A man is in critical condition at a WakeMed hospital in Raleigh after having been shot early Monday morning by Nash County deputies during a confrontation and exchange of gunfire outside a residence in the 2000 block of Reges Store Road, authorities said.
James Breheim, 52, who was injured in his upper and lower extremities, will be facing charges once released from hospitalization, Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone said at a news conference late Monday morning. Stone said that alcohol or illegal drugs or both, along with mental health issues, may have been factors in the incident.
After the news conference, Stone said that two deputies, Lt. David Walker and Sgt. Miguel Salazar, had body-worn cameras on at the time of the incident and that there is video footage of the gunfire.
Walker and Salazar are on administrative leave with pay, and the State Bureau of Investigation is conducting an investigation while the sheriff’s office is conducting an internal investigation — all of which is standard procedure in a case of an officer-involved shooting. SBI Public Information Director Angie Grube said via email Monday evening that there was no new information from the SBI to provide about the case.
According to Stone at the news conference, what had happened prior to the shooting was an ongoing domestic situation, and deputies had been called to the residence before. In fact, Stone said, deputies earlier this year had responded to the residence, where there were “threats of self-hurt.”
In this case, Stone said, Breheim’s estranged wife had gone to a magistrate to have an arrest warrant issued after a domestic situation had become heated.
Stone said that his information is that as the magistrate had been preparing the warrant that deputies had overheard a conversation occurring over a phone between the estranged wife and Breheim and knew that the situation was volatile.
According to Stone, Breheim had become very irate, which had prompted a deputy to contact other units and advise, “Hey, you might want to come over here and give us a backup on this.”
Stone said two deputies in the area were able to respond.
“And thankfully we had two other officers in the area — and they responded because it was basically an ambush-type situation,” Stone said.
According to audio of Nash County emergency radio traffic online, the dispatcher at 12:31 a.m. had alerted units of a gunshot wound at an address in the 2000 block of Reges Store Road, which is northeast of Nashville and just west of the Willow Brook subdivision.
According to Stone, two deputies had approached the front door of the residence; two deputies had gone to the side of the residence; and an armed Breheim had moved to confront deputies at the front of the residence after having walked from around the rear of the residence.
Stone said that two of the deputies, who were at a corner of the residence at that moment, had advised Breheim to drop the handgun. Stone said that several shots had subsequently been fired and that none of the deputies were injured, but that Breheim had been struck multiple times.
This is not the first time Salazar as a deputy has been involved in a shooting.
On May 23, Salazar was responding to a home invasion and located the suspect, Juan Salazar, on Alternate U.S. 64 near Big Woods Road southwest of Spring Hope. Juan Salazar, no relation to the deputy, reportedly produced a weapon during the confrontation.
After the deputy fired a single round from his service weapon, Juan Salazar was handcuffed and provided with immediate medical attention before emergency personnel took him to a WakeMed hospital.
Stone at the news conference Monday said that deputy Miguel Salazar was cleared in that case by the sheriff’s office, the SBI and the District Attorney’s Office.
During the news conference, Stone said that regarding the dangers his deputies go into daily when doing work such as serving arrest warrants, “Everybody wants to know: Is the officer OK? Physically, the officer is OK, but you think about the mental strain that’s not only put on this officer, his family, what these law enforcement officers have got to go through.”
Stone also spoke of mental health facilities across the nation and in North Carolina having been shut down and said that the situation involving Breheim had associated mental health issues about six months ago.
“But there’s nowhere for these people to go,” Stone said, particularly referring to the closures of what were North Carolina’s state-run Dorothea Dix and Cherry psychiatric hospitals.
Stone said that of the shutdowns of long-term mental health care institutions nationwide and statewide, “Politicians and the people of America and the people of North Carolina don’t want to talk about it.”
Stone also spoke of efforts at privatization having failed and said of the situation, “It puts every citizen in North Carolina and any person in America in jeopardy.”
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