The wife of an armed New Mexico homeowner whose husband was fatally shot by police after they arrived at the wrong residence in response to a domestic violence incident claimed she was handled like a suspect, held for hours, and given little information about the circumstances surrounding the shooting.
Kim Dotson claims that even now, months after Robert Dotson, 52, was slain by police on April 5, the Farmington Police Department still hasn’t contacted her or her family.
In an interview on Wednesday, she said that it was only because her son works as a police officer nearby and has access to the dispatch log that she discovered the policemen had knocked on the wrong home that evening.
“I feel helpless the way all of this has happened,” said Dotson, a 49-year-old former trauma nurse who said she left the field after caring for her husband who had been wounded multiple times at their front door.
She remarked, “I don’t know how these guys are able to leave and go home to their families when they tore our family apart.”
No wrongdoing was committed by us.
According to a civil rights lawsuit her family filed in federal district court on Friday, Dotson claimed she returned fire without realizing it had been police officers who had started fire. As a result, the officers shot 19 more times into her home.
She was unharmed and has not been charged.
According to the lawsuit, the killing was not justified and names the city of Farmington as well as the three cops who were fired as defendants. Attorneys for Dotson gave NBC News the complaint.
Robert Dotson lifted his gun, forcing the cops to shoot, according to a statement made by one of their attorneys, Luis Robles, in an interview.
She is in my thoughts and prayers, Robles said. Even though the police had arrived at the wrong address, “her husband made this mistake of which he could not recover” by pointing a gun at them.
The cops’ computer-aided dispatch system, according to Robles, was responsible for the mistake.
The city attorney’s office was contacted by a police spokeswoman; however, they chose not to react.
Police Chief Steve Hebbe described the incident as “extremely traumatic” and expressed his “heartbreak” at the events leading up to it.
Hebbe said that locals in that area of New Mexico, located in the Four Corners region, frequently open their doors armed in an interview with NewsNation in April. He further claimed that “when he lifts the gun and then points it at the officers, that’s whenever the officers respond.”
If Robert Dotson had committed any wrongdoing, Hebbe would have said, “No.”
Robles stated that the two policemen named in the lawsuit had resumed their regular responsibilities even though the state attorney general’s office is still looking into the matter. He added that a third is still on leave but intends to resume normal duty.
A use-of-force expert is reportedly analyzing the case, according to a representative for the attorney general’s office.
Waylon Wasson, the cop who is still on leave, fired fire in another incident last year, according to Robles.
In a statement that was posted along with the body camera video, Wasson—who was not identified—is shown firing at the driver of a moving car after the car almost pushed him against his own cruiser. According to court documents, the driver entered a plea of guilty this year to several offenses, including aggravated violence on a police officer.
The National Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization, reports that while the majority of officers never discharge their service guns, a small percentage do so repeatedly while still holding sworn officer status.
Officer Wasson did not choose to take part in two shootings, according to Robles. Instead, the two circumstances “came crashing down” on him.
Why wouldn’t he draw his gun?
Before gunshots broke out on April 5, Dotson claimed that she and her husband, a longtime auto mechanic she described as a devoted family man who could fix anything, were in bed discussing the next week when they heard a light knock at the front door.
She stated that the door to their second-floor bedroom was locked as of 11:30 p.m. She claimed that neither she nor her husband had heard the cops identify themselves, despite the fact that they can be seen doing so three times on an unedited body camera footage published by the police department.
Kim Dotson reported that Robert Dotson put on his robe after the third knock and started to descend their stairs, adding that she intended to grab her robe and then follow him.
She claimed that he took a 45-caliber pistol from the kitchen before opening the door.
The police can be seen outside debating whether they are at the right address in the raw body camera footage. The footage shows that a dispatcher directs them to go to an address that doesn’t match the home number after Wasson knocks three times.
Wasson is heard laughing and shouting an expletive before he is spotted reversing abruptly.
Wasson claims on the video that he heard a gun being cocked inside later on.
The door opens as a flashlight shines on it, and Wasson yells, “Hey, hands up,” before starting to fire, according to the footage.
The police agency slowed down the dialogue and circled the gun in Robert Dotson’s hand in an edited version of the footage. Dotson may be seen raising his gun in security footage from inside the house that Robles released; the officers are unidentified, and “Mr. Dotson is being blinded by a flashlight,” according to a family lawyer, Tom Clark.
Why wouldn’t he draw his gun? said Clark.
A shooting and a fatality
Dotson claimed that as she descended the stairs, she heard a hail of gunfire.
“I freaked out,” she admitted. “I sprinted upstairs and seized a second handgun.”
Dotson claimed that after instructing her two teenagers to call 911, she hurried downstairs and discovered her husband lying in a pool of blood near the front entrance. As a trauma nurse, she claimed that her first inclination was to safeguard the area.
She claimed that she opened the screen door and fired with a 9 mm pistol to try to scare away whoever had shot her husband because she had no idea who was in her front yard. She claimed she was still unsure of who was shooting when the officers returned fire.
There is no reason why I should be here speaking with you today, she added, given how many bullets were fired at me.
Wasson shouts “hands up” in the body camera video before shooting at Kim Dotson. A police officer recognizes the group as cops twenty seconds later.
Dotson claimed that she was unaware of the identification. After putting her gun down, she started to feel her husband’s pulse. She said she looked for none, began CPR, and yelled at her kids to contact the police.
She claimed that the police eventually told her to turn herself in.
I asked someone to please come and assist me, she recalled. “My husband was shot and killed by someone.”
Wasson can be heard recounting what transpired on the body camera video a few minutes later while he is still on the scene: When he heard the rifle cock, he had been knocking. Then, according to him, he and the other two cops retreated.
He claims, “The guy comes to his door, points the gun at us, and we get into a gunfight.” The woman then emerges from the home and points the gun at us.
Wasson’s conversation partner is unclear, and he makes no mention of the officers being at the incorrect house. None of the three officers mentioned that particular fact to state police investigators in their initial statements made early the following morning, according to Clark, who acquired the statements from Dotson’s attorneys.
Robles refuted that, claiming the police didn’t talk to detectives the morning following the shooting.
In a subsequent email, he noted that “the officers admit that they drove to the ‘wrong’ address.”
There are seldom police responses
Dotson claimed she was placed in the back of a police cruiser while being shackled. She claimed that after being carried to the police station for about an hour with blood all over her body, she was put in a small room with nothing on but a bloody robe.
Up until around 8 a.m., according to her, she stayed there. She found out later that her kids had also been taken to the police.
Dotson claimed that a state police officer eventually informed her that her husband had been murdered by local police. She claimed that although she was asked for a statement, no more information regarding her husband’s passing was provided.
A call for a response from Farmington officials went unanswered. Farmington has a population of around 46,000 people. Officials from the state police were unavailable for comment.
She was treated “as if she were a criminal,” according to Mark Curnutt, a different family lawyer. What degree of sympathy do these people possess and are they capable of displaying? is a legitimate concern.
Dotson intends to influence how the police department selects, develops, and manages officers by using the lawsuit, according to a third family lawyer, to increase public awareness about what transpired to her and her family.
Additionally, the lawsuit demands unspecified damages for behavior it calls “shameful.”