I gave thanks Thursday for the Las Cruces police force and legal community. They are a blogger's delight, a gift which just keeps on giving. It has ranged from an Animal Control Officer citing me for five fictitious (my mantra: “fact-free, false, and fabricated”) code violations to the City Attorney claiming on 24 June 2021 that “The events as they occurred actually occurred. They were properly documented.” Wow! Over 16 months later, she contradicted IA’s 5 February 2020 report that “Mr. Hays’ warning notice had several violations marked to which there was no physical evidence or proof an actual violation had occurred." She did not respond to my request to see the documents.
I also gave thanks for readers who have been decent enough to wonder why I have invested so heavily in this case. I know that the fictitious violations are small; I also know that the responses of Las Cruces officialdom—Mayor, Councilors, City Managers, City Attorneys, Police Chiefs and IA Officers—are large. Their strategy and tactics used against me—delays, obstruction, concealment, nonsense, lies, misrepresentations, slander, libel—can be used against against you, especially if your case is more important or police misconduct far worse. Far from being chastened by the publicity which I have given their misconduct, they may relish my public exposure as advertising their warning to citizens not to confront them with complaints. You will be treated disrespectfully, denied due process, and unable to find local lawyers brave enough even to advise you about your case involving the political and police powers of city and state. You may think that it will not happen to you (until it does), ignore my warning, and tolerate police misconduct, which once again, I document in one significant matter: antisemitism.
In the spring of 2020, I made an Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) request for all records related to my complaint about five fictitious violations. Mr. Robert Cabello, Senior Assistant City Attorney, with the knowledge and approval of Ms. Jennifer Vega-Brown, City Attorney, only partly complied. He justified redacting two and withholding two records by citing IPRA exemption NMSA 14-2.1(C) Matters of Opinion, “letters or memorandums which are matters of opinion in personnel files….” concerning ACO Juan Valles. Mr. Cabello states in a 26 March 2020 email that “the redactions…are directly related to the employee’s relationship with the City.” His justification impressed neither me nor Mr. John Kreienkamp, NM Assistant Attorney General, whose opinion concluded, in effect, that the Law Office should get smart and start over. The weight of his opinion and the threat of legal action prompted the Law Office to come clean (perhaps).
One redacted section concerned antisemitism. Background: I neither alleged nor suggested antisemitism in my 5 August 2019 formal complaint to IA about the citations. In an email later that day to four officials—Councilor Kasandra Gandara, Interim City Manager William Studer, Chief of Police Patrick Gallagher, IA Officer Carmen Lazarin—, I suggested antisemitism as a possible motive for ACO Valles’s citations. I did not know that any suggestion of bias-based policing requires an investigation.
Even so, the LCPD was reluctant to act. It did nothing for 6 weeks. IA Officer Lazarin seems not to have informed other IA officers of this suggestion; or, if she had, neither she nor they took it seriously. Nor did Chief Gallagher. A month later, on 3 September, IA Sgt. Sean Mullens notified Valles’s superior that my complaint “was determined to be a non-serious matter.” IA inaction prompted me to write a 21 September blog suggesting that antisemitism went beyond ACO Valles to others in the LCPD. IA rushed to add bias-based policing to my complaint without my knowledge or permission. I protested, demanded that it be detached from my complaint, and explained that criminalizing bias is contrary to my moral and religious principles.
Over 3 months later, on 14 January 2020, IA acted; IA Sgt. Mullen interviewed ACO Valles. (His memorandum dates the interview 14 January 2019, before the incident!) I have numbered the sentences in the unredacted passage for ready reference:
[1] Mr. Hays doesn’t like the fact a warning notice left on his gate. [2] He challenges the complaints [sic] validity since the caller chose to remain anonymous. [3] He protested the facts in emails, blogs, phone calls and meetings. [4] The notice was left by ACO to have the property owner call in and the Animal Control Officer educate them on the reason for the visit to their home and the city ordinances required by [sic] every pet owner. [5] In an email and blog authored by Mr. Hays, he suggested antisemitism within LCPD, specifically in this instance with ACO Valles. [6] He noted a large Star of David which hangs about the garage as motivation for ACO Valles’ [sic] actions. [7] Mr. Hays told Lieutenant Kinney and Chief Gallagher during a meeting on January 7, 2020 with City Staff that he wasn’t complaining of biased [sic] based policing. [8] LCPD is obligated to look into any suggestion of biased [sic] based policing whether or not the citizen files an official complaint.
[9] During my interview ACO Valles advised he is not targeting Mr. Hays’ [sic] because of his beliefs, religion or any other reason. [10] He just happened to be the officer who took this call for service. [11] By the same measure where Mr. Hays said there is no evidence to support violation at his home; [sic] there is absolutely no evidence to suggest any bias or targeting of Mr. Hays by ACO Valles or LCPD.
I waste no one’s time or trouble to address the irrelevant, or rebut the false, misleading, contentious, or pejorative statements, in these two paragraphs. Instead, I make a few brief observations about them.
First, over half the statements are irrelevant, having nothing to do with a suggestion of antisemitism. Statements 1 through 4 are about me and the notice of violations. Statements 7 and 8 address complaints about antisemitism, not antisemitism itself.
Second, of the remaining five statements, two (5 and 6) present my suggestion and my evidence for it; two (9 and 10) present ACO Valles’s counters: an unsupported denial of antisemitism and an everyone-would-do-as-I-did defense, namely, cite me for fictitious violations (and for the same motive?); one (11) is IA Sgt. Mullen’s flawed analogical argument in ACO’s Valles’s defense (IA Sgt. Mullen omits his conclusion cited just above in his memorandum in order to dismiss my possible evidence, the Star of David).
Third, missing are any investigative questions relevant to ascertaining ACO Valles’s motive. IA Sgt. Mullen did not ask ACO Valles whether he had given out fictitious citations for code violations before? If so, often? If so, to whom and of what religion? And if so to any of these questions, why? If his conduct in my case is routine with him, Valles admits to routine bad policing. If his answers seem trustworthy in making my case unique, then what explains giving them out in this instance?
Fourth, and most important, nothing, absolutely nothing, in this passage justifies an exemption because it contains no “Matters of Opinion” concerning ACO Juan Valles and nothing “directly related to the employee’s relationship with the City.”
So the question is, why did Mr. Cabello and Ms. Vega-Brown claim a bogus exemption and thereby break the law and lie to both me and an NM Assistant Attorney General. One answer: they thought that they would not be discovered to be lawbreakers and liars. Another: they thought that, if discovered, they would suffer no consequences. They were discovered, and they have suffered no consequences.
City officials—Mayor, Councilors, City Manager, and Chief of Police—have condoned city lawyers’ lawbreaking and lying to citizens and state officials, and some have actively worked to silence me and disregard of my case. Mayor Miyagishima, who publicly and privately promised that I would present my case to the police auditor; Councilor Bencomo, who has advocated police reform and attended a meeting in which the City Manager said that the citations should be retracted; and Councilor Gandara, who has repeatedly and vigorously defended the City Attorney to me—all deliberately voted to exclude my case from those to be reviewed by the police auditor. Councilor Gandara, who did nothing more than back my requests to meet with two City Managers, is greatly committed to social services but little concerned for public safety.
What began as a suggestion of one ACO’s antisemitism leads, after my 2-years’ effort to have fictitious violations retracted and my police record expunged, to the suggestion of institutional antisemitism. The refusal of these city officials and officers except the City Manager to admit mistakes and make amends reflects more than wagon-circling. When antisemitism is a possibility, now approaching certainty, refusal reflects their tolerance of it and its taint. Dodging transparency and accountability, ducking the facts supporting my complaint, and rigging the police auditor’s report are tell-tale signs of antisemitism in the leadership of The City of Three Crosses. If not, let them answer. Certainly, this redacted portion contains nothing cogent denying antisemitsim.
Compatible with this official behavior—and alarming—is sentence {3}: “He protested the facts in emails, blogs, phone calls and meetings.” IA Sgt. Mullen disapproves of my protesting the fictitious violations (not his “facts,” all false). Despite his oath to uphold the constitutions of the United States and New Mexico, he neither accepts nor respects a citizen’s First Amendment rights: free speech, free press, petition, and assembly.
I close with a specific warning: it cannot happen here—until it does. If IA Sgt. Mullen represents the LCPD, it constitutes a potential threat to the civil rights, perhaps even the lives, of citizens who protest police misconduct or political actions. The City Attorney and her Senior Assistant tried to conceal this redacted statement by lawbreaking and lying because it shows that they not only cannot rebut the suggestion of antisemitism, but also recognize and tolerate the threat of police action against Las Cruces citizens.
As of sundown (three stars appearing in the firmament), I wish you a Happy Hanukkah!
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