THE FIX IS IN: TASK FORCE OFFICERS IN CONFLICT OF INTEREST ENSURE BIASED BACA KILLING RECOMMENDATION

       For all I know, Morton salt containers still bear the slogan “when it rains, it pours,” which I remember from my childhood (I do no salt these days).  So, too, new facts about the investigation of LCPD Officer Jared Gosper killing of Sra. Amelia Baca.

 

In a previous blog (“Baca Investigation Compromised by Conflict of Interest - Non-Prosecution Almost Certain” [20 June]), I wrote,

 

Investigators from three of the four agencies in the law enforcement community—the NM State Police, the DAC Sheriff’s Office, the NMSU Police Department—staffed a task force to report on the killing.  Because its officer is under investigation, the LCPD was limited to a supporting role to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

 

No one corrected this statement, which I based on presumably reliable sources.  But it is incorrect.  For I have learned that the LCPD has been involved in the investigation after the incident.  I can double-down on my claim of a compromised task force recommendation.

 

At a 13 June 2022 meeting to review the task force report of that investigation, twenty police or lawyers attended from all four agencies and the District Attorney’s office.  The breakdown: 7 NMSP officers; 6 LCPD officers, including the Chief of Police Miguel Dominguez; 4 DASO officers; 1 NMSUPD officer; and 2 DA lawyers.

 

The inclusion of LCPD officers undermines the independence and integrity of the investigation because of their conflict of interest and the appearance of a conflict of interest.  Even their silent presence would influence the exchange of opinions in any discussion of the report.  However, the facilitator of this task force was LCPD Detective Kenny Davis.  Moreover, LCPD Police Chief Miguel Dominguez also attended; the PR flick which he directed had likely been viewed by all and understood to represent his and the LCPD’s position.  So LCPD influence on the report is certain and likely to lead to a recommendation to exonerate Officer Gosper.  That recommendation, though tainted, would support the LCPD’s interest in dispelling criticism of Dominguez’s prejudicial handling of the incident and the department’s unprofessionalism, and perhaps influence any future judicial proceedings against the officer or penalties against the city.

 

In addition, four of the five officers solicited for their approval of the release of the PR flick and giving it—NMSP: Williams, Candeleria, James; NMSUPD: McGuire—also participated in the final review of the task force report.  In short, exactly one-half of the attendees had organizational and participatory biases favoring exoneration even before the meeting began.

 

In the context of my previous blogs about police misconduct and dishonesty, more comments on the ethical standards thus revealed by this determined indifference to conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict of interest would be superfluous. 

LIAR, LIAR, SHOULD BE FIRED (BUT HE WON'T BE)

       Las Cruces is exceptional for its police department’s combination of misconduct, dishonesty, and stupidity.  The current epitome of this combination is Police Chief Miguel Dominguez.  Promoted as an incompetent but compliant tool on the advice of the City Attorney, Dominguez began by touting himself as “Mr. Transparency,” initiating an LCPD webpage on transparency, and gracing it with his mug shot (since removed).

His record for honesty was tarnished before his promotion—which likely established his qualifications for promotion.  After the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd, nationwide protests, and the fad for “8 Can’t Wait” proposals, then Deputy Police Chief Dominguez testified before City Council on 15 June 2020.  Ignoring the February 2020 chokehold killing of Antonio Valenzuela by LCPD Officer Christopher Smelser—“I’m going to fucking choke you out, bro”—, Dominguez pleaded for tea and sympathy for the Las Cruces Police Department.

 

“Our officers are professionals. ... We will respond to your calls without fail. We know that there’s a lot of mistrust out there. We want you to know you can count on us. We are all professionals doing a tough job. We are not perfect. We make mistakes. We will own up to our mistakes. We love Las Cruces. We are a tight community. We are Las Cruces. We are here to back you up. Please reach out to us and know we are a professional organization. We really do care about our community.”  (Las Cruces Sun-News, 17 June)

 

The enablers of police misconduct and dishonesty on City Council and in the media columns and radio programs accepted his lachrymose pleas and pro forma assurances without question (if so, why is there “a lot of mistrust”).  Those accepting such drivel are lickspittles and a part of the continuing problem of a police department out of control.

 

Consider that my Councilor Kasandra Gandara, Councilor Johanna Bencomo, and media maven Peter Goodman—all of whom had intimate knowledge of LCPD misconduct and dishonesty in my case—did and said absolutely nothing to support my attempt to resolve it (it remains unresolved by a city government determined not to resolve it.  How comforting to them that Dominguez claims, “We will own up to our mistakes.”  “Will?”  I should live so long.)  I can think of no clearer message to the LCPD that city officials and media commentators do not care about LCPD misconduct and dishonesty, at least on a small scale (thought it affects many citizens).  Their moral standards, such as they are, compartmentalize conduct and honesty; they care only and only a little about costly settlements (after all, always failing to reform the police means always funding damage suits).  By ensuring that my case did not go to the police auditor, both councilors did not miss, but acted to prevent, an easy opportunity to link conduct and honesty, and begin to elevate the LCPD’s ethical and professional performance.

