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NEWS

Albuquerque police detail shooting of Marine veteran during mental health crisis

Man was having hallucinations and fired over 100 rounds inside apartment

A screenshot from officer Alan Moreno's lapel camera showed the moment he fired three shots at Sean Omara as the 39-year-old stood on his balcony of his West Side apartment armed with a rifle on Aug. 11.
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Officer Jeremy Rotruck

The first two times Albuquerque police came to his West Side apartment, Sean Omara told them he was hearing and seeing things but wasn’t a danger to anyone. The officers logged a referral to mental health resources and left.

The third time they were called, the 39-year-old was yelling “intruders” and firing dozens of rounds inside his home, sending bullets through his neighbors’ walls and ceiling.

After firing at least 117 rounds, according to police, Omara stepped onto his balcony with a rifle as the SWAT team gathered below.

Officers Jeremy Rotruck and Alan Moreno fired four times, killing the Marine Corps veteran and former Metropolitan Detention Center officer.

Officer Alan Moreno

On Thursday, the Albuquerque Police Department detailed the Aug. 11 shooting via a prerecorded presentation that included lapel video and 911 calls. APD Chief Cecily Barker said Rotruck and Moreno were placed on leave after the shooting but have since returned to duty.

Barker said APD wanted the presentation to show “the struggles that Mr. Omara was facing as he was clearly going through a mental health decline.”

She said Omara told officers he was not diagnosed nor taking medication for any mental illness and relatives said “he refused to get help in the past.” Barker said a former co-worker told police Omara refused to seek help “because he didn't want to hurt his chances to reenlist in the military.”

“It's heartbreaking to see someone in that state — even as officers tried to ease his fears and offer resources several times,” she said.

An online obituary said Omara “will forever be remembered for his strength, his unwavering loyalty, his humor, and his fiercely protective heart.”

“Regardless of where you fit into Sean's story, he was someone you could always count on to answer the call,” according to the obituary.

A call for help

According to a prerecorded presentation by Cmdr. Ray Del Greco:

Around 1:24 a.m. Omara called 911 to say a homeless man was trying to get into his apartment. Omara told the dispatcher he was armed but would put the gun away when police arrived.

Sean Omara

Omara told arriving officers there was “weird invisible (expletive)” out his peephole but police saw nothing. They asked Omara if he was on drugs and he said no but that he had been drinking earlier. 

“I know it sounds crazy,” Omara told police, rehashing how the man would knock repeatedly and then was “just magically gone.”

Around 6:30 a.m. Omara called 911, saying young girls were using toy drones to unlock his door. In the background he could be heard saying “stop playing with my door.”

Arriving officers told him there was no one in the area, and Omara said the drones projected “purple ghosts” and other images into his apartment. At one point, Omara appeared to hear something, but officers said they heard nothing.

One officer asked Omara when he slept last, adding, “I feel like you’re going through a crisis right now.” Omara said he had three guns and felt safe in his home, refusing mental health resources.

The officers made a referral to the Crisis Intervention Unit and left.

An evidence photo shows the rifle allegedly used by Sean Omara to fire dozens of rounds in his apartment before he was killed by police Aug. 11 in Northwest Albuquerque.

Around noon, Omara’s sister, who lives out of state, called 911 to report he was having hallucinations. Ten minutes later, Omara called 911, and gunfire erupted as he yelled “intruders” over and over.

Numerous calls came in from residents reporting gunfire, and APD requested a Mobile Crisis Team, but one wasn’t available. Officers evacuated the complex and, for hours, tried to reach Omara on the phone and over a loudspeaker.

The SWAT team was called to respond, and at 5:15 p.m., Omara started shooting again, firing more than 50 rounds in 10 minutes. SWAT positioned a BearCat outside and an officer fired gas canisters into the apartment.

Omara came onto the balcony unarmed but wearing a tactical vest and went back inside.

The SWAT team was preparing to blow the front door off and place a drop phone inside when Omara came back onto the balcony. This time he had a rifle in his hands and, within a second, officers shot him in the head. It is unclear in the video whether Omara pointed the rifle at anyone prior to being shot.

When asked for the officers’ reasoning, Barker said, “Officers knew that they needed to stop a threat, they knew that 120 rounds had been fired and that is my understanding of the reason.”

In all, 117 bullet casings were found in Omara’s apartment. The two handguns and rifle found in the apartment had been bought legally by him over the past decade.

An evidence photo shows dozens of bullet holes in Sean Omara's bedroom at his West Side apartment after the 39-year-old was killed by police on Aug. 11.

After the presentation, Barker said officers had no grounds to take Omara into custody or to remove his weapons during the first two interactions due to him not threatening himself or others.

“At that point in time, the officers did not have that. While it is unfortunate and it was clear that he was under mental duress, there was not a reason legally that they could take him to the hospital,” she said. “And you can hear it in the officers' voices as they're talking to him. They recognize that he's hallucinating, but that's not a crime.”

Barker said she did not know why a Mobile Crisis Team — which pairs an officer with a clinician — was unavailable during the incident. She said APD was down two MCT teams, as two officers had gone back to patrol positions.

Barker did not know offhand how many MCT teams APD had but said the department was discussing whether that officer role should be handled by Albuquerque Community Safety — a department angled toward behavioral health and homelessness responses.

“So those are discussions that we're having as a city, and ACS and APD together. We want to make sure that we're providing the right resources to people who are having a mental health crisis,” she said.