This came up last year as a council resolution and was vetoed by Mayor Berry. There were not enough votes to override his veto. I am not sure of his logic but let me state that the DOJ is already investigating the shootings in Albuquerque over the last few years and will take action if there are actionable issues. Having the City Council call for a DOJ investigation is strictly a no-confidence vote by the council for the Albuquerque Police Department.
Really? Is that the message you want to send to the people in the city protecting the rest of us from danger? More likely this is a shallow, political, gesture to distract the voters from their failure to act on the Paseo Del Norté interchange funding.
The issue for which they claim to be requesting help from the DOJ (yes, Eric Holder's Department of Justice) is that the Albuquerque Police Department has shot, and in many instances killed, several suspects over the last two years, allegedly in an improper fashion. Now, none of these "august" councilmen/councilwomen will actually say that they believe the actions to be improper, only that Eric Holder's DOJ, the same people who brought you 'gun-walking', 'Operation Fast and Furious', and trials of terrorists on US soil, could do a better job than we, the people, of Albuquerque.
Leaving aside the issue of whether Eric Holder's department is truly qualified given its current leadership (there are still plenty of honest career law enforcement types there), what would they discover if they went through the records of the police shootings over the last 2 1/2 years? They would find that almost all of the incidents (according to news reports) involved suspects with weapons or grappling with officers for their weapons. True, some of the suspects' families allege otherwise but grand juries, composed of citizens of Albuquerque, have cleared the officers involved.
True, there are a couple of officers with inflammatory comments but their actions still appear to be reasonable.
What all of us non-officers might ask is whether there was justification for deadly force. Here we have to trust our system. We have police internal affairs boards, citizen review panels, and an independent judge who oversee all of the actions of out police department. Add to that the fact that every police department in the US is subject to review by the DOJ and there is little to fear that justice will not be served. There is absolutely no need, except to distract the public from one's voting record, to vote to request a DOJ review. Also, it is fine to watch TV cops avoid using deadly force but it is another to put one's own life on the line and have to try to enforce the laws and not be killed. Hats off to out police department.
Shame on councilors Debbie O'Malley, Isaac Benton, and Ray Garduño, and Ken Sanchez for their vote.
If you want to take the time to review the reported facts, take the time to look over the data. Now, the facts cited below are not the same as the data reviewed by the internal affairs boards, grand juries, independent judges, and DOJ, they have better and more complete data. But, seriously, they speak of officers faced with a life-threatening situation who had to make a shoot or be killed decision in seconds. These officers deserve our support. That is not to say that a DOJ review is a bad thing, only that it will happen without the posturing by councilors Debbie O'Malley, Isaac Benton, Ray Garduño, and Ken Sanchez. The facts as reported in the news media are shown below. Note that I removed the officer names to avoid additional pressure on them. Also, most of the hyperlinks are to TV News. If you have a subscription to the Albuquerque Journal, there are more additional citetions in that publication but they are not available w/o a subscription. For this reason, they are not citesd as often but I spent an entire day going through their archives to get the data and then searched the web for alternate sources. The Journal remains an excellent source although some reporters have an anti-police bias.
There may be better data than this but the reported events overwhelmingly suggest that the actions taken by the police were justified.
2010 shootings.
No | Date | Victim Name | Weapon Y/N | Remarks |
1 | 1/9/2010 | Aaron Renfro | Y | |
2 | 1/13/2010 | Kenneth Ellis | Y | |
3 | 1/29/2010 | Wayne Cordova | ? | KRQE Link Initial reports reported that Cordova had something wrapped around his hand. ABQ Journal story in archives. |
4 | 3/30/2010 | Mickey Owings | N | Suspect rammed police with stolen automobile. KRQE Link ABQ Journal story in archives. |
5 | 4/14/2010 | Benjamin Marquez | Y | |
6 | 6/10/2010 | Chris Hinz | Y | KRQE Link 10 year SWAT veterans |
7 | 6/15/2010 | Julian Calbert | Y | KRQE Link 3 yr veteran |
8 | 7/28/2010 | Len Fuentes | Y | |
9 | 8/18/2010 | Enrique Carrasco | Y | |
10 | 9/15/2010 | Todd Barr | Y | |
11 | 10/19/2010 | Daniel Gonzales | Y | KRQE Link Man shot in Tucumcari after APD SWAT called out by State Police |
12 | 10/31/2010 | Alexi Sinkevitch | Y | KRQE Link 2 year veteran |
13 | 11/12/2010 | Ray Russell Tenorio | Y | |
14 | 3/4/2010 | Unknown | ? | Officer fired at but missed car |
2011 shootings:
No | Date | Victim Name | Weapon Y/N | Remarks |
1 | 2/10/11 | Jacob Mitschelen | Y | KRQE Link. Later reports saying that Mitschelen was shot in back were clarified by Deputy Chief Paul Feist in KRQE Link 2. |
2 | 3/22/2011 | Jerry Perea | N | KRQE Link Perea died after being tasered by officers. Man was high on Meth and obese. |
3 | 4/12/2011 | Chris Torres | Y? | KRQE Link1 Indicates that Torres wrestled with second detective over weapon and was shot by Brown. KRQE Link2 quotes family members as denying this. |
4 | 5/11/2011 | Alan Gomez | Y | Gomez had hostages and was reported to be armed. When shot was not carrying gun but officer had no way of knowing. |
5 | 6/5/2011 | Raymond Grey Garcia | Y | 3, 3, & 6Yrs |
6 | 6/27/2011 | Orlando Paisano | Y | KRQE Link Lujan shot Paisano after being attacked with 15 inch bayonet. |
7 | 8/8/2011 | Unidentified | Y | KRQE Link Man throwing Ax shot w/bean bag gun. |
8 | 8/31/2011 | Michael Marquez | Y | KRQE Link Shot by APD sniper (16 yr veteran) after pointing AK47. |
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