 

My case was minor-league preparation for major league misconduct and dishonesty.  Unsurprisingly, given their example of indifference to truth, Chief Dominguez responded to the misconduct by Officer Jared Cosper in killing Sra. Amelia Baca with dishonest ploys: a lie and a misleading PR flick.  Lie: Dominguez claimed that Cosper had over 70 hours of de-escalation training; truth: records show about 40 hours of training related to de-escalation.  Misrepresentation: Dominguez initiated a video production with edited bod-cam footage and editorial voice-over, including the same claim about Cosper’s training.  Dominguez’s dishonesty about misconduct can be explained by the Mayor and Councilors’ signal that police deceit to mitigate criminal behavior is no vice.  So the more officials lie, the worse police conduct gets, and the more misconduct and dishonesty flourish.

 

What is astonishing about this display of dishonesty about misconduct is its display of stupidity.  Dominguez and others in the LCPD like Kiri Daines, Deputy Police Chief, thought, in developing the PR flick, that no one would discover and disclose the facts about the killing at some point.  My IPRA outed the original, complete bod-came with audio of the killing; Sun-News reporter Justin Chavez’s IPRA outed Cosper’s identity and training.  I had discovered the night before and Chavez proved that Cosper was a K-9 officer, not an obvious first choice for a responder to a mental-health call, especially if he had worked overtime the day before.

 

At the most recent meeting of the Progressive Voters Alliance, Councilor Tessa Abeyta “spoke about ‘Lift Up Las Cruces,’ which is a plan being developed to deal proactively with crime and community safety.”  All of the right words in the right order: plan, developed, deal, proactively, crime, community, safety.  Only missing is a word about policy; Councilor Abeyta had better get that in if she wants the support of Councilor Bencomo, who loves policies as solutions to others’ problems.  The problem for Council’s one man and six women, aside from their inability to meet their own deadlines, is that none of them knows how to ensure that a plan or a policy can or will be implemented by an amiable City Manager, supported by a disapproving City Attorney, and enforced by a discredited and weak Police Chief.

 

As I have written before, DA Gerald Byers is likely not to charge Officer Jared Cosper.  The DA will brave public disapproval by appeals to the officer’s years of service, the failures of training, his exhaustion from overwork, and more such drool.  Lickspittles will not so easily lap up Dominguez’s sloppy performance.  Nevertheless, city officials and media mavens are probably sufficiently hardened to police misconduct, dishonesty, and stupidity that they will deem it better for the City Manager to keep the devil they know than for him to seek a devil they do not.  However, although he has no standards of police performance, he might fire Dominguez to give the appearance that he does.

BACA KILLING BRINGS OUT THE CITY'S WORST

       For reasons which I only partly understand, the police officer’s killing of Sra. Amelia Baca has brought out a lot of sleazy conduct and sloppy thinking.

Sleazy conduct by the usual suspects—Mayor, Councilors, City Manager, City Attorney, Police Chief—follows their usual pattern—my case déjà vu—of refusing to address the facts and admit that a 9-year veteran police officer with over 70 hours of de-escalation training did what policy and training meant to prevent him from doing.  But it is unusual in their coordinated efforts to mislead the public by misrepresenting the facts of the killer and shifting the blame to the victim.

 

The LCPD did two sleazy things.  One, contrary to best professional practice—namely, rapidly providing information including bod-cam footage and the officer’s identity—it slowly developed a PR flick, with text and edited footage, which presented the still unidentified officer in a favorable light and the victim in an unfavorable light.  Two, instead of developing the PR flick on its own, the LCPD discussed it with personnel in the three agencies which would staff the task force and secured their approval of the film—thereby tainting the investigation.  I have detailed these points in an earlier blog.

 

Sloppy thinking in Peter Goodman’s 19 June Sun-News column “Failure to act has grave consequence” muddles accusations, excuses, and proposals—a little something for everyone’s liking and to no one’s dismay.  To those suspicious of the police, Goodman allows that the officer “shouldn’t have killed her”; to those supportive of them, he assures us that the officer “did not think, as he donned his uniform and strapped on his gun, that he wanted to kill someone.”  We can all agree on both anodyne points.  But nothing suggests “grave”—is a pun intended?—“consequence.”

 

Goodman emphasizes, not the officer’s conduct or responsibility, but everyone else’s.  His blurred focus and moral confusion make him virtually a police collaborator.  Sra. Baca’s “family bears some responsibility.”  “Responsibility” for what?  Being surprised by an unforeseen event?  (Does he think that people suffering from dementia predictably run around with kitchen knives?)  Opening the door to the officer who then killed her?  Keeping her at home in a loving family?  Goodman backs off this blame by sympathizing with the family’s motive: “It’s incredibly hard to put a parent or other loved person away.”  He equates getting Sra. Baca treatment for dementia with putting her “away”—the idea and language retro and surprising in a mental health advocate.

 

Goodman then lists others whom he faults: the officer, who “acted unwisely”—a word completely unsuited to characterize his conduct; the LCPD, which provided “inadequate training/supervision”; the city government for not setting up a civilian review board.  (Does he think that a board could have kept the officer from killing Sra. Baca?)  With remarkable, unlawyerly presumption, he “fault[s] all of us,” even disarmingly blaming himself for doing no more than a column and radio program on the idea.

