Arizona man allegedly informed sheriff’s department hackers were threatening to fake call police. They still stormed his house and shot him 8 times

A man from Tucson, Arizona, was left paralyzed after a false swatting incident resulted in him being shot eight times. Axeel Melendez, 23, intends to sue the Pima County Sheriff’s Department after allegedly warning the police about the potential swatting before the incident even occurred.

According to the Arizona Daily Star, Melendez’s lawyer filed a notice of claim on July 24. Melendez and his mother claim that the actions of the deputies showed “rash decision-making and recklessly dangerous shoot-from-the-hip mentality.” The $176 million lawsuit comes after Melendez allegedly tried to warn the Sheriff’s Department about the potential swatting but was ignored.

On the morning of April 10, police entered the home inhabited by Melendez and his mother. Deputies reportedly announced themselves from outside the house, but Melendez and his mother did not hear them. One deputy then took a shovel and broke Melendez’s bedroom window, alerting the 23-year-old to the break-in. 

He then apparently woke his mother and told her to call 911 before grabbing a handgun and going to see who had broken in. Police bodycam footage shows Axeel Melendez standing partially behind a door, holding the handgun, before the deputy opens fire on him. The incident resulted in Melendez being shot eight times and being paralyzed from the chest down.

Axeel Melendez was being extorted

While everything came to a tragic head on April 10, the wheels were put in motion a couple of days earlier on April 8. Melendez had been playing the multiplayer game Rust when someone on the server asked if they could check his computer to verify he wasn’t cheating. Melendez trusted the individual but soon realized he was being hacked after he received notifications that several accounts of his had been logged into.

While he did what he could to put a stop to it, the hackers were able to get hold of personal information, including his home address, by logging into his email. They then proceeded to threaten Melendez, “They said that they were going to call the police station and say that I have a bomb.” The hackers also threatened to call ICE on him unless he paid them money.

Melendez refused, instead choosing to report the situation to the police. Melendez’s attorney, Dev Sethi, claimed that the police were aware of the swatting threat when the hoax call was made by the hackers on April 10. 

“They only know one thing about the house — is the guy that lives in there is terrified because he is being extorted and has been threatened that he’s going to be swatted.” Sethi said, “That’s the one piece of information that they have, and they don’t take that information seriously.”

So far, Melendez and his mother have only taken the first step in bringing a lawsuit against the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. The PCSD has 60 days to respond before it is automatically denied as per Arizona state law.