Trial to begin in fatal APD shooting case

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The trial of a civil lawsuit against APD and one of its officers for the fatal shooting of an Iraq war veteran in 2010, begins Thursday in state district court.
      
The judge has ruled it was an unjustified shooting. He says that Officer Brett Lampiris-Tremba violated Kenneth Ellis' constitutional rights when he killed Ellis outside a 7-Eleven in the heights as Ellis held a gun to his own head.
     
Now a jury will decide how much it will cost the city, whether the traffic stop that led to the standoff was illegal and whether the department's hiring and training policies helped lead to the shooting.
    
Officer Lampiris-Tremba was turned down when he first applied to be a cop because he lied about past drug use. But APD hired him anyhow five years later.
    
The Department of Justice is now investigating APD for its problems with excessive force and how those problems in are handled as they go up the chain of command in the department.
    
The DOJ held another public meeting in Albuquerque Wednesday night to listen to people's concerns.