Who Shot Darian Jarrott? Omar Cueva, Lawsuit, and Settlement

New Mexico State Police Officer Darian Jarrott was shot and killed by Omar Felix Cueva, a methamphetamine trafficker and armed felon, during a traffic stop on Interstate 10 about 15 miles east of Deming, New Mexico, on February 4, 2021. Cueva used a concealed AR-15-style rifle to ambush Officer Jarrott, fled the scene, and was killed hours later in a shootout with law enforcement near Las Cruces.

Who Omar Felix Cueva Was

Cueva was the target of an active Homeland Security Investigations drug case at the time of the shooting. Days earlier, on January 28, 2021, an HSI undercover agent had bought about a pound of methamphetamine from him near Las Cruces. During that buy the agent saw Cueva carrying a semiautomatic rifle, and Cueva told the agent the weapon was for his protection and that he was “not returning to prison.” On February 2, an informant reported Cueva was in Phoenix picking up more narcotics, and HSI put out a bulletin flagging his extensive criminal history and the fact that he was known to carry firearms.¹

The Traffic Stop on I-10

Officer Jarrott pulled Cueva’s pickup over on I-10 for illegally dark window tint. He introduced himself, explained the reason for the stop, and asked Cueva to walk to the rear of the vehicle. Cueva had an AR-15-style rifle concealed between the driver’s door and the driver’s seat and a handgun holstered on his right hip.¹

As the two men walked toward the back of the truck, Cueva raised the rifle over the truck bed and opened fire. Body camera footage showed the muzzle of the rifle visible as Cueva first stepped out of the vehicle, a danger cue the review committee later concluded went unrecognized. Cueva kept firing, shot Officer Jarrott in the head at point-blank range, and then drove off.¹

Why Officer Jarrott Made the Stop

The stop was not random, and understanding that is central to the controversy that followed. HSI had planned to arrest Cueva after the January 28 methamphetamine buy but held off to protect the deal and a confidential informant. The next day, HSI Agent Matthew Rodriguez asked NMSP K9 Officer Leonel Palomares for help conducting a traffic stop on Cueva that would “wall off” the informant, meaning the arrest would look like a routine roadside encounter rather than the product of an undercover operation. If the traffic stop failed, HSI’s backup plan was to have its own Special Response Team make the arrest.¹

Communication broke down from there. HSI agents began coordinating directly with NMSP Sergeant Mark Madrid rather than routing everything through the assigned K9 task force officer, which fell outside HSI’s own operations plan. No NMSP representatives attended any briefing for the operation. Officer Jarrott was sent to stop a known armed felon recently released from federal prison without adequate information about the threat he was walking into.¹

The Pursuit and Cueva’s Death

After the shooting, Cueva drove east on I-10 at high speed. Officers Palomares and Alfonso Montez pursued him for roughly 40 miles toward Las Cruces. Las Cruces Police motorcycle officer Adrian De La Garza, working out of an unmarked police Camaro that day, used a pursuit intervention technique to disable Cueva’s truck and force it to a stop.

A gunfight broke out immediately. Cueva shot Officer De La Garza in the right arm, the round passing through his bicep and armpit and exiting through his back. Other officers returned fire and killed Cueva. De La Garza survived but suffered severe nerve damage and a prolonged recovery. Authorities later found a large quantity of methamphetamine in Cueva’s vehicle. The officers who used deadly force in the final shootout were reviewed and their actions were found justified.¹

What the Incident Review Found

In May 2021, NMSP Interim Chief Robert Thornton assigned commissioned personnel to the Darian Jarrott Incident Review Committee. Its final report, released in March 2024, was unusually blunt. The committee found “flawed tactics and poor communications” between HSI and NMSP. It determined that Officer Jarrott did not appear to recognize danger cues once he spotted the handgun on Cueva’s hip and concluded he should have shifted to felony stop tactics at that point.¹

The heavier criticism went to the operational structure. The committee found the stop was a wall-off stop, not the simpler “whisper stop” it had initially been characterized as, meaning federal agents and the NMSP K9 officer knew about Cueva’s criminal history, active drug dealing, and weapons. The report concluded that HSI “put the value of the narcotics case and concealing the CI’s identity above the value of the NMSP officers’ lives” by choosing a routine-looking traffic stop over the tactical team arrest it had ready as a backup. HSI said it was reviewing the committee’s recommendations regarding joint enforcement actions.¹

The Federal Lawsuit

Officer Jarrott’s widow, Gabriella Jarrott, sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, arguing that HSI’s negligence caused her husband’s death. The case, Jarrott v. United States of America, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico after the family submitted an administrative claim to the Department of Homeland Security on April 20, 2021.²

On July 24, 2023, District Judge Kea W. Riggs dismissed the case. The court ruled that the federal government had not waived sovereign immunity, applying the “discretionary function” exception under 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). HSI’s decisions about how to structure the operation, including using state police for a traffic stop to protect the confidential informant, were the kind of policy-driven judgment calls the exception shields from liability. The court also rejected the argument that a separate provision allowing lawsuits against law enforcement officers overrode that exception. A loss of consortium claim was separately barred because the administrative claim forms filed with DHS had referenced only wrongful death.³

The State Settlement

The Jarrott family also pursued claims against the state of New Mexico. In August 2023, the state agreed to pay a total of $523,520.82. Officer Jarrott’s four children received $45,867.64 each, roughly $160,000 went to his widow, and the remaining $181,579.69 covered attorney fees. As part of the settlement, NMSP said it had reviewed its policies and made changes intended to prevent similar incidents.

A Highway in His Name

In the 2026 legislative session, the New Mexico Senate introduced Joint Memorial 3, asking the Department of Transportation to designate highway segments as memorial corridors for state police officers killed in the line of duty. The memorial directs the first designation under the program to honor Officer Jarrott on Interstate 10 in Luna County, where he was killed.⁴

1
New Mexico Department of Public Safety. Darian Jarrott Incident Review Committee Report
2
Court House News Service. Jarrott v. United States of America – Memorandum Opinion and Order
3
Justia Law. Jarrott v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, No. 2:2022cv00430 – Document 35
4
New Mexico Legislature. Senate Joint Memorial 3 – Memorial Highway Corridors