The wife and mother of a man shot in his home after a Thermopolis police sergeant broke in to arrest him sued the town’s police department and the sergeant on Monday.
Thermopolis Police Department Sgt. Mike Mascorro broke into the Thermopolis home of Buck Laramore without a warrant April 28, 2023, to arrest Laramore for police interference for giving Mascorro inaccurate information during a drug investigation at the local McDonald’s restaurant earlier that day.
Laramore, 33, shot Mascorro through the lung. The sergeant returned fire, killing Laramore.
Months later, special prosecutor Dan Erramouspe determined that Mascorro was not criminally chargeable for homicide because of a provision of state law protecting police officers on the job, even when they act outside the law.
But Mascorro entered Laramore’s home illegally in the first place, Erramouspe concluded.
Laramore’s wife Brandi Laramore and mother Debra Laramore on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Thermopolis Police Department, and against Mascorro in his individual capacity, in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming.
Composed by Jack D. Edwards of Edwards Law Office, the women’s civil complaint asks for a jury trial, for money damages against the department and Mascorro – including punitive, or punishing damages – attorney’s fees, post- and pre-judgment interest and any other relief “justice may require.”
The lawsuit asserts eight claims:
• That the department failed to train Mascorro properly.
• That the department’s customs were inadequate.
• That Mascorro violated Laramore’s rights by breaking into his home without a warrant.
• That Mascorro used excessive force.
• That the department and Mascorro caused Laramore’s wrongful death through negligence.
• That the department and Mascorro acted with negligence in general.
• That Mascorro has caused Laramore’s loved ones emotional distress.
• And that the department is vicariously liable for Mascorro’s conduct.
The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The attorney who had served Mascorro during the original shooting investigation referred Cowboy State Daily to the Wyoming Attorney General's Office for a comment on Mascorro's behalf. The office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Second Honcho
The complaint emphasizes that Mascorro had been a law enforcement officer for seven years at the time of the incident, was a sergeant and was second in command at the department.
It references earlier complaints people made against Mascorro to the Wyoming Peace Officer and Standards and Training, that he’d used excessive force. Mascorro was cleared of those complaints and allowed to keep serving the department.
After the shootout with Laramore, the town likewise opted to keep Mascorro and publicly disagreed with Erramouspe’s findings about unlawful entry.
“Clearly an agency whose second in command has numerous use of force complaints and investigations should have some post academy use of force training,” the women’s complaint says. “The harm caused in this case, Buck’s death, was preventable and avoidable by adequate supervision, oversight, and training.”
The Report
The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation report from the shooting compiles witness interviews, bodycam footage and physical evidence.
It concludes that Mascorro broke into Buck Laramore’s home to arrest the man for the misdemeanor of interfering with a police officer because Laramore had lied about his surname spelling and age earlier that day while Mascorro investigated the presence of methamphetamine at the McDonald’s restaurant where Laramore worked.
Laramore was the last person to exit the McDonald’s men’s bathroom right before Mascorro and a sheriff’s deputy found methamphetamine in it earlier that day, April 28, 2023.
One witness described Laramore’s behavior as “shifty.”
Mascorro patted Laramore down, questioned him, tried to get him to give a urine sample and disclose his address, the report says. Health authorities shut the restaurant down and personnel started cleaning it.
Laramore left the McDonald’s before his shift was officially over.
“Don’t five (sic) them my address without a warrant this is ridiculous,” Laramore texted a coworker soon after leaving the restaurant, according to the DCI report.
He sent another text one minute later: “And I left without clocking out and the m aching (sic) needs aired out I was tired of getting harassed over something that had nothing to do with me.”
That coworker told a DCI investigator that she hadn’t known Laramore to do drugs, and that they had worked together for a while, including at a restaurant in Lander where they both lived prior.
She spoke highly of both Laramore and Mascorro, saying the sergeant had been “nothing but helpful with us.”
Police were investigating the restaurant in the first place because, about a week prior, they had arrested McDonald’s employee Derrick Collins on a local warrant and allegedly found him in possession of a meth pipe, the report says. Collins claimed the pipe belonged to a coworker.
Laramore went to his red, cream and brown-colored double-wide mobile home on Canyon Hills drive, and laid down in bed with his wife Brandi Laramore for a nap, the wife later told a DCI agent.
Brandi Laramore woke to the sound of someone “pounding on the door.”
She went to the door and found Mascorro there, saying he had come to arrest Laramore for impeding his investigation, the report relates.
‘No Sir’
Mascorro placed his sunglasses on Laramore’s front porch, says the report.
The front storm door was white metal and glass. It had no handle, but its front glass allowed for reaching through it and pulling it open. There was a wooden door just behind it, slightly ajar.
Buck Laramore came to the door after his wife answered it.
