Body camera captures APD officers using racial slurs, glorifying violence after fatal shooting

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Albuquerque police officers responded to a Walmart incident back in April of this year but realized a camera picked up what they’d been saying.

“They never turned my f****** camera off,” you can hear an officer say on lapel camera.

The conversations include racial slurs and glorifying violence just moments after 30-year-old Mark Benavidez was killed by officers.

“If it means you shoot some of them, so be it,” an officer said in the footage.

Officers were responding to the Walmart near Wyoming and Menaul about a suspected pair of robbers. One of them would later be identified as Benavidez. Attempts to detain Benavidez as he left the store led to a scuffle between him and officers.

During the incident, Benavidez was seen grabbing an officer’s rifle and shooting it multiple times into the ground. Benavidez was shot and killed.

“I like violent encounters with violent people,” an officer said on the lapel footage. “That’s why I became a cop. I didn’t come to f****** help old ladies who can’t cross the f****** road. I want to take actual s***heads that are actually doing stuff off the street.”

It’s unclear exactly who is speaking in the footage, but they don’t hold back.

“Got to get a savage, (inaudible,)” you hear someone say, as the audio becomes difficult to hear.

It’s also unknown who the officers are talking about, but just a few minutes later, they make another remark, using the slur again.

“What’s going on over there now?… (inaudible) savages… (inaudible) it’s getting out of control,” you hear an officer say.

One of the officers on camera then begins to talk about his son dating a Native American woman.

“My son is dating a Native from Isleta. She gets the check; he’s going to get a f****** free trailer, and some f****** land, a farm down there,” he said.

According to the Albuquerque Police Department (APD), an internal investigation is underway. News 13 reached out to APD Sunday to answer a few questions regarding the incident. They say they are not doing any interviews while the investigation is ongoing.