The police killing of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, TN, prompts my return to the case of LCPD Officer Jared Cosper’s killing of Sra. Amelia Baca. Anyone watching films of the Memphis killing observes about half a dozen officers beating the victim and about half a dozen officers walking around and watching without intervening. (EMT personnel, even after they arrived on the scene nearly half an hour later, did not rush to give Mr. Nichols medical assistance.) So the “bad cops” did the beating and the “good cops” did not. After the cops made a false report to mislead senior department officials, the Memphis police chief quickly fired five officers, later fired more, dealt or promised to deal with others, and disbanded the special unit of which they were a part. The Memphis PD made prompt and only slightly edited disclosures to the victim’s family and then the public.
By contrast, the Las Cruces Police Department went silent about Sra. Baca’s killing for a week, Police Chief Miguel Dominguez initiated and released a PR film of the killing (after seeking approval from associated agencies), and the city released an unedited film only in response to a citizen’s Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) request. Thus, Dominguez tried to mislead the public to exonerate the killer, who has not been charged but has been returned to duty. No one will accuse Dominguez of honesty, or him, the LCPD, or associated agencies of transparency. Fortunately, