For most of my first decade in town, I subscribed to the Las Cruces Sun-News. For six or so of those years, I wrote a fortnightly column for it. After I resigned from that task, the paper reduced itself to the size of a double-issue comic book, and I dropped my subscription. Today, I read it occasionally on the internet, and, after I have used up my freebies, I get an offer to subscribe. It is still comic; its inducement begins, “Investigative reporting that makes our community a better place to work, live and play.”
Some friends who subscribe cannot recall any instance of “investigative reporting” which makes an improvement to city life. None has seen one word in the Sun-News about the Brown Farm fiasco or police and law office misconduct and dishonesty. Why, despite my blogs which I send him, does Editor Lucas Peerman ignore these muck-ups? Why does investigative reporter Algernon D’Ammassa not investigate them? Why did reporter Michael McDevitt, with whom I discussed my case, not contact me when the OIR police auditor report appeared? (It was the whitewash which my blog expected it to be.)
Answer: the Sun-News knows that the phrase “investigative reporting” looks good in an advert and that the name of an investigative reporter on the masthead looks good, but has no desire to expose dishonesty, incompetence, and likely corruption in local governments. Accordingly, its advert lies to prospective subscribers—a free sample of its wares to induce a sale. If you want puffery about organizations and schedules for television, you can get The Bulletin for free and without hype about investigations.
Since public safety is the first requirement of government, I use my continuing case of police and law office misconduct, dishonesty, and likely antisemitism as a touchstone of public service responses. Not only the papers, but also prominent media columnist Peter Goodman, a lawyer, avoid city issues about the LCPD and the Law Office. They have no excuse; he does: no one would have appointed him a substitute magistrate judge if he opined in a Sun-News or KRWG editorial or kept his promises to have me opine on a KTAL program, on police and legal issues close to home.
Many—Governor, Attorney General, all state legislators including my senator, Jeff Steinborn, and my representative, Angelica Rubio—think that these legal agencies can be dishonest in little things without being dishonest about bigger things as time marches on or occasions arise. They prefer to shrug off small, incremental threats to democracy from bad police and bad prosecutors. Aside from well-known cases of police brutality and prosecutorial abuse, relationships between police officers, including “constitutional” sheriffs, and extremist groups, especially in rural areas in this and other counties and states, are a growing threat. I quote two recent articles on this concern.
“The right is preparing for a breakdown of law and order, but they are also overtaking the forces of law and order. Hard right organizations have now infiltrated so many police forces – the connections number in the hundreds – that they have become unreliable allies in the struggle against domestic terrorism.” (Stephen Marche, “The next US civil war is already here – we just refuse to see it,” The Guardian, 4 Jan 2022)
“According to Barbara Walter, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, and author of a new book, How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them. Who previously served on the political instability taskforce, an advisory panel to the CIA: ‘I could also imagine situations where militias, in conjunction with law enforcement in those areas, carve out little white ethnostates in areas where that’s possible because of the way power is divided here in the United States. It would certainly not look anything like the civil war that happened in the 1860s’.” (David Smith, “Is the US really heading for a second civil war,” The Guardian, 9 Jan 2022)
Not everyone reads The Guardian, but other national papers have carried similar articles. Local editors, investigative reporters, and media mavens should use them to give direction to their work. The issues suggested in the quotations above might call their attention to the approaching election for county sheriff and suggest the need for some research in advance. Current Sheriff Kim Stewart faces challenger Omar Chavez, who has received out-of-county and out-of-state endorsements which raise red flags.
One is Sierra County, NM, Sheriff Glenn Hamilton’s, whose conduct has been challenged: “The mixture of Hamilton soliciting deputies among armed militia from Albuquerque, pro-gun church goers and anti-Democrat Cowboys for Trump supporters, most of it captured on video, spread alarm on social media that went nationwide.” (Kathleen Sloan, “Supporters for Sheriff Glenn Hamilton claim he’s upholding the Constitution and detractors don’t know the law.” (Sierra County Sun, 16 Jun 2020).
The other is Hudspeth County, TX, Sheriff Arvin West’s, whose links to apparently rogue Navy and Pentagon personnel operating secretly in his jurisdiction east of El Paso remain unclear. But the report does not suggest that the connections are savory and suitable. (Craig Whitlock, “How a high-profile Texas sheriff is tied to a rogue Navy unit facing a criminal probe.” (The Washington Post, 30 Sep 2016)
Because of these endorsements and his appearance in military garb and weaponry on his campaign website, Chavez merits investigation to ascertain whether he has ever shown police practices consistent with his campaign promises. Rumor says that he practiced (still practices?) operational tactics in exercises with military-style groups in West Texas. If the man has these proclivities, can he be trusted to tell the truth, respect federal and state constitutions, and protect all constitutional and civil rights of all citizens, not just his supporters who seem to embrace no more than freedom of religion and the right to bear arms? Will Peerman dispatch an investigative reporter to answer this and related questions? Will columnist Goodman opine about the implications of such a sheriff on public safety and civil rights in a democracy?
Probably not. Public safety supported by honest, competent police officers and city attorneys is not anyone’s priority, expands no audiences, and sells no papers. Same-same is good enough for now—until then.
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