 

Goodman could have done more, but he disconnects police dishonesty from police conduct.  He knew more than most about my case about the LCPD’s phony charges, and my demands of city leaders.  He twice baited me about having me on his radio program but did not, no reason given.  He witnessed the City Manager promise me an apology and knew that he did not fulfill it.  He said nothing about LCPD dishonesty which I revealed.  He says nothing about LCPD dishonesty in creating a PR flick to misrepresent the officer’s conduct to the public, follows its line, and ignores one “grave consequence” of its lack of ethical standards or practices.  For Goodman, police dishonesty is not a police failure and does not figure in police misconduct.

 

Goodman introduces an incoherent discussion about mental health with a question: “Why do I insist that we are all responsible?”  His answer:

 

“First, attitudes. If part of what was in the shooter’s head and heart was that as a sufferer of dementia Ms. Baca was the Other, or mattered less than other citizens, he shared that with many. How we treat “mental illness” — and brain disorders, such as dementia — played a role in this.”

 

Two minor questions: One of consistency: does he mean “all” or “many” of us?  The other: if his “head and heart” led the officer to perceive Sra. Baca as “Other” because of her dementia, does he not require mental health care as well?

 

Two middling questions: how does “How we treat ‘mental illness’ [play] a role in this?”  And what role?  Goodman’s answer is scrambled.  “If we [had] insisted on … mental health care for all, that cop likely wouldn’t have been placed in a situation where he felt he had only one choice.”  Accordingly to his earlier suggestion, Sra. Baca could have been put “away”; alternatively, she could have been received treatment to manage her condition and behavior.  Either way, the situation would not have arisen, and the officer would not need options.  But Goodman goes wobbly in implying that an adequate mental health care system would generate more police options.

 

A major question: what connects a mental health care system with a menu of options for a police response to a mental-health crisis?  Goodman’s implied defense, information-free but police-pleasing, is absurd: that Sra. Baca’s dementia gave the officer no choice but to kill her.  However inadequate, LCDP’s de-escalation training teaches—indeed, its point is to teach—that an officer’s first, last, and only option is not shoot-to-kill a mentally disturbed person.  Moreover, the officer was not caught unawares; he had been informed that the situation involved a mentally disturbed person armed with knives.  What more did he need to know before arriving at the house?

 

My question: what is Goodman’s agenda?  My provisional answer: he is trying to excuse an officer from the “grave consequence” of killing an elderly woman suffering from dementia by blaming everyone and everything else, especially her and dementia.  How else to explain his concluding remark: “Watching the videos is a painful reminder of how we all failed Amelia Baca.”  Rubbish.  It did not remind me that I failed her; I did not fail her.  It did not remind you that you failed her; you did not fail her.  Watching flick or film showed “all of us” that the officer acted violently, fatally, and failed “all of us.”

 

Why does Goodman not get the moral facts right?  Indeed, why does he get them wrong?  His legal background should enable him to better analyze the facts, unless, of course, he is biased by a client or a pro bono case.  He may support a civilian review board in Las Cruces and improved mental health care, but these two suggestions are disconnected unless he thinks that the board’s function is to refer officers for therapy.  In a discussion of his headline topic, these irrelevancies distract from or mitigate the officer’s misconduct, and its “grave consequence.”  The “Failure to act” was Goodman’s failures to criticize police dishonesty and misconduct, and to support police reform.

 

I have dissected Goodman’s editorial because people purportedly well-meaning often have agendas and biases which make it difficult to address emotion-laden mental health and police issues.  His desire to excuse or exonerate the officer who killed Sra. Baca shows why efforts to reform the police often flounder and fail; apologists for the police like Goodman blame the victim, the system, and “all of us.”  They divert attention from the facts about police performance foundational to reform and frustrate civic-minded approaches which respect the police who properly perform their public-safety functions yet demand corrections of police misconduct.

BACA INVESTIGATION COMPROMISED BY CONFLICT OF INTEREST - NON-PROSECUTION ALMOST CERTAIN

      Within days, Gerald Byers, District Attorney for the Third Judicial District, will announce his decision whether to prosecute the as-yet-unnamed officer who shot and killed Sra. Amelia Baca on 16 April.  Byers’s choice is the usual one: justice or jiving.  Justice would reflect the facts from the violations of LCPD policies and the audio and visual evidence of the officer’s body camera.  Jiving would serve the self-protective interests of the local law enforcement community.  My guess is that Byers will not risk incurring its displeasure by prosecuting the officer who killed her. 

Investigators from three of the four agencies in the law enforcement community—the NM State Police, the DAC Sheriff’s Office, the NMSU Police Department—staffed a task force to report on the killing.  Because its officer is under investigation, the LCPD was limited to a supporting role to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

 

The reality is likely very different.  All four agencies approved deceiving the public.  The LC City Manager’s Office and the LC Police Department instigated and accepted a misleading public relations version of the officer’s killing of Sra. Baca.  By approving it, officers in the investigating agencies committed their agencies to the misrepresentation—a fact impugning the task force’s independence and its investigators’ integrity.

 

From: Peter Bradley <pebradley@las-cruces.org>

Sent: Friday, April 22, 2022 5:42 PM

To: Miguel Dominguez <midominguez@las-cruces.org>; Kiri Daines <kdaines@las-cruces.org>

Subject: OIS release

Sir and ma'am, I have spoke [sic] to Capt. Williams, Lt. Candelaria, Sgt. James with NMSP. Capt. Hash with DACSD, and Lt. Mcguire with NMSUPD. All approve the release of 911 audio, still images, and body cam footage from the Fir OIS.

