A newly released crash report from the Rio Rancho Police Department provides new details about the sequence of events that led to the death of Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Sgt. Michael Schlattman on Feb. 23 on Interstate 40 Westbound near the East Mountains.
Schlattman, 52, was killed in the line of duty while conducting a traffic stop. He was outside his marked 2021 Ford police interceptor when a 2026 Freightliner Cascadia semi truck operated by a Florida man struck the rear of his patrol unit, pinning him underneath. He died at the scene. A tow truck was used to lift the vehicle to free him.
“This is every agency’s worst nightmare, and tonight it is ours,” Sheriff John Allen said. “Sergeant Schlattman was a servant leader and a protector in the truest sense. He was the kind of supervisor who never asked a deputy to do something he would not do himself. Our hearts are broken.”
According to the nine-page report, the semi was traveling westbound in the right lane when it clipped the rear driver’s side of Schlattman’s patrol unit. The impact caused the truck to veer into the middle lane and then into the far left lane, where it struck the Jersey barrier. The trailer separated from the tractor and went over the barrier.
The semi driver, a 58-year-old commercial truck operator employed by Freightstar Expedited LLC of West Chicago, Illinois, was transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital. Investigators noted that glare and a failure to yield to a police vehicle were listed as contributing factors for the semi. The driver told investigators he did not remember much of the crash. He was treated and released.
A witness traveling in the middle lane told investigators he moved into the left lane to give the semi room to merge away from Schlattman’s patrol unit on the shoulder. That witness, whose vehicle sustained minor damage from the Jersey barrier, said the semi’s front passenger corner clipped the sergeant’s vehicle.
The driver of the vehicle Schlattman had stopped said the sergeant had asked him to pull forward to a safer area of the interstate. He said he felt an impact from behind after re-starting his vehicle and pulled to the shoulder, where he saw the sergeant pinned under his unit and called 911.
The crash occurred at approximately 4:58 p.m. on a dry, clear Monday afternoon on a right-curving section of the three-lane interstate. The posted speed limit was 65 mph. No charges have been listed in the report.
The Rio Rancho Police Department took over the investigation at the request of the BCSO Traffic Division.
Schlattman joined the sheriff’s office in 2012 and was promoted to sergeant in July 2024. He served as a detective in special investigations and auto theft and as a task force officer with the U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
