Police Shoot Homeless Man When He Reaches For BB Gun

New details and body camera footage from an Albuquerque police officer-involved shooting in August have been released. Police said officers shot and killed a man identified as 57-year-old Roger Schafer after he was reportedly seen threatening people with a gun.



Multiple 911 calls came in about a man at Eubank Boulevard and Copper Avenue pointing a gun at people and traffic.



"There is a man on the corner of Copper and Eubank in front of the Payless Shoe Store sitting at the bus stop seat bench. I am driving to work, he's waving a gun around," said a caller to a 911 dispatch.



When officers arrived at the scene, they found Schafer at the bus stop and told him to put his hands up.



In APD bodycam video, Schafer pushes himself from the ground to the bus bench and reaches toward the front of his pants. That's when shots were fired.



"It was a heavily populated area. We have a Walmart in the area with people going in and out of that Walmart, that parking lot was full of vehicles," said an APD officer.



Officers then went to him, seeing the gun in his lap. They attempted to revive him, but he was dead. The gun turned out to be a BB gun that looked like a 9 mm handgun. APD said they are still investigating and that some officer-involved shooting investigations take up to a year to finish.



APD said Schafer was no stranger to the law. He was arrested in 2016 for shooting at a business with a BB gun and arrested in 2018 for drinking in public. Most recently he had been arrested in May 2019 of for an assault on a police officer while wielding an ax.