Dominque Perez, who is charged with second-degree murder in connection to the deadly shooting of James Boyd, has been dismissed from the Albuquerque Police Department.Boyd was shot and killed after a tense four-hour standoff with Albuquerque police in March 2014.Lawyers for Sandy and Perez argue they were doing what they were trained to do the day Boyd was killed, providing lethal cover for a colleague they felt was in danger. Boyd was armed with knives and had a long and violent criminal history.When flash bang grenades, Tasers and the K-9 unit didn't work, Sandy and Perez opened fire.Perez had been with the department since 2006, according to our partners at the Albuquerque Journal. Prior to that, he worked guarding the Los Alamos National Lab and was a Purple Heart recipient as a Marine.The father of three no longer has his city insurance and is paying for his estimated $200,000 legal defense out of pocket.Perez's family and his lawyer say his law enforcement certification has been suspended, which means he can't work as a police officer in New Mexico for the time being.Keith Sandy, the other officer charged in connection with the shooting, retired in 2014. Both Sandy and Perez were bound over for trial earlier this year.A judge ruled there's enough evidence to move forward with the second-degree murder charges, and Perez and Sandy are set to stand trial next summer."If you're second-guessed every time you make a decision, and you might find yourself criminally charged, and if you second-guess yourself and you don't take action, you might find yourself in a very dire predicament where you're fighting for your life," said Perez's attorney Luis Robles. "I think everyone thought that by essentially going after (APD) you were going to make things better. Be careful what you ask for. If you break your police department, you will have that broken police department to protect you. And that's a really unfortunate place to be when you need their help in a situation where you can't help yourself."