 

The task force has given its findings, conclusions, and recommendations to Byers.  He will have difficulty in explaining that this apparent conflict of interest is not, in fact, a real conflict of interest reflected in the task force report and a decision to not prosecute.

 

Byers will decline to prosecute the officer for a number of reasons, the featured one being that, at the time at which he fired, the officer feared for his life—a customary defense of police killings.  Byers will earn his salary if he can persuade the public that the killing was justified at all, much less for that reason.

 

Minor difficulties are the officer’s status as a 9-year veteran with over 70 hours of de-escalation training and his violations of a number of LCPD policies, which the LCPD ignores or invokes to suit its convenience.  I can think of three policy violations: failure to await personnel trained in dealing with disturbed people, failure to de-escalate the situation, and failure to use the least necessary force (e.g., a taser instead of a pistol).  Indeed, the officer has his pistol out and aimed at Sra. Baca the moment she appears.

 

The major difficulty is the audio and visual evidence of the film from the officer’s body-cam.  Contrary to best professional practice elsewhere and his professions of transparency, Chief Dominguez decided not to quickly present the facts and show the film, but to slowly prepare a PR flick edited to shift blame from officer to victim.  This resort to public deception is the LCPD’s tacit admission of the officer’s guilt.

 

The PR flick cuts footage which shows Sra. Baca shifting the knife in her left hand to her right hand, which held another knife.  The cut suggests that she might have shifted the knife for hostile purposes.  But no one intending to use them so would hold them so, and she never moved them or herself in a hostile manner.  The PR flick cuts footage which shows Sra. Baca waving and smiling at the officer shortly before she moves to and stops at the threshold of her room—her efforts to de-escalate the situation.  Far more obviously distorting the facts, the PR flick cuts the sound of the officer’s aggressive orders and profanities addressed to Sra. Baca.  Five times, he shouts “drop the fucking knives”—his raised and violent voice revealing anger, attempts at control, but not fear.

 

The unedited film released in response to my IPRA request provides what the PR flick cuts.  It also shows this and another officer pulling the slumped-over victim forward and dumping her on the floor, entirely concerned with the location of the knives, entirely unconcerned with Sra. Baca’s’ medical condition, and unaccountably searching the house for other, though unreported, dangers.

 

Byers has an answer.  By policy, an officer may shoot to kill if the victim is armed, approaching, and within 10 feet.  Byers will regard these technicalities, irrelevant to the circumstances, as sufficient to return the officer to the street.  Fortunately, the victim’s family will have its day in court, what the local law enforcement community has tried to cover up will be revealed, and the city will pay for Sra. Baca’s brutal, needless death, the officer’s profanities, and much besides.  Unfortunately, citizens will still support a mayor and counselors who prefer to waste their money on legal awards for police misconduct, not promote public safety by reforming the LCPD to save lives as well as money.

 

 

City employees involved in developing or approving the PR flick include:

City Manager’s Office, Communications Office:

Mandy Leatherwood Guss, Communications Director

Adrian Guzman, Media Operations & Production Coordinator

Dan Trujillo Public Information Officer

Paul Brock [Public Information Officer?]

Law Office:

Jennifer Vega-Brown (signature redacted on vendor’s contract but likely hers as an official authorized to approve contracts)

Las Cruces Police Department:

Miguel Dominguez, Police Chief

Kiri Daines, Deputy Police Chief, Investigations and Support Services

Peter Bradley, Lt., Criminal Investigation Section, LCPD

SUCCESSFUL EXPOSÉ: CORRUPTION PERVADES JUSTICE IN NEW MEXICO FROM COP TO COURT

After nearly three years and over two dozen blogs, I can retire from my successful effort to expose the corruption of justice at all levels of government in New Mexico.

 

My crusade began with an Animal Control Officer of the Las Cruces Police Department charging me, probably out of an antisemitic motive, with five phony code violations which lacked substantiating evidence or proof.  It ended with a Deputy Disciplinary Counsel dismissing my 11-page complaint supported by about 100 pages of documentation for “insufficient evidence” against a non-existent “Ms. Hays” and doing so in fewer than 14 working days, probably hurried to insult me for criticizing the Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC), an agency under the Supreme Court of New Mexico.

 

Along the way, my crusade encountered corruption: in the city, by two successive Chiefs of LCPD’s Internal Affairs Division, two successive Chiefs of Police, the City Attorney and a Senior Assistant City Attorney in the Law Office, the City Manager, and the Mayor and all members of two successive City Councils; in the legislature, the respective Chairs and members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees; and in the administration, the Attorney General and the Governor of New Mexico.  None of these officials ever addressed the substantive or the procedural issues of my crusade.

 

In addition, not one lawyer who read my blogs offered any assistance or support.  At most, a few referred me to local lawyers, not one of whom either accepted or returned my call, or agreed to advise me on the merits of my crusade (I sought no representation).  No one at the ACLU or NAACP responded.  Not one lawyer, Republican or Democratic, in the legislature responded to me about the issues (as some have done on other issues).  Not one lawyer ever addressed the substantive or the procedural issues of my crusade.

