Albuquerque, NM: Man killed by cop kidnapped wife Woman called 911 from car trunk

Updated: Tuesday, 15 Jun 2010, 7:05 PM MDT
Published : Tuesday, 15 Jun 2010, 6:05 PM MDT

Maria Medina
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Before being killed by police Tuesday investigators say Julian Calbert kidnapped and beat his wife and stuffed her in the trunk of her car adding to his lengthy criminal record that includes a rape conviction.

Albuquerque police said the woman, whose identity was not released, called 911 from the trunk just after midnight after Calbert abducted her and a friend.

In a recording of the call she can be heard talking to her husband, which gave the 911 dispatcher her location at a West Side truck stop: "We're at Flying J's? ... How much gas are you going to put in, babe? ... I don't want to be in this trunk anymore."

Police said when they arrived Calbert denied anyone was in his trunk despite the blood on the outside of the car. Calbert turned around suddenly and hit the officer in the face and was shot when he took out a large knife, police reported.

He died at the scene.

Calbert is the eighth person to be involved in a police shooting this year and the second man to be shot dead by an officer in less than a week. An Albuquerque SWAT officer shot and killed Chris Hinz outside his Northeast Heights home Thursday when he reportedly was drunk, fire shots inside the home and then approach officers while refusing to put down his rifle.

"New Mexico is consistently in the top 10 of the states with the highest number of assaults on police officers," Albuquerque Public Safety Director Darren White said at an afternoon news conference. "It's difficult. No one wants to do this. No one on this job wants to take someone's life."

Calbert's extensive criminal history and for nearly 12 years has been a registered sex offender in Quay County. He was convicted in 1986 for three counts of rape.

His wife and her friend told investigators Calbert found them at a University of New Mexico Hospital parking lot where the two women were getting ready to visit someone. They said he held a knife to his wife's neck, forced her into the trunk and had her friend ride in the passenger seat.

Police said Calbert was angry his wife filed a domestic-violence police report on him last week. However, it's not clear whether she'd filed for a restraining order.

They drove around for a half hour while Calbert opened the back seat to get access to his wife in the trunk and repeatedly beat her.

Police said Calbert took the women's cell phones but didn't know his wife had another cell phone in her pocket. That allowed her to call 911 when they stopped for gas at the Flying J Truck Stop on 98th Street NW at I-40.

"Reading that report and hearing that call I get chills because I shudder to think what would happen if that officer had not shown up and did what he did," White said. "He put himself in harm's way to protect these women that he did not know."