City of Santa Fe agrees to $2.5 million settlement in fatal police shooting

The city of Santa Fe has agreed to another high-dollar payout in a civil complaint accusing police of excessive use of force — this time with a tragic result.

The $2.5 million deal settles a claim filed by the wife of a man who was fatally shot by officers after she had called for help during a domestic dispute in 2024, when her husband, 33-year-old Gracen Coon, was having a mental health crisis.

Lili Gordon filed her lawsuit last year, accusing Santa Fe officers of negligence, sex or gender identity discrimination and discrimination against a person with a disability, as well as excessive use of force. Coon was a transgender man with a history of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, Gordon told The New Mexican in an interview last year.

Her settlement with the city comes as it also settled with a plaintiff for $1.25 million in a lawsuit over an incident in which police struck a man in the back with a stun gun and falsely arrested him in 2024; Jeffrey Hurtado had shot a dog that had attacked his pet goat and then euthanized the dying goat with his firearm. A judge found police had no probable cause to arrest him.

In both cases — which urge officials to implement policy and training changes — an officer was wielding both a firearm and a stun gun, a practice the Santa Fe Police Department is addressing through “both training and a policy update,” interim Chief Ben Valdez said.

Attorneys for both plaintiffs also said the city initially had sought a confidentiality clause in the settlement agreement to shield it from public view. No such provision was in the signed version of either deal.

The city will pay $1.5 million of the legal costs in Gordon’s case — including $166,425 paid to outside legal counsel who defended the city against the claim for nearly two years before the city reached the settlement deal — while its insurer, Travelers Insurance, will cover the balance, according to city spokesperson Peter Olson.

Gordon’s attorney, Brian Egolf, said Monday she had filed the complaint in hopes of preventing others from experiencing a similar tragedy and to prompt the police department to increase training, devote more resources to alternative crisis response teams and consider using less lethal means “to help people that are in obvious signs of emotional distress.”

“We think that in order for Gracen’s disability to be accommodated, they should have at the very least attempted to use the [stun gun], and if they had Gracen would still be alive,” Egolf added.

Deadly incident

Gordon had called 911 in the early hours of Sept. 22, 2024. Coon was having a “meltdown” and acting very aggressively, she had told a police dispatcher in the call.

She wanted paramedics to remove her husband from the couple’s home because she was worried he might hurt himself. He had a history of self-harm and was walking around with a box cutter in his hand, she said.

She had made such a call once before, and officers had arrived and deescalated the situation, Gordon told The New Mexican in an interview last year. She expected paramedics to take him to the hospital, where he could get some help.

It never occurred to her police would hurt her husband, much less shoot him dead less than a minute after arriving at their home.

“I needed help,” she said. “And the fact that he died because we asked for help is heartbreaking.”

Santa Fe police Officers Charles Ovalle and David Gallegos arrived at the couple’s home on La Placita Circle around dawn, according to their body camera video.

With guns drawn, the officers ordered Coon — who can be seen in the footage standing just inside the door — to come outside. Coon emerged from the front door holding up both hands, each of which held an object.

“I’ve got nothing,” Coon said.

“You have a box cutter — drop it,” one of the officers replied.

Officers backed up into the yard, and one of them told Coon to “drop the weapon” as Coon stepped from the front porch to the sidewalk. Red and green dots — laser targeting — can be seen aimed at Coon’s torso and legs.

“I’ve got nothing,” Coon said, adding, “I don’t want to live.”

“We’re going to help you out,” an officer said. Coon responded, “I believe you,” while taking a step forward, the footage shows.

“Mr. Coon then took half [a] step towards Officer Ovalle, raising his voice as he stated ‘I believe —’ Before Mr. Coon could finish the statement, take another step, or lower the boxcutter, Officer Gallegos shot Mr. Coon three times in the chest,” Gordon’s lawsuit states.

Less than a minute had elapsed between Coon leaving the house and being shot, according to the complaint.

“Crisis intervention training that the officers received or should have received plainly teaches that tactics like pointing guns, screaming commands, threatening the suspect, and refusing to give ground, all exacerbate the situation and are counterproductive in addressing a person in mental health crisis and de-escalating a dangerous situation,” the lawsuit states.

“When Officer Gallegos fatally shot Mr. Coon, the latter was in his own driveway, with no one else around, armed only with a short-range and low-lethality weapon, and he was fully contained and cooperating,” the complaint continues.

The aftermath

Police discovered after the shooting the other object in Coon’s hand was a 3-inch lighter in the shape of a “blunderbuss,” a short-barreled precursor to the modern-day shotgun used between the 17th and 19th centuries.

No gun was ever recovered from the scene.

The lawsuit included a transcription of a conversation between the two officers captured on lapel camera video immediately after the incident, in which Gallegos said he thought the lighter was an actual firearm, while Ovalle said he thought it was a lighter.

Both officers are still employed by the Santa Fe Police Department.

Valdez said neither officer faced any disciplinary action in connection with Coon’s death.

However, he confirmed the department, in connection with the incident, is “in the process of reviewing and updating our Use of Force policy to address ‘dual wielding’ by simultaneously having a firearm in one hand and a less lethal device in the other.”

He said in another recent statement, “[Dual] wielding was an issue identified during our Use of Force Committee reviews of a few incidents where it was observed. The recommendation was this needed to be addressed through both training and a policy update.”

Secrecy clause?

Egolf said he was told by a mediator the city had made a request for a confidentiality clause in the settlement agreement — although the Santa Fe attorney, a former New Mexico House speaker, said he had expressed doubts about whether the city could keep the agreement confidential, due to state public records laws.

When the final version of the settlement agreement was presented for Gordon’s signature, it did not include a confidentiality requirement, Egolf added.

Hurtado’s attorney said he had rejected the city’s request for a confidentiality clause.

Asked Monday if the city had asked for confidentiality in the agreement with Gordon — and if so, why — Olson didn’t directly answer the question. He wrote in an email:

“When the parties enter into settlement discussions from a mediation, those discussions are confidential. Here’s what the mediation procedures act says:

“Except as otherwise provided in the Mediation Procedures Act or by applicable judicial court rules, all mediation communications are confidential, and not subject to disclosure and shall not be used as evidence in any proceeding.”

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