 

Finally, although my blogs went to various media and columnists, not one explored or reported the substantive or the procedural issues raised in the course of my crusade.

 

In summary, not one informed official, lawyer, or journalist in New Mexico has shown any interest in the corruption of justice from a cop on the street to the highest court in the state.  Having exposed this corruption in detail, I retire from my crusade.  I have done my duty as a concerned citizen to provide information; I leave it to others to act on it.  I hope that some person or some organization in New Mexico cares enough about justice in the state to undertake an effort at reform.  But I shall not be surprised if citizens and officials of New Mexico persist in their historical and cultural indifference to corrupted justice.

 

*      *      *

 

I document the exchanges between the Office of Disciplinary Counsel and me.  In order, I attach my 11-page complaint, ODC’s 1-page dismissal, and my 1-page response.  This exchange demonstrates two things: one, the ODC’s government lawyers’ contempt for a detailed and documented complaint about the professional misconduct of another government lawyer; and, two, these lawyers’ desire to insult a citizen critical of its defective procedures, likely by signaling a hurried, cursory investigation or, more likely, none at all.

 

 

 

Addition to posted blog:

 

[NOTE: Any reader of this blog who wishes to see these documents, which I cannot attach, should provide his or her email address in a comment, and I shall provide them in an email in response.]

LAS CRUCES LEADERS RESPOND TO A CRIME WAVE

In the contretemps about theft, vandalism, substance abuse, and homelessness, Our Leaders of Las Cruces—Mayor, Councilors, City Manager, Police Chief—are showing their contempt for citizens and the rule of law in Las Cruces.

 

Caving to the monied interests of businesses and builders, Our Leaders have stated their desire to find ways to circumvent a 2016 amendment to the New Mexico constitution approved by an 87% majority.  The ballot statement proposes “to protect community safety by granting courts new authority to deny release on bail pending trial for dangerous defendants in felony cases while retaining the right to pretrial release for non-dangerous defendants who do not pose a flight risk.”  As I read this statement, the courts retain authority, not acquire a new one, to pretrial release of certain defendants.  Regardless, Our Leaders are acting as if an amendment in effect for nearly 6 years is a cause of the city’s problems with theft, vandalism, substance abuse, and homelessness.

 

It is no such cause.  But Our Leaders’ claim that it is a cause; it gives them a scapegoat to blame and citizens to punish because they lack the ability to effectively address the conditions or effects of these problems.  As reported by Michael McDevitt of the Sun-News, Our Leaders’ positions are entirely punitive.

 

Take Mayor Miyagishima’s positions, not only mean-spirited, but also self-defeating.  They offer nothing constructive, nothing to mitigate or prevent undesirable conduct from occurring in the future.  They make things worse.

 

1.    He opposes “expanding the Desert Hope permanent supportive housing project in response to community fervor” [not clear whether the “fervor” is for or against].

The Mayor does not want to provide housing for the homeless; too many of “them” would continue to live in the city and, according to his prejudice, cause trouble.  Far from abating the problem of homelessness, his position would increase it, with all the problems which attend it.  He wants to make things worse.

2.     He desires “to crack down on repeat offenders by amending bail reform.”

The Mayor does want to keep the poor who cannot afford bail in jail indefinitely—trials are long delayed—to prevent repeat offenses.  He thus urges preventive detention on the presumption of guilt until proven innocent.  He advocates a position which discriminates against the poor.  He advocates a Debtors’ Prison.  He wants to make things worse.

3.    The Mayor desires “to deny supportive services to unhoused people who are arrested multiple times.”

He wants to punish the homeless with multiple arrests whether or not they have committed any post-arrest offenses by denying them assistance.  He thereby wants to increase the chances that desperation will cause them to commit crimes.  He wants to make things worse.

 

Now take City Manager Pili’s and Police Chief Dominguez’s positions, which are no less mean-spirited, but also downright incredible.  Thus, they may have already taken “internal actions … that could circumvent bail reform,” without any thought that a civil rights attorney might take such a case and sue the city for civil rights violations—but, hey, it’s the taxpayer’s money.  And, in their wisdom, they are trying to figure out how to “keep repeat offenders behind bars for longer.”  I am not alone in being skeptical about the means of doing so; McDevitt opines that “there's no telling how that could be done.”  Of course, we both believe in the law.

 

What continues to impress me about the Police Chief is his utter lack of cogency and his utter lack of scruple about either the truth or the rule of law.  He tells City Council that citizens do not trust the police—no reason given—, then directs the LCPD to release a PR film of the police killing of Sra. Baca which misleadingly presents the events—for no good reason—, then reports that citizen violence against the police is up nearly half from last year—no reason given.  Then there is his lack of scruple about the idea of skirting the law—when inconvenient for police, OK; when inconvenient for others, jail and more jail—and secretly imposing longer imprisonments than the sentences which courts impose.  Yet Dominguez heads the police department: dishonest, incompetent, corrupt, demoralized, and—surprise—understaffed.

 

I have said nothing about Our Leaders who art in Council.  Mayor Pro-Tem Kasandra Gandara fully supports the police and wants several social programs.  Councilor Johanna Bencomo, rebuked about and retreating from police reform gravely intones that there is a need for suitable policies. These Progressives stand strong for progress, even without a compass to give them direction.

