Performance politics has come to Las Cruces. One such performance occurred in a City Council meeting on 5 December. In the portion of the agenda allotted to Councilors’ comments, Johanna Bencomo complained about the criticism which she has received from Progressive groups like the ACLU and CAFé for not supporting a proposal for a civilian police oversight board. Her pity-party performance was not only unbecoming, but also unpersuasive because she revealed her confusions on the issue of police reform which apparently prevent her from taking any position at all and sticking to it.
[Note: In exchanges with some of supporters of this proposal when it was merely an idea, not a document, I opined that it was unwise as a first, not a last, step toward police reform. I proposed smaller, preliminary steps to build public support for larger ones.]
I have noted before that 2 years ago, in the City Council meeting addressing the Eight Can’t Wait proposals, Council Bencomo advocated a citizen review board until, chided by the Mayor for disloyalty to the police, she promptly caved. In short, she was for a citizen review board until she was against it. So much for her convictions, her courage, and her trustworthiness on the issue of police reform.
Later, I discovered how untrustworthy Councilor Bencomo is. At my invitation, she zoomed my meeting with the City Manager about my complaint about phony allegations. She heard him agree that all five were false and should be withdrawn. She heard him say that I deserved an apology. She heard him request a draft apology from me to be sure that he got it right in the details on which I insisted. When she learned that he offered an apology which did nothing to which he had agreed, she did not even contact him for an explanation. If she could not even ask him why he did not keep his word, she is unlikely to question officials about police conduct. If she does not want answers, she is likely to suppress facts about police misconduct. When Council considered the period for cases subject to the police auditor’s review, she pointedly approved an end date which omitted my complaint.
During her remarks on police reform (video 3:53-3:56), Councilor Bencomo stressed that it is one of her top priorities, all the more so because of some recent serious cases of police misconduct. But her three substantive comments indicate how unreliable she has become in matters of police reform.
First, she dismissed the proposal for an oversight board, though drafted by five very smart people, including at least one lawyer, as “superficial.” The draft which I have seen, probably not a later one which she has seen, does not seem at all superficial.
Second, she claims that such oversight or review boards have failed everywhere. The claim is simply false, and she should know it. The record is mixed; for various reasons, some have succeeded, some have failed. The reasons for failure: police opposition is constant, official support inconstant or conduct corrosive, and public support variable. A DOJ study indicates the issues involved and the record thus far.
Third, and most important, she explains that her difficulty with police reform is reconciling two entirely separate considerations: on the one hand, support for the police; on the other hand, police accountability. She criticizes her critics for not understanding their separation. This nonsense unwittingly reveals that she cannot relate performance to accountability in police work—a disconnect which makes police reform impossible.
In my experience, I have found that police officers defend their “brothers”—today, they would also defend their “sisters”—when it comes to public criticism of individual officers. But good police officers support reform efforts which raise and enforce policing standards and enable leadership to hold all officers accountable for their conduct and to retrain or terminate bad ones. To support police—all police, good and bad apples alike—but not police reform when it is necessary is to undermine good police by protecting bad police.
But such is Councilor Bencomo’s preferred position: a flimsy rationalization with which she attempts to appease and please both sides of this issue; it is a script for her political performance. Regrettably, it displays her ignorance of the relationship between performance and accountability in police work, and suggests the same ignorance in other areas of public service. Or is Councilor Bencomo afraid to make judgments or decisions? Whatever the reason, her inability to hold public employees accountable for their work means that she is miscast as an elected official and unfit for elected public office with responsibilities for ensuring public service. When the time comes, voters, especially her Progressive supporters, should hold her accountable for her pathetic performance.
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