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
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