 

The question is: what constitutes progress in the minds of Progressives?  Official coercion over the rule of law?  Official subversion of state and federal constitutions, and the judicial system?  The answers seem to be that, in the context of a problem of petty infractions, few, if any, moral or intellectual differences exist, and then only of degree, between the solutions of Progressives and the Proud Boys.  Just lock ‘em up and throw away the key.

CAN (LAS CRUCES) POLICE BE TRUSTED TO SERVE PUBLIC SAFETY?

Shortly after the 24 May massacre of fourth-grade students and teachers in Uvalde, and a little later after Texas Governor Greg Abbott lauded the local police officers for prompt, brave, and decisive action, we learned that a federal Border Patrol officer led the charge and shot the killer after his one-hour-plus rampage.  Local officers had their reason why they did not act and federal officers did.  As a Texas Department of Safety official told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on 26 May, “the [local] law enforcement officers at the school were reluctant to engage the gunman because ‘they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed’.”

 

The clear message from officers: police safety matters more than public safety; the lives of police officers matter more than the lives of citizens, including elementary-school-age children.  The massacre at Uvalde is not a unique example of police priorities evident in slow, confused, or ineffective responses to civilians in danger.  Such responses prompted guidance 20 years ago that police should confront a shooter immediately, without waiting for special assistance, as the best way to save lives in present danger.

 

By contrast, an aggressive Las Cruces officer killed Sra. Amelia Baca, a 75-year-old Hispanic grandmother suffering from dementia.  The yet-unidentified officer disregarded more than 70 hours of de-escalation training and acted with unrestrained anger because Sra. Baca failed to comply with his profane commands (five times: “drop the fucking knives”) shouted in English at a confused woman who knew no English.  Yet Mayor Pro Tem and District 1 Councilor Kasandra Gandara said that she “fully supports the police.”

 

Given such political support, with its implied endorsement of even gross misconduct, police do not take advice or direction seriously; policies on paper do not translate into practices in the field.  Their non-enforcement reflects weak police leadership.  For all the recent talk about transparency and accountability, no one, including the Chief of Police, tries to bring police officers and the police department under control.  Police officers do as they please; rely on “blue privilege” to excuse them from the consequences of their misconduct; expect politicians to stall, stifle, or scrap efforts at reform; or depend on a public divided in their views of the police to drag out the controversy to a draw.

 

•       •       •       •       •

 

“Blue privilege” is not without some justification.  One of the primary responsibilities of government at every level—local, county, state, national—is public safety, including misdemeanor or felonious conduct, traffic control, rescue operations, guard or escort duty, etc.  Dangerous situations and episodes are rare occurrences but ever-present possibilities which require officers to put themselves at risk to do what they are expected and trained to do.  Until they get into “combat,” no one can know who will be brave and who will be craven.  Most courts disallow a police defense based on subjective fear but allow it if objectively warranted by the facts.  Since many encounters may be confused or confusing, develop rapidly, and demand prompt actions which, in hindsight, may seem not the right ones, officers commonly get the benefit of the doubt—“blue privilege.”

 

The problem with “blue privilege” is that its limits, if any, often depend on political perspective.  The divide is the usual one: one side sees the role of the police as primarily if not exclusively, to enforce “law and order,” and sees them always as “the good guys” and those whom they pursue as “the bad guys.”  The other side sees many roles for the police to ensure service in diverse situations, a few potentially violent, most of requiring little or no enforcement.  Another way to see the gap: confrontation and domination versus de-escalation and negotiation.  The result is that the former see the police as essentially military and their conduct, protected by “blue privilege,” largely beyond challenge; the latter see the police as guardians whose conduct has only limited privilege, can come under public scrutiny, and is not above the law.

 

The traditional view of the police favors militarism, a view reinforced by the sale of used military equipment to police forces.  Accordingly, training emphasizes loyalty to the force and one’s partner, violent or violence-prone situations, and military-style responses: overwhelming force or firepower.  Thus, someone fleeing arrest or disobeying an order can be chokeholded or shot to death, even when the legal violations are minor and there is no danger to the person, others, or police.

 

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Anyone thinking about reforming the police in Las Cruces must first think about police officers as members of society, as people who share the attitudes, beliefs, and conduct of the general culture.  Their roles and responsibilities reflect, often enlarge or distort, society’s cultural propensities; citizens must accept that they reflect the city’s propensities writ large.  Society assigns them their roles and responsibilities; in justice and fairness, it cannot suddenly treat them as scapegoats.

 

The second thing is that police officers are no better or faster at changing lifelong attitudes, beliefs, and conduct than others are.  Indeed, for them, unlike other members of society, they are impeded by their commitment to their profession and its customs.  They aspired and trained to become police officers and then serve.  They cannot easily redefine their life-long commitment to their profession, transform their attitudes, change their beliefs, and amend their conduct in adjusting to changes in established customs of conduct—or as easily as society can redefine them in order to reform police roles and responsibilities.  In decency, society must make some allowance for “cultural lag.”

