Albuquerque, NM- The Albuquerque Police Department has reportedly refuted news station KOB’s disclosure of APD Officer Keith Sandy’s recorded remarks about shooting homeless man James Boyd hours before Boyd was ultimately shot by Sandy.

According to KOB’s Eyewitness News, APD believes that Officer Sandy said “I’m going to shoot him with a Taser shotgun in a second”, not “I’m going to shoot him in the penis with a shotgun here in a second.”

The trouble with the agency’s opinion about what was said on the tape involves Sandy’s own admittance to investigators. KOB was able to find audio and documentation of Sandy’s interview with APD investigators in April, in which Sandy had initially said that he’d made the “shoot him in the penis” statement as a joke. “Just kind of locker room banter,” Sandy had said. “[I] just told him, you know, ‘don’t worry; I’ll shoot him in the pecker with this and call it good.’”

Sandy also explained to investigators that officers in APD’s Repeat Offenders Program (ROP) the officers routinely make cruel jokes, crude enough to the point where officers adopted a safe word- China- to indicate a stop to the jokes.

The APD investigator asked “So, in regard to the joking statement, you said that you were – you told him that you were going to shoot him in the pecker with the Taser shotgun?” Sandy replied “Yes.”

However, KOB reports that after a break in questioning Sandy changed his story. “I received a phone call and asked if I talked to Chris or anybody,” said Sandy. “I’ve heard it from other people saying that I did say that, that it is on the tape…but I don’t recall saying that and pecker is not a word that I use.”

Both Chief Eden and Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry have been quiet concerning the audio tape and Sandy’s testimony, but Berry remarked to KOB’s Chris Ramirez “I think what strikes me is the fact that, as police officers, we expect our folks to treat people with respect and dignity.”

“What concerned me was the absolute unacceptable language that was used,” said Eden.