Peter Klunck
On
Peter was a small time drug dealer and had been involved in criminal
activities with Officer Griffin. A police officer gave a statement to the
F.B.I. that he'd been told by a witness that
On the day he was killed, Peter was scheduled for an appearance in court at
which he told us he planned to "blow the lid
off APD." He wouldn't tell us any details because he said it was too
dangerous, but he seemed to be mending his fences and tying up loose ends. That
morning he called his girlfriend and told her he loved her and if anything
happened to him he wanted her to keep the baby.
After the shooting, Police Chief Sam Baca issued a statement that Peter was shot in the chest. In reality he was shot three times in the back.
The officers at the scene gave conflicting statements: Matt Griffin, whose
two bullets were defined as the ones that killed Peter, refused to give a
statement at the scene. Officer Valtierra said Peter had a gun in his left
hand. Sgt. Heatley said he clearly saw a gun in Peter's right hand.
Officer Steve Nakamura, who did not fire at Peter, said Peter was unarmed.
"These guys (
After a seven hour search by APD, a 38-caliber derringer turned up 15 feet
from Peter's body. Peter's fingerprints were not on it. An honest cop called
the Attorney General's office and told them the derringer was an alibi gun
planted there by the cops to support
In his statement to Internal Affairs, Sergeant Heatley said he didn't fire
at Peter until after he'd already been "dropped." Peter was
struggling to get up onto his hands and knees, when Heatley says he saw a gun in
his hand and shot him under the armpit, and Peter fell on his face. So, how did
that gun that was supposedly in Peter's hand when he was lying on his stomach
end up fifteen feet from his body without any prints on it?
Former Chief Justice Rheardon, who conducted the Internal Affairs
investigation, stated in his report, "I believe there is a question about
whether Mr. Klunck was armed at the time he was shot and, even if he was,
whether it was necessary to shoot him." APD Chief Baca then issued an
official statement that the Internal Affairs investigator had concluded that
the shooting was justified!
Even when Matt Griffin was later arrested, convicted, and sentenced to life
in prison for multiple bank robberies and murder of
a witness, law enforcement wouldn't consider the possibility that he
intentionally killed Peter. The grand jury was told out-and-out lies, and we
weren't allowed to present any evidence to the contrary. We'd had a private
investigator on the case from the very beginning, and when he asked for a
chance to testify, he was told that wouldn't be allowed because his testimony
might "muddy the waters." It took the grand jury, who weren't allowed
access to information in the Internal Affairs report, seven minutes to come to
the decision that there wasn't any evidence of wrong-doing on the part of the
police, but they also stated that they thought the gun might have been planted.
That makes no sense at all! If the cops planted a gun to make it look like
Peter was shot in self-defense, how can that not be considered wrong doing?
In January, 1990, we filed a federal wrongful death and civil rights suit
against Police Chief Sam Baca and several police officers. The judge ordered us
to settle out of court with no admission that Peter's civil rights had been
violated.
We took our case to the F.B.I. in
The F.B.I. and the US Attorney's office did as thorough an investigation as
possible so many years after the shooting, and in 1994 they convened yet
another Grand Jury. Although that jury did not exonerate the police, no
indictments were handed down. U.S. Attorney John Kelly stated that the federal
investigation was inconclusive, with too much conflicting testimony to charge
Renee Klunck
Peter (Dick) Klunck
Update,
July 2004:
The Klunck family has long believed that Peter was shot by Matt Griffin and two fellow police officers because he was preparing to expose drug activities involving people in influential positions.
It now appears their suspicions might be justified. In May 2004, Chief Judge John Brennan of
In June 2004, KRQE TV aired information from a confidential narcotics report
about drug activities involving, not only Judge Brennan, but numerous other
prominent NM judges, attorneys and members of the state legislature dating back
to before Peter was killed. "It draws
on a variety of sources and reads like a Who's Who of the
The Kluncks and other NM families who believe their loved ones were killed because
they "knew too much," (Kaitlyn Arquette, Ramona Duran, Stephen Haar,
etc.), are eager to learn the identities of the VIP drug traders whose names
are contained in that report. But they
have been told that those names cannot be released, because the VIPs have not
been arrested.