 

An issue taking these two things together.  If society is racist, the police are racist; if society renounces, or pretends to renounce, racism, police officers face the challenge of renouncing lifelong dispositions to think, feel, and act in previously sanctioned or at least tolerated ways about race and members of a race.  Their challenge is great.  Those Christians doubting the difficulty of such a challenge should remind themselves that antisemitism, though long publicly condemned, remains widespread in word and deed.

 

Conclusion: if society wants reasonable, effective, and enduring reforms of police departments, it must think about how the transition can be achieved with due respect for police officers facing public criticism and personal difficulties.  It is neither pleasant to have one’s life work reviled nor painless to have to adjust to professional and associated personal changes for an uncertain future.

 

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So much for consideration; now for expectations.  They are standards and should be high because of the importance of public safety, the primary police responsibility.

 

First, civilians should expect police to treat them like fellow citizens, to respect them at all times, even if they are angry or insulting, and, in matters of law, to treat them as innocent until found guilty.  If police want to be respected and treated respectfully like other members of the community, they must reciprocate that respect and respectful treatment.  Otherwise, without reciprocity, there can be no trust.

 

Second, civilians should expect police to use methods and measures of enforcement proportionate to the offense.  Since they believe that excessive force serves no good purpose, citizens should expect the minimum necessary force, not overwhelming force according to military doctrine, to be the rule in making arrests.  If and when civilians are confronted by an officer, they should expect to be safe from abusive, violent, or body-damaging or life-threatening measures, the more so if they are non-hostile or unarmed.  Civilians should expect that, especially in localities in which fear of police is the norm, police know that those fleeing them are not necessarily offenders and that disobeying a lawful order to halt rarely justifies a shooting.  “Street justice” is not justice.

 

Third, civilians should expect the police to comply with all laws, police policies, and professional standards, to respect the law, and to regard themselves as equal under the law.  They should expect police leadership to enforce those policies and standards.  They should expect police to know that the necessity for law enforcement and public safety services does not entitle police to exemptions from the law and that their enforcing the law does not place them above the law.  Civilians should expect police to accept and operate accordingly.

 

Fourth, civilians should expect the police, as public employees whose services are paid for by the public, to be liable to criticism, to be able to explain themselves and their conduct, and thus to be accountable for their conduct according to the same (or higher) standards as civilians are accountable.

 

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Police as a whole represented by their union often give lip service to these civilian expectations, but do not accept them as operative policies if enacted and then actually enforced.  As a result, civilian control of police departments is difficult, if not impossible.  Police unions and officers have considerable power in the operation of cities.  Simply walking off the job—striking, but not contracting “blue flu,” is illegal—puts great pressure on politicians responsible for city operations to do as the police demand.

 

A word on police loyalty and collegiality.  When something goes wrong, defenders of police often invoke a maxim by mentioning “a few bad apples”; they omit the rest of it: “spoil the barrel.”  The maxim has a sting to it: how good are the good apples if they tolerate the bad apples?  Which means that all police spoil the barrel by acts not of a professional nature, committed or tolerated.  So police loyalty and collegiality make opposition to oversight certain—and signal that, in their eyes, the police come first.

 

A common proposal to improve oversight and control is a civilian review board.  The reason why concerned citizens or groups, not city councils, usually make the proposal is that city councils know the difficulty of trying to change the culture and the collegiality within the police force to serve public safety.  For that reason, even if boards have been created, they have soon atrophied because of persistent resistance from the police and, in turn, the politicians and other powers that be.

 

Yet, in response to the police killing of Sra. Amelia Baca, some Las Cruces groups—NAACP and LULAC—are proposing a civilian review board.  Not a chance.  First of all, City Council will oppose the proposal.  Mayor Ken Miyagishima is and always has been opposed to police reform.  No one knows why, but the persistence and intensity of his opposition suggests something suspiciously more than the usual regard for their role and responsibilities.  Councilors have no strength to resist Mayor’s quasi-patriotic appeals to support the police.  When, in the discussion of “Eight Can’t Wait,” Councilor Johanna Bencomo proposed a civilian review board, Miyagishima rebuked her as if she were a little child; she hastily backed down from her proposal.  Although Councilor Kasandra Gandara and Councilor Gabe Vasquez joined her in supporting police reform, all three (and the Mayor) so much wanted a whitewash of the police that they supported a police audit which ruled out at least one detailed case of police misconduct from review.

 

Second, perversely, the community, especially the more victimized, Hispanic part of it, will resist such a board.  It has always given free rein to the police and long tolerated police who routinely use excessive abuse, even sadistic violence.  Hispanic councilors reflect this toleration of abuse and violence.  For example, none of the four has spoken about the K-9 officer who unleashed his dog on a captured, compliant Hispanic suspect and let the dog shred his arm, while fellow officers enjoyed the show and did not spoil their enjoyment by intervening.  Responding to public and political callousness, police have become accustomed to do as they please.  Officers and their union not only reject episodic criticism, but also would refuse regular public scrutiny.  The Police Chief, who must have their cooperation to provide a degree of public safety, and the City Attorney, who must rely on their assistance in court cases, would support them.

 

Taking these two considerations together, a civilian review board will not be created or will die stillborn, or will not be supported and will decay in short time.  The initiative is well-intentioned but unrealistic in ignoring local attitudes, beliefs, and customs.