Mascorro told Buck Laramore to come outside and talk.
“No sir,” answered Laramore.
Mascorro then told Laramore he was going to jail, and Laramore asked why.
Mascorro repeated said he was willing to break the door down, if Laramore “made” him, the report relates from Mascorro’s bodycam footage.
Laramore again asked why he was going to jail. Mascorro said he’d interfered with his investigation.
Either Laramore would come out willingly or Mascorro would break the door down, the sergeant said, reportedly.
Laramore then told Mascorro his true surname spelling and date of birth, then shut his front door and deadbolted it.
Dead Bolt Shot Into Home
Mascorro, who is reportedly left-hand dominant, pulled the storm door open and rammed the locked wooden door with his left shoulder. He then switched to his right shoulder and rammed the front door twice.
“Stop!” yelled Brandi Laramore.
Mascorro rammed with his right shoulder again, damaging the door, breaking the doorjamb and sending the deadbolt flying toward the kitchen threshold inside the home, the report indicates.
Mascorro pulled the front door shut behind him.
Just then, Buck Laramore gripped a .45 pistol in both hands, aimed it directly at Mascorro and fired one time, dropping Mascorro to the ground. The bullet entered through Mascorro’s right bicep, passed into his chest near his armpit, glanced off a rib to dodge his heart, wounded his lung and exited through his back just to the left of his spine. The bullet came to rest lodged between his flesh and his clothing, the report indicates.
It felt like a sledgehammer blow, Mascorro later told a DCI agent.
Laramore advanced on Mascorro as Mascorro pleaded “stop, stop,” the report continues.
Bullets flew past the bodycam viewer. Those bullets were from Mascorro’s gun, which he drew and fired about seven times after getting shot, the investigation would later reveal.
Mascorro’s wounds squirted blood into view and dribbled it down his right arm.
Reflecting on that moment in his interview 12 days later, Mascorro told a DCI agent he didn’t know why Laramore didn’t shoot him in the head just then.
Show Your Hands
Mascorro started walking backward into the kitchen, telling dispatch shots had been fired. He gripped his own pistol in his left hand, maintaining cover on the doorway to the room from which Laramore had emerged.
Brandi Laramore screamed frantically.
Around this time, Brandi Laramore later told an investigator, she rushed her dog and herself to safety in the bathroom.
Laramore then eased around the bedroom’s doorjamb, exposing a sliver of his upper body.
Mascorro fired one round.
Laramore’s body had “an obvious reaction,” indicating a hit.
One second later, Mascorro fired again, dropping Laramore to the floor just inside the bedroom.
Two more seconds passed. Mascorro fired a third round.
“Stop, stop,” pleaded Laramore.
Mascorro commanded Laramore to show his hands.
Breathe In
Still in the kitchen, Mascorro fell to his hands and knees. His right hand slipped in his own blood, dropping him onto his stomach. His pistol slipped from his left hand, slid toward the kitchen cabinets and came to a rest.
Mascorro stood again and again he fell, catching himself on the kitchen counter and leaving bloody handprint smears along it.
“Move,” he said when he tried to get past Brandi Laramore, who was standing in the hallway, the report says.
“What are you doing?” Brandi Laramore asked him.
Mascorro fumbled for the back door. He couldn’t get the back storm door open and he fell down backwards onto the floor while trying.
Brandi Laramore stood over him and screamed.
Mascorro fought for breath.
Brandi Laramore withdrew from Mascorro, still screaming, the report indicates.
“Shots fired, shots fired, shots fired, I need help, I’m down, I’ve been shot, help,” Mascorro said into his radio.
He sat up, scooted out the back storm door and slid off the side of the unrailed back metal stairs onto his feet. He walked away from the home toward his patrol vehicle.
Sirens sounded outside.
Meanwhile in the home, Brandi Laramore checked on her husband and believed he was dying, a summary of her later interview relates.
‘Right There,’ Said The Neighbor Kid
Mascorro collapsed to the ground between a pickup with a bed camper and a Saturn car.
Deputy Shayna Cox arrived on scene and got out of her vehicle.
A kid stood near the trailer.
“Where is he?” Cox asked the kid.
The kid pointed to where Mascorro lay. “Right there,” he answered.
Mascorro’s face was pale and his body gushed blood. Cox went to him, pulled him to a position of “better cover,” and put a tourniquet on his right arm. Taking off his vest and shirt, she found his chest wound and applied pressure to it.
When an ambulance arrived, Cox grabbed her rifle and joined Sheriff Jerimie Kraushaar in the trailer house.
There she saw Brandi Laramore, face-down and handcuffed. Kraushaar told Cox to radio dispatch to announce that Laramore was dead in the home.
“He’s dying in here,” said Brandi Laramore. “I don’t know what happened.”
