Las Cruces man calls 911 on himself in deadly officer-involved shooting

DONA ANA COUNTY, NM (KFOX14/CBS4) — Doña Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart provided more information after a deadly officer-involved shooting near Las Cruces Wednesday night.

Stewart identified the man who died as 26-year-old Michael Christopher Goodheart a Las Cruces resident.

Stewart held a press conference Friday where she provided more details and released a dash cam video.

Stewart said a man called the Mesilla Valley Regional Dispatch Authority around 11:30 pm, saying he was driving while intoxicated and needed to be stopped.

The man told dispatch he was the DWI driver and said that “he is in a bad place.”

Goodheart told dispatch that he had been drinking since 5 pm earlier in the day and made comments that he was in some sort of crisis.

He told dispatch that “he was not good enough for his kids.”

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He told dispatch that he needed to be stopped and provided a description of his vehicle to dispatch.

Stewart said that Goodheart was running red lights and driving to the town of Mesilla.

A Mesilla Marshal found the vehicle and started a pursuit.

The Mesilla Marshal lost sight of the vehicle.

At about 11:55 pm a DASO deputy found the vehicle in the area of ​​Valley Drive and Lohman Ave and tried to make a traffic stop.

Goodheart failed to stop and a second pursuit began, Stewart said.

The last thing he tells dispatch is “Tell my family I love them”, Stewart said.

Goodheart encounters a gate while driving and eventually stops.

Stewart said the man got out of the car with a gun in his hand fired a shot and then aimed the gun at the deputy.

The shot hit the windshield of the deputy's vehicle and the deputy then returned fire, Stewart said.

The deputy then tells dispatch the suspect is down and CPR is being performed.

Goodheart was taken to the hospital where he died.

The deputy was put on administrative leave as protocol.

Stewart said she didn't know if the 911 call he was making to dispatch was a continuing call.

WATCH FULL PRESS CONFERENCE:

“Some people we will always engage in a conversation with someone who is threatening suicide, if they are not a threat to anyone else, we leave. We've left scenarios like that because research shows that sometimes we ask late for those activities. The last years that we've been involved in critical training we have changed our approach a little but this is different we didn't have much time to speak.” said Stewart.

“He's shooting immediately upon getting out of the car. We want to engage whenever we can, but we are not always given that scenario,” she said.

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