 

An alternative should take a smaller step.  I suggest quarterly meetings in Council chambers.  City Council members would attend as observers; the City Manager would preside; and the Police Chief would answer unscripted and unscreened questions from the public.  Any inability to answer questions for lack of information would require a make-up meeting one week later.  His advocacy of transparency and accountability would make it difficult for him to explain why such a public forum would be unsuitable.  However, the city leadership’s collective, evasive, and dishonest response to the officer’s killing of Sra. Baca suggests that even this modest step would be one too far.  Resistance by City Council, the City Manager, the Police Chief, and the City Attorney would reveal their desire to maintain a status quo however damaging or deadly to Las Cruces citizens.

 

Can the police be trusted to serve public safety?  In Las Cruces, the question seems silly, the answer being so obvious to anyone paying attention.  Perhaps the question to ask is whether these city leaders be trusted to serve public safety?

WHAT TO DO WHEN REPRESENTATIVES DO NOT REPRESENT?

On 19 May, I sent my 2^nd Congressional District Congresswoman Yvette Herrell an email asking her how she voted on the baby food bill the previous day; if she voted against it, to explain her reasons for doing so; and to explain why so many Republicans voted against it.  I indicated my concern: my granddaughter has special dietary needs which are imperiled by the disruption of supply.

 

If I say so myself, there is nothing discourteous or threatening in these questions to my representative about how she voted and what explains her and her party’s vote.  But her non-response says that my request was troublesome to her.  And I am talking about baby food, not abortion, guns, or immigration.  Of course, Rep. Herrell is not a stupid woman; she knows a question comes next: since you revere life so very much that you define it from the moment of conception, why does life not get revered after the moment of breach, when the newborn needs appropriate and adequate nutrition (and much else).

 

A more general question is why more representatives are not responsive and not representative.  Others tell me that their letters, emails, or messages get no responses.  According to polls, majorities—in some cases, high-percentage majorities—of Americans support abortion is some form, want some gun control—among others, background checks, age limits for purchases, bans on assault weapons and ammunition—and favor many social programs.  Yet Congress does not enact legislation reflecting the desires of most citizens.  Obviously, whatever Congressional representatives in the House or Senate say, most votes are bought and paid for by the campaign coffers of business interests with a cadre of lobbyists or by personal fortunes of multi-millionaires or billionaires with inflated egos to inflate further.  Representatives will continue to vote for the rich to get richer—and make bigger campaign contributions to ensure their legislated wealth to get still richer—and the poor to get poorer (and, with abortion outlawed, more children).

 

Do not forget the Supreme Court, which is doing its oath-breaking best to turn this country into a Catholic-Evangelical Christian theocracy with plutocratic oligarchs to pay for maintaining Congressional support.  But consider whether the people for whom you can vote, like Yvette Herrell or Gabe Vasquez, have any intention of representing you or the public interest.

 

How do Ms. Herrell and her Republican colleagues think their constituents will react?  Obviously, many Americans will continue (struggle?) to believe and act as if they really do have a say in government.  They will read the anodyne exhortations of The League of Woman Voters (it took a month to express dismay over the fatal shooting of Sra. Baca—how powerful, not), write letters to the editor, comment on Facebook or Twitter, and vote.  Others will turn away from the tawdry spectacle of pseudo-democratic displays, let their voter registration lapse, and, if they do not ignore politics altogether, subside into an embittered, cynical apathy (cynicism and apathy already in over-supply).

 

Of course, still others, a small band of violent extremists, will act in subversive rebellion and get a lot of media attention.  Many of their acts will be the usual ones of political terrorism: ambushes of police officers, attacks on police stations, assaults on government buildings, and assassinations of elected officials.  A few might be very, very ugly, like the kidnapping of their children and grandchildren (brutal message: a finger a day and an accompanying tape of a mother’s and her child’s screams).  Others will be unusual in their sophistication: biological attacks on food-processing or -storage facilities or cyberattacks shutting down hospitals, water treatment facilities, power plants, and transportation systems.  Scary it would be if malware installed in airport control tower computers directed planes to land at the same time on the same runways at major airports in a single region (not land: run out of fuel and still crash).  For all the pain and havoc which they can cause, extremists will prompt only strong reaction—repression, not reform or revolution.  When they have been dispatched, the rest of us will go back to some level of manageable discontent.

 

I am luckier than most.  I am at an age at which ageing gracefully is about all that I can hope to manage.  I can live with my family—my pack, really—of dogs and cats; I do not need a woman any more than a fish needs a bicycle.  I can visit my children and grandchildren.  I can read books and watch movies as fancy dictates.  I can (and shall) continue to write blogs protesting the ills of governments and everything else which is ill.  I shall continue to hope that the generations after mine will rise to the challenges.

 

Still, I have little idea about how to accomplish the sweeping reforms necessary to preserve American democracy.  The forces which can corrupt democracy have already corrupted democracy and locked out reform.  Money is speech, don’t you know?  But as long as some votes in some places can make some difference, citizens should make sure that they vote for someone who will represent their interests.  Which means replace Yvette Harrell, who serves the rich, and reject Gabe Vasquez, who wants to serve himself.  For my Congressional district representative, I am going to cast a write-in vote for Jed Bartlet.