Nancy Guthrie sheriff hit with $176 million lawsuit alleging dangerous incompetence

Sheriff Chris Nanos, the embattled lawman leading the Nancy Guthrie investigation, has a new $176 million problem.Axeel Melendez, 24, is suing Nanos and the Pima County, Arizona, sheriff’s department after deputies shot and paralyzed him while responding to a phony “swatting” call — the second major lawsuit against the department in two weeks.

Axeel Melendez, 24, twice in his home in April, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down, according to a notice filed on July 27.The shooting happened even though Melendez warned the sheriff’s department that he was being targeted for swatting — and even though he posed no threat at the time, his lawyer said.Someone impersonating Melendez called the sheriff’s department at around 6 a.m., stating that his father had shot his sister.Deputies then smashed his bedroom window with a shovel and climbed inside, guns drawn, according to the docs.

Melendez heard a commotion outside, woke his mom up and told her to hide, then cowered behind a door with the family’s legally-registered firearm.Officers fired seven shots through the door, hitting him in the leg and spine, the legal notice said.Melendez was already on edge before the raid: He had been menaced by an online hacker who threatened to call in a bogus bomb threat at his house, said his attorney Dev Sethi.Melendez called 911, but the operator allegedly told him not to worry.“The dispatcher told Melendez, ‘They can’t just call SWAT on you.

That’s not how it works.’ And assured him that … ‘nothing’s going to happen,'” Sethi said in a statement.The sheriff’s department then received a suspicious call to Melendez’s house, which they determined to be fake.Officers alerted Melendez and assured him that “he should be alright,” promising to warn him if they received any more calls to the address, according to an incident report obtained by his lawyer.Less than 48 hours later, another swatting call came in — and that one ended with deputies o...