: just hard to stomach. The location, yeah case notes TRACE's path.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: He was dropped off by friends at a church about
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: two and a half miles away from his mom's house,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and he was simply walking the remaining distance home when
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Elijah was stopped by the deputy at mile mark or
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: two forty one. The GPS coordinates show he was less
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: than half a mile from the reservation line.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, the jurisdictional
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: mechanics of this area turn a half mile into a
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: literal matter of life and death. Because of complex laws
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: governing tribal sovereignty, county sheriffs often do not have jurisdiction
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: on reservation land unless there is a very specific cross
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: deputization agreement.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I dug into the dispatch protocols for Otto County.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: If Elijah had walked just another eight hundred yards and
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: crossed that invisible boundary line, the nine to one to
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: one dispatcher would have been required to route that welfare
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: check entirely differently.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't have gone to that deputy exactly.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: It likely would have gone to tribal police officers who
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: operate with a completely different community context. The Autochemmy deputy
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have even been authorized to initiate the stop.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: It is an absolute tragedy of geography.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Now, diving through the juvenile records, some really reports noted
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Elijah had previously worn an ankle monitor during a period
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: in high school.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, so a bit of a history.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: But when you look at the testimony from people who
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: interacted with him daily, a completely different profile emerges.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Like who wow.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: His high school teacher, Kelly Smith, submitted statements describing him
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: as an old soul. Ah. She detailed how he was
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: deeply respectful, obedient, and had actually recently won a major
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: art competition.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Oh wow. Yeah.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: She explicitly noted in her affidavit that he was someone
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: who never talked back and never fought back when she
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: read the initial police reports claiming he had aggressively disobeyed
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: an officer. She stated categorically, quote, that's not Elijah.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: The dissonance between the tactical reports filed by the deputy
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: and the character affidavits from the community created a friction
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: that the internal investigation just failed to.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Resolve because for months the administrative wheels barely turned. The
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: deputy was placed on standard paid administrative leave pending an internal.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Review, which is standard protocol.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: It is, But then internal memos from September of twenty
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: twenty four showed he was quietly cleared to return to
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: full duty wait really full pay, full police work back,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and a cruiser.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And that reinstatement acted as an accelerant for the family
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: and the surrounding community. It signaled a complete system failure
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: and a total lack of institutional accountability.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Definitely, this perceived failure mobilized citizens who had absolutely no
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: prior connection to Elijah.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: People just from the community.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The court records highlight two advocates, Kristin Bresce and
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Danielle Ta. They were strangers living in the county who
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: read the unredacted reports and became full time fixtures of
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: protest oh for six continuous weeks from sun up to sundown,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: they occupied the space outside the shriff's office, demanding the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: deputy be named, investigated transparently, and charged.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Their mobilization really demonstrates how raw data, once it's liberated
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: from that bureaucratic phrasing, can drive civic action.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: They provided the logistical endurance that a grieving, traumatized family
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: often just cannot sustain against a municipal bureaucracy.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: And their persistence forced the system's hand. In January twenty
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: twenty five, the Brunner County District Attorney's office formally submitted
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: charges against Deputy Jacob Diaz Austin, Okay, and they bypass
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: manslaughter entirely. The docket shows a charge of first degree murder.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Which is huge. Securing a first degree murder charge and
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: an officer involved shooting is exceptionally difficult.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Because of the intent required.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly the statutory mechanics of first degree murder require the
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: prosecution to prove premeditation or a level of deliberate conscious
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: intent to kill that goes far beyond just a negligent
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: tactical error or a panicked mistake.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting, Okay. With the formal
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: charges filed, the underlying investigation files were entered into the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: public record. This included the raw transcripts of Deputy Diaz
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Austin's interrogation, which was conducted by detectives just five days
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: after the shooting.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Wow five days Yeah.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: This document provided the first unfiltered look at his operational narrative,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and an.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Interrogation of a police officer by a fellow detective is
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: a highly nuanced environment. How did he articulate the mechanics
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: of his decision to fire that second volley?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Well, the transcript show the deputy claim that during the
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: initial stop, Elijah reached across his waistband as we discussed
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: in those initial seconds in the dark. The law affords
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the deputy the presumption of a perceived.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Lethal threat right the gran Vy Connor standard.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: But the interrogation focused heavily on the second barrage. The
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: deputy told detectives that while Elijah was rolling on the ground,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: he saw Elijah's shoulder pop up, which led him to
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: believe the gun was still securely in the teenager's hand.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: But analyzing the structure of the interrogation, the interviewing detective
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: doesn't just accept that statement.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: No, He pushes back.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: He uses a funnel questioning technique, systematically locking down the
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: spatial dimensions of the scene before challenging the deputy's perception.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The transcript reads like a tense courtroom cross examination. Yeah.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: The detective methodically asks, did you at any point see
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the firearm in his hands. The deputy answers, no, sir,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: it was on the left side of his.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Body, ok, establishing the location. Right.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Then, the detective tightens the funnel. He says, so it
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: was on the ground. The deputy, who is now kind
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of boxed into his own timeline, is forced to admit, yes, sir.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: The detective makes him confirm this reality for the duration
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: of the shots fired while Elijah was down. He gets
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the deputy on the record stating that the gun was
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: on the pavement, completely out of Elijah's control when the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: fatal fifteen round barrage was unleashed.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: That admission, right there is the structural foundation of the
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: prosecution's first degree murder case. It has to be the
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: deputy acknowledged firing upon an incapacitated subject when the weapon
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: was visibly disconnected.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: But community sleuth's auditing public court databases unearthed a massive variable.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: What did they find?
