A 24-year-old Arizona man who warned the Pima County Sheriff's Department he was being targeted for swatting says deputies shot him seven times anyway, less than 48 hours after dispatchers told him "nothing's going to happen."
Axeel Melendez filed a $176 million lawsuit against Sheriff Chris Nanos and Pima County, alleging that deputies responding to a fraudulent 911 call smashed his bedroom window with a shovel, entered with guns drawn, and fired seven shots that struck him in the leg and spine. Melendez is now paralyzed. The lawsuit, first detailed by the Daily Caller, accuses the department of "dangerous incompetence", a charge that lands harder given that Nanos is the same sheriff overseeing the high-profile investigation into the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie.
The Melendez case is not the only legal trouble piling up for Nanos. A separate $3 million notice of claim has been filed by Carlos Palazuelos and two family members, who say deputies raided their home, drew guns, and detained Palazuelos for seven to eight hours in connection with the Guthrie investigation, then released him without charges.
The sequence of events described in the lawsuit reads like a case study in institutional failure. An online hacker threatened to call in a bogus bomb threat at Melendez's home. Melendez did what any law-abiding citizen would do: he contacted the Pima County Sheriff's Department to warn them.
His attorney, Dev Sethi, said the department's own dispatcher told Melendez the threat was not serious. The New York Post reported that the dispatcher assured Melendez, "They can't just call SWAT on you. That's not how it works," and that "nothing's going to happen."
A suspicious call did come in to Melendez's address shortly after. The department determined it was fake, notified Melendez, and told him he "should be alright." An incident report obtained by Sethi stated that authorities promised to warn Melendez if they received any more calls to his address.
Less than 48 hours later, someone impersonating Melendez called the sheriff's department and claimed his father had shot his sister. That was the swatting call. And this time, deputies responded with force, without, according to the lawsuit, checking whether the call matched the pattern they had already flagged as fraudulent.
When deputies arrived, Melendez heard a commotion outside his home. He woke his mother and told her to hide. Then he positioned himself behind a door with a legally registered firearm, a reasonable response from a man who had been told someone was targeting his house with fake emergency calls.
Deputies smashed his bedroom window with a shovel and entered with guns drawn. They fired seven shots. Two struck Melendez, one in the leg, one in the spine. He has been paralyzed ever since.
The lawsuit alleges Melendez posed no threat at the time of the shooting. No details have emerged publicly about whether his firearm was visible to deputies or whether any verbal commands were issued before they opened fire. Sheriff Nanos and the Pima County Sheriff's Department have not issued any public response to the lawsuit, based on available reporting.
Sethi framed the case in terms any parent would understand. Fox News reported the attorney's statement:
"He did everything we teach our kids to do. When you're in danger, when somebody's threatening you, what's the first thing we tell all of our children? Call the police."
Sethi also described the lasting damage in blunt terms:
"Axeel is a shooting victim whose life will never be the same... He's not just looking at years of medical treatment and a mountain of hospital bills; his life has been shattered."
The Melendez lawsuit is not the first time Nanos's department has faced accusations of heavy-handed tactics without results. Carlos Palazuelos and two family members have filed a $3 million notice of claim alleging that deputies raided their home, drew guns on Palazuelos, and detained him for seven to eight hours in connection with the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie. He was released without charges.
The Guthrie case, the disappearance of an 84-year-old woman, has drawn sustained scrutiny to Nanos's department. The sheriff recently released ransom notes in the case in an effort to identify the sender, a move that signaled the investigation remains far from resolution.
KVOA News 4 Tucson reported that Palazuelos's attorney is now speaking publicly after filing the notice of claim. Whether that notice converts into a full lawsuit remains to be seen, but the pattern is clear: Nanos's department is racking up legal exposure on multiple fronts simultaneously.
The search for Guthrie has stalled at various points, and the sheriff himself has faced political pressure from Pima County supervisors. Separately, county supervisors have threatened to oust Nanos over perjury allegations as the Guthrie search dragged past 100 days.
Between the Melendez lawsuit and the Palazuelos notice of claim, the Pima County Sheriff's Department faces $179 million in combined legal exposure. That figure does not include whatever political and institutional costs come from a department that appears unable to distinguish real emergencies from fake ones, even after being warned.
The core failure in the Melendez case is not complicated. A citizen contacted law enforcement, reported a specific threat, and was told not to worry. The department received a suspicious call, identified it as fake, and promised to flag future calls. Then a second fake call came in less than two days later, and deputies treated it as real. They broke into a man's bedroom and shot him.
No one has been publicly identified or charged for placing the swatting call. No one at the department has been publicly held accountable for failing to cross-reference the address against its own recent records. And the sheriff leading the response has offered no public comment on the lawsuit.
Cases like this one, where law enforcement agencies face massive liability for alleged misconduct, are not unique to Pima County. A Kentucky man recently won a $24 million verdict after spending 22 years in prison for a crime he says investigators pinned on him. The dollar amounts vary. The underlying problem does not: agencies that face no consequences for reckless conduct keep producing reckless conduct.
Melendez did everything right. He reported the threat. He cooperated with law enforcement. He protected his family when danger arrived. The department that was supposed to protect him put him in a wheelchair instead. If $176 million sounds like a big number, consider what it costs to live the rest of your life unable to walk, because the people you called for help couldn't be bothered to check their own records.