Cox was concerned that a neighbor or bystander may have gotten hit by a bullet. A later investigation revealed that no one else had been hit.
Never Saw Anyone Get Shot Before
Hot Springs County Sheriff’s Deputy Ken Smith also arrived on scene. He asked Brandi Laramore if she was hurt, according to a DCI summary of his bodycam footage.
She didn’t think so, but she asked him to take her handcuffs off. She didn’t do anything; the men had just started shooting, she said.
The report relates Thermopolis Police Department Chief Pat Cornwell advised deputies Smith and Cox to read Brandi Laramore her Miranda rights – they could hold her for up to 72 hours while they sorted things out.
Brandi Laramore repeated over and over again that she’d never seen anyone get shot before, the report says.
Smith asked Brandi Laramore to give a breath test. She agreed and blew a zero reading on the breathalyzer.
Over A Wrong Spelling And Age?
Two DCI agents met with Buck Laramore’s mother Debra at about 6:15 p.m. that evening in Thermopolis to give her the official death notification for her son.
Debra Laramore-Fenton brought along two close friends.
She wanted to know why Mascorro had been in her house without a warrant. (Larmore-Fenton was the official tenant on the trailer house.)
She was upset about some of the official messaging that had gone out on Facebook and was struggling to rationalize the shooting.
“(She said) she doesn’t understand how her son giving a wrong date of birth resulted in his death,” reads the report.
Hero’s Welcome
DCI Special Agent Pete McCall went to the hospital in Thermopolis to speak with Mascorro. There, Thermopolis Police Department Officer Jessica Araiza gave Mascorro’s things to McCall – including one spent bullet hospital staff had recovered.
McCall waited around for Mascorro to gain steady consciousness to give what the report calls a “public safety interview” regarding how many shots were fired and in what directions.
Eventually, hospital staff said Mascorro could talk, though he had received several doses of medication.
McCall asked Mascorro how many shots he’d fired.
He believed three, the police sergeant answered.
McCall asked how many people were involved.
Just himself and one other male, Mascorro answered. Then he lost consciousness.
Emergency flight personnel flew Mascorro to the Wyoming Medical Center in Casper.
Five days later, Mascorro returned to Thermopolis and received a “hero’s welcome” parade.
The Home
Law enforcement reportedly recovered methamphetamine from the home, ranging from a finding of a trace amount — 0.1 gram on a piece of foil — to 7.2 grams in plastic baggies, the report says.
The report says agents also found 1 gram of suspected marijuana in plant form and four cellphones, one of which was Brandi Laramore’s.
The other three phones were Buck Laramore’s, Brandi Laramore later told DCI.
Yes, Several Times
DCI Special Agent Kiel Holder, the lead investigator on the case, interviewed Mascorro May 10 at 10:30 a.m. in Thermopolis.
Mascorro agreed to speak and brought his attorney, John Worrall.
Holder asked Mascorro if he’d reviewed his bodycam footage from April 28.
Mascorro said he’d reviewed the trailer park footage many times and that he reviewed the video from the McDonald’s inspection at least once.
Backup?
Holder asked Mascorro during their interview why he’d used deadly force.
Mascorro said he was certain at the time that Laramore was about to kill him and felt there was no other choice.
Holder asked if there were other officers working in the area at that time who could have gone to the home with Mascorro and helped him.
Mascorro said he was the only patrol officer on shift for his department during the incident. He knew Deputy Shaina Cox was working for the sheriff’s department that day, but he’d already asked for her help and had taken up a lot of her time, he said.
“It’s the nature of this job,” he added.
About Breaking In
Holder asked Mascorro what authority he claimed for going into Laramore’s home.
Mascorro said he had authority to arrest Laramore for the misdemeanor committed in his presence. He also believed that when Laramore slammed the door in his face, he committed the new crime of resisting arrest and gave Mascorro the right of “fresh pursuit” to complete the arrest.
Erramouspe in his prosecutorial decision letter disagreed with this reasoning.
The decision says Mascorro didn’t have authority to arrest Laramore without a warrant for a misdemeanor charge hours after the offense, unless Mascorro had probable cause to believe Laramore would skip town, escape altogether, injure people or property, or destroy or conceal evidence.
“There’s no evidence other than this assumption by Mascorro to indicate that Laramore would essentially quit his job, pack up his belongings, leave the area, possibly defaulting on his home lease, just to avoid a possible misdemeanor interference charge for allegedly lying to law enforcement,” wrote the prosecutor.
Erramouspe indicated other factors were in play.
“The body cam evidence is clear that Laramore refusing to submit to the drug test or give his address bothered Mascorro,” reads the prosecutor’s decision. “Mascorro even disregards (a county deputy attorney’s) suggestion that he just write Laramore a citation, advising hours after his interaction with Laramore, that he was going to arrest him.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