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: They found a civil lawsuit filed in twenty twenty, a
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: full year before Jacob Diaz Austin entered the police academy.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: The civil filing show that Diaz Austin was teaching a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: concealed carry course at a local shooting range. During a drill,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: he was struck in the face by an unidentified object.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: The medical documentation attached to the lawsuit explicitly states the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: impact caused severe and permanent damage to his right eye.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Wow. That introduces a profound physiological element to the tactical analysis.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like finding a cracked lens inside a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: camera you thought was just taking blurry photos.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: It forces you to completely reevaluate the entire incident report,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Like did he fire fifteen shots into a teenager because
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: his permanent severer vision impairment destroyed his depth perception in
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the dark, making him genuinely believe the BB done in
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the grass was still in Elijah's hand? Or does this
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: lawsuit point to severe unresolved trauma from a previous firearms
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: drill that caused him to enter a state of complete
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: physiological panic.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Impartially speaking, this document will be heavily weaponized by both
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: sides in court.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: For sure, the defense will likely use it to argue
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: a tragic physiological misperception of distance in a low light environment,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: basically bolstering the gram V condor defense of a reasonable,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: albeit flawed, split second judgment.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: And the prosecution.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Conversely, the prosecution will frame it his proof that he
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: was fundamentally unfit for duty and that choosing to patrol
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: a dark highway with severe visual impairments constitutes a reckless
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: disregard for human life.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Which drove me straight to his personnel files. I mean,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: how does a candidate with court documented severe permanent eye
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: damage pass the Academy's mandatory vision tests?
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: That is the million dollar question.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: The certifications in his files show he passed the medical
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: clearances without issue.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: It exposes a terrifying layer of systemic failure before he
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: ever even put on.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: The badge, and those systemic anomalies don't terminate at his
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: hiring process. They extend directly into how the judicial system
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: is currently processing him as a murder defendant.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the current legal reality documented in the court rosters
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: is absolutely baffling. Deputy Dias Austin is officially indicted for
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: first degree murder, yet a check of the county jail
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: system shows he is not in custody, he didn't post
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a multimillion dollar bond, he's not subjected to GPS ankle monitoring,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: none of it. None of it. The DACA shows he
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: waived his formal arraignment, effectively entering a not guilty plea,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: and then the specific conditions of his release simply vanished
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: from the public portal.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: The presiding judge sealed the release conditions, which is highly,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: highly unusual for a high profile homicide docket.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, advocates spent weeks navigating the bureaucratic maze filing motions
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: just to understand why a first degree murder suspect was
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: sleeping in his own bed.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: When they finally force the court to unseal the release documents,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: they revealed the judge had granted him release on personal recognisance.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question about the fundamental equities and
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: risk assessment algorithms of our legal system.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how does that even happen?
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Personal recognisance or a PR bond means the court release
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: is a defendant based solely on their signed promise to
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: appear for trial. It requires zero financial collateral, just a promise. Structurally,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: judges utilize PR bonds almost exclusively for nonviolent misdemeanors or
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: minor infractions where the defendant is deemed neither a flight
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: risk nor a danger to the community.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I looked at the bail matrix for New Mexico.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: If a civilian with a PR bond history is charged
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: with first degree murder, they are almost universally held without
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: bail or given a bond so astronomically high they can't
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: possibly post it exactly. The presumption is that someone facing
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: life in prison is an inherent flights.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Which is exactly the point the community is making. To
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: grant personal recognizance to a defendant facing the most severe
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: homicide charge on the books is an astonishingly rare legal anomaly.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: It's unheard of.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: It suggests that judicial risk assessment inherently views law enforcement
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: officers as possessing a different class of citizenship, completely insulated
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: from the standard mechanisms of pretrial detention.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: It is truly staggering when you assemble all the pieces
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: from these files. So what does this all mean? That's
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the question we have a massive trial looming a court
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: room where the undeniable, time stamped reality of the dash
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: cam audio and the interrogation transcripts are going to violently
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: collide with a deputies defense of fear, darkness and physical limitation. Yes,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: a jury of citizens will have to sift through this
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: raw data and decide if the events at mile marker
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: two forty one constituted a tragic sequence of errors fueled
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: by bad eyesight or the deliberate, unjustified execution of a
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: teenager who had already thrown his weapon away.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: As we monitor the dockets for that Tree trial, there
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: is a fundamental concept to explore on your own. Modern
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: law enforcement training meticulously drills officers on the mechanics of
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: identifying and neutralizing a threat. The tactical manuals are thick
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: with protocols for escalation, but the case files of Elijah
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Hadley demand we ask, how are we training them to
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: recognize when a threat has ended.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: That's a great point.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: When the boundary between a routine, service oriented welfare check
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: and a first degree murder charge is decided in the
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: span of a few panic seconds on an unled highway.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Who is truly failing? Is it the terrified individual walking
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: on the shoulder, the officer pulling the trigger in the dark,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: or the broader institutional system that put them both on
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: an inevitable collision course.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: It's a question that haunts every page of this case file,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: and it is one we really can't stop asking. Thank
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep reading
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the files, keep examining the evidence, and always keep questioning
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the narrative. We will catch you on the next one.