Jan. 15—A Las Cruces police officer charged with voluntary manslaughter in connection with the 2022 shooting death of a man accused of stealing a beer from a gas station is appealing the suspension of his law enforcement certification.

A grand jury indicted Brad Lunsford on the fourth-degree felony charge last month, charging him with killing Presley Eze during a scuffle after the clerk reported Eze had taken a beer without paying and was drinking it in a vehicle with two friends.

Lunsford and another officer forcibly removed Eze from the vehicle in order to detain him, according to reports at the time. In a statement, Attorney General Raúl Torrez said Eze gained possession of another officer’s Taser during the altercation, though the weapon never deployed.

“In response,” Torrez said in his statement, “Officer Lunsford immediately drew his service weapon and shot Eze on the back, left side of his head, at point-blank range.”

In October, Torrez announced his office intended to charge Lunsford.

State Department of Public Safety Deputy Secretary Benjamin Baker sent Lunsford a letter in October notifying him his police officer certification was suspended “effective immediately.” Lunsford was allowed to contest the suspension within 15 days.

Lunsford’s attorney, Luis Robles, wrote the Law Enforcement Certification Board later that month contesting the suspension. He argued in part the move violated state law and the board’s own rules, depriving Lunsford of his right to due process, because the officer had been suspended without being convicted and before he’d been notified a suspension was contemplated or had been heard by the panel.

Robles argued those points at the board’s Dec. 13 meeting, according to minutes. Board members discussed the matter in executive session before voting to uphold the suspension.

Robles filed an appeal on Lunsford’s behalf Friday in state District Court. A hearing has not yet been set.

“It’s a suspension with no end date,” Robles said in a phone interview Monday. “The board doesn’t have the authority to do this under state law. We’ll be asking for a preliminary injunction to stop the board from doing what it did.”

Eze, 36, was a married father of a 3-year old boy who had been living in El Paso while installing solar panels in the region, his parents said in a recent phone interview. Eze was an American-born son of Nigerian immigrants, born and raised in Connecticut, and had been planning to move his family back to that state. An attorney for the family has called the killing racially motivated.