Elijah Hadley Family Still Seeks Justice as Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office Drags Investigation Recommendations

Calls for justice for a 17-year-old Mescalero Apache boy, Elijah Hadley who was killed by a sheriff’s deputy in June still remains unanswered and marked by silence from the Otero County Sheriff's Office and the 12th Judicial District Attorney. An election has come and gone and almost 6 months have passed and yet, still no answers. 

Articles have been published in the Albuquerque Journal releasing a video of the events that occurred that fateful evening and yet still no answers from legal authorities.  The video link shows a shocking result and is damning on the Otero County Sheriff's Deputy and yet no official explanation on the events of that evening. 

New Mexico In Depth, in an article written by Bella Davis, names the deputy involved as the first media outlet to release the deputy's name in a September article titled Community members want deputy who killed Mescalero Apache teenager charged. Bella covers the protest in the article explaining that "drivers sped past, some honking to show support for the dozens of people walking along U.S. Highway 70 to honor Elijah Hadley. People helped older relatives make their way, and mothers pushed their children in strollers.

Grief and outrage over Hadley’s death hung over the crowd as they traveled about a mile from a nearby church to the spot on the highway median where Hadley was killed.

To recap the incident that continues to add to citizen and family outrage let's review the situation of that fateful moment...

On June 25 Otero County Sheriff’s Deputy Jacob Diaz-Austin was dispatched to conduct a welfare check on him. Dashboard camera footage shows Diaz-Austin ordered Hadley to show his hands, then shot Hadley just as he was dropping what turned out to be an airsoft pistol — a replica gun that’s designed to shoot non-metal rounds.

“It’s just a BB gun,” Hadley screamed, falling to the ground.

For three minutes after the initial barrage of bullets, body camera footage shows, Hadley lay on the ground, covered in his own blood, as Diaz-Austin kept his distance. At one point, Hadley said to Diaz-Austin, “You’re going to kill me” and “I’m going to fucking die,” the deputy told a state police agent during a July 1 interview.

When Hadley rolled onto his stomach, Diaz-Austin shot him at least a dozen more times.

Hadley died at the scene.

Reporting by a variety of news outlets in Texas and New Mexico to include our own for this ongoing story has included reviews of the deputy’s dashboard and body camera footage obtained through a public records request and the 101-page investigative report filed by the New Mexico State Police following the shooting

The conclusion by every media outlet is that the public deserves answers. 

Protocols were not followed is what KOAT News reports and yet still silence from authorities. On July 2024, KOAT obtained police body camera footage of the shooting involving an Otero County Sheriff Deputy and 17-year-old Elijah Hadley on Tuesday, June 25 shortly after 11 p.m. Since its airing, the video has garnered attention statewide. KOAT spoke with former Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White on whether protocols were followed after he reviewed the footage. "What's concerning is, the young man is alive after the initial rounds were fired because he's talking," White told KOAT

Faith Egbuonu of KOAT News asked: Were protocols followed in that video?

Darren White: No, no, it's hard to watch. Faith. It's very hard to watch. The initial shooting, the young man clearly has a gun in his hand. The district attorney is going to have to slow that down to see if the officer — you don't necessarily know what somebody's going to do when they have a gun in their hand. And so, the district attorney is going to have to determine, by watching that video and slowing it down, if they believe there was a threat to the officer at that time or not. The problem I have is once that initial shooting took place, the officer failed to secure that weapon that was on the ground.

Granted, it's an airsoft gun. Doesn't matter. He doesn't know that. However, he goes back to his radio, to his car to utilize his radio, and he's calling it out, and we don't really know what happens. It's hard to tell. He makes a statement about, "don't grab the gun." That gun never should have been there at that point, that should have been secured for the sole purpose of if it was an actual gun, you don't know if the person who was shot in this particular case, this teen, he could take that and use it again.

So, protocols were not followed. And what is concerning to me watching this video, that young man is alive after the initial rounds were fired because he's talking. He's talking to the deputy. Had he secured that weapon, got emergency services there while he's still alive, he may have survived. The officer should have secured that weapon...

But the second part of this, there's another confrontation where the young man is clearly, shot more than a dozen times and he loses his life. He appears to be alive after the first encounter. He is not alive after the second account. That never should have happened, because that gun should have never been in a place where it could have the opportunity of being used, whether it was or it wasn't. The officer failed to secure that weapon, and a young man lost his life.

In the five months since Hadley’s death, people who knew him have taken to social media to share who he was.

He “loved our Mescalero Apache culture so much he participated in singing and dancing with our late uncle,” Hadley’s sister wrote in a TikTok post. In the winter, he would chop wood to get the house warm for his family before going to school, she added.

A woman who worked at the school Hadley attended wrote on Facebook he was “reserved and respectful.”

A friend wished she could have one more conversation with Hadley to tell him what a good artist he was and how much his family loves him, she wrote on TikTok.

State police completed an investigation of the shooting in July. The agency acts as a fact-finder and doesn’t determine whether a police shooting was justified.

Citing potential conflicts of interest, the Twelfth Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which serves Otero and Lincoln counties, handed the case off — for review and possible criminal charges — to the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office, led by Sam Bregman.

AlamogordoTownNews.org and streaming KALHRadio.org has submitted a media request asking for am update and any new records related to this case. Stay tuned...

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