By Phaedra Haywood phaywood@sfnewmexican.com
The Santa Fe New Mexican
SANTA FE, N.M. — The city of Santa Fe has agreed to a $2.8 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit alleging first responders stood around chatting while an 18-year-old man with a gunshot wound lay unattended nearby after he was prematurely deemed dead.
Jerome Tapia survived the September 2022 incident but is blind and permanently incapacitated, according a lawsuit his mother, Gena Waterman, filed in state District Court in 2024.
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Attorneys for the city and Tapia sought an order that called for the settlement to remain secret, but a state district judge agreed to disclose the payout.
Waterman’s lawsuit, citing police video of the incident, describes a grisly scene. Emergency responders dispatched to a parking lot on Siler Lane arrived to find Tapia with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the lawsuit states. He was lying on the ground with blood and exposed brain matter around him.
First responders worked on him for only 31 seconds before determining he was dead or beyond help, resulting in irreparable brain damage, the lawsuit alleges. They quickly left the scene but returned later to render aid to Tapia, who had been moaning and moving his body for about two hours, according to the lawsuit.
“His treatment was delayed during a time when treatment is crucial,” his family’s attorney, Joleen Youngers, said in an interview Friday.
“There is an old adage in emergency medical care that every second counts, particularly with brain trauma,” she added.
‘Undeniable signs of life’
Less than two minutes after arriving at the scene, emergency medical personnel from the Santa Fe Fire Department “were packing the ambulance to leave,” the lawsuit states.
The scene was taped off and police called the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator to come and declare Tapia deceased.
However, the suit states, “For the next two hours and starting within 2 minutes of SFFD’s departure … Tapia exhibited obvious and undeniable signs of life.”
He was breathing rapidly, moaning, moving and at times flailing his arms while at least seven police officers and first responders stood around “doing nothing other than watching and make comments to each other” about his movements, the suit alleges.
Tapia’s girlfriend and others behind a police line repeatedly told officers he was still alive, but the officers did nothing but “rebuff civilian [witnesses] who wanted to aid Mr. Tapia,” and kept them away from his body, the suit says.
It wasn’t until Tapia raised his head and tried to get up that medical personnel were called back to the scene, according to the complaint.
‘Meaningful improvements’
Youngers pointed to one positive result of the case: The city has since developed protocols requiring first responders to double-check for signs of life before declaring a person dead — conducting two pulse checks on two parts of the body.
First responders must also confirm the absence of heart activity using a cardiac monitor before a patient can be declared dead in the field, she said, noting one of the city’s emergency medical technicians at the scene that day also has developed a training curriculum on “field death determination.”
“So hopefully this will never happen to another traumatically injured person in Santa Fe,” Youngers said.
Interim City Manager Brian Moya — who was the city’s fire chief at the time of the incident — said in a statement Friday nothing can undo what happened during the tragic incident, but it “provided an important opportunity to recognize training deficiencies, strengthen operational readiness and improve department-wide preparedness.”
“We have a responsibility to learn from difficult experiences, embrace accountability and make meaningful improvements to help prevent similar incidents in the future,” he added.
Public access vs. privacy
Both sides had asked the court to seal the settlement as well as Friday’s virtual hearing on the agreement. But District Judge Kathleen McGarry Ellenwood said she would share the amount of the taxpayer-funded settlement with The New Mexican.
When a reporter tuned into the virtual hearing, Ellenwood McGarry addressed the “elephant in the room,” informing the parties of The New Mexican’s presence.
“I know that you folks have asked for this hearing to be sealed,” the judge said. She offered the attorneys an opportunity to object to the reporter’s attendance.
Jeffrey Kivetz, who represented the city of Santa Fe in the case, was the first to object.
He reminded the court an order sealing the proceedings had been issued and said the city felt it was in the best interests of Tapia and his mother to keep it sealed. A court-appointed guardian at litem also argued in favor of sealing the hearing, citing the stipulated order.
Youngers, however, noted the confidentiality agreement in the case only required that the terms be kept confidential “to the extent permitted by law.”
“I am aware that there are certain legal provisions that provide for public knowledge,” she said, emphasizing there had been no attempt to circumvent the law.
The judge asked The New Mexican to leave the hearing but agreed to confirm the settlement amount afterward “so that people are aware of where their tax dollars are going.”
City spokesperson Peter Olson said in a statement Friday the city “participated” in the stipulated order to seal the settlement to protect the interests of Tapia, “an alleged incapacitated individual.”
“The City respects the Court’s authority and its responsibility to balance public access with the privacy rights of individuals involved in litigation,” Olson said.
“The City’s agreement to the stipulated order should not be interpreted as an effort to avoid public accountability or shield the conduct of City employees from appropriate scrutiny,” he added.
Olson also said in the statement the confidentiality provisions in the order “should not be interpreted as establishing a general policy or practice of conducting civil settlements.”
Mayor Michael Garcia said in a statement his “commitment to openness remains unwavering.”
“Residents deserve transparency, accountability and confidence that public resources are being responsibly managed,” he added.
The settlement is one of several large payouts the city has made recently to resolve lawsuits alleging civil rights violations or negligence by public safety agencies — including a $1.25 million settlement paid to a man who was shot in the back with a stun gun by an officer responding to a report he had shot a dog that had attacked his pet goat outside his home.
The city also agreed to a $2.5 million payout to the widow of a man killed by police responding to a domestic dispute.
Olson didn’t directly respond to a question asking what the city is doing to avoid paying out large settlements related to the actions of public safety agencies in the future.
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