[NOTE: I am not going to make a promise because I am not considering a run for office (though, were I elected at 81, I might be a “first” something or other). But I am probably at or near the end of my blogs on police reform related to my case. I have done as much as it is possible for one citizen to do to that imperative objective. If one blog remains, it deals with a matter under negotiation between the City Manager (with the City Attorney looking over his shoulder) and me. That statement leaves me free to write blogs on police reform not related to my case.
I want to make one point about the way in which the Las Cruces Police Department in my case (and, no doubt most, if not all, others) and the Law Office conduct or contract investigations: to develop one side of two sides of the story. The LCPD seeks only to confirm an accusation against a citizen or to exonerate itself of a complaint. The Law Office seeks to condemn its suspects whether criminal offenses are discovered or not. Neither display an interest in ascertaining the facts, much less the truth, by a fair, balanced, and impartial proceeding. The City pays for the abuse of such investigations.]
In my 6 January blog, I declared that I was not bluffing about going to court to have the Law Office release four documents in response to my IPRA request. Because it refused to identify author, audience, topic, and date of two withheld documents, I inferred that they were sent outside the chain of command, probably to the Mayor.
I already had the law on my side. Last spring, City Attorney Jennifer Vega-Brown, through her senior assistant Robert Cabello, had claimed an exemption from IPRA on the grounds that the redacted portions of two documents and the entirety of two withheld documents contained protected discussions of opinion and the officer’s employment relationship with the City. I filed a complaint with the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General, the Law Office restated its claim, I rebutted it, and, on 2 December, the NMOAG found it likely that the Law Office had not complied with the law.
On 7 January, I received all four documents—I trust them to be the real thing—in their entirety and without redaction. They surprised me. First, none of them contains anything which matches the reasons claimed for their exemption. Second, none of them left the chain of command. My suspicion based on the inference that refusing disclosure of their distribution concealed an impropriety was wrong. Nothing went to the Mayor.
If I am right, the Law Office’s withholding all but 18 records, then all but 5, then all but 4 and some basic data was a game played with lies for no purpose other than to tease and frustrate a citizen critical of LCPD conduct. I played because I knew that I would win and believed that I would expose Law Office mendacity. I did win but exposed instead its trifling with the law and squandering public resources. They include the taxpayers’ money spent on the time and energy not only of City employees Vega-Brown and Cabello, but also of at least three lawyers in the NMOAG.
I have sent these documents to my NMOAG point of contact for consideration. I doubt that he will be pleased by the conduct of these officers of the court. I do not know whether he will take any action or, if he does, what it will be. But I believe that the City Manager and perhaps Council should take a McHard look at Vega-Brown and ask her whether she thinks that fun-and-games with a citizen’s IPRA request is an appropriate way for her to conduct herself as an employee and representative of Las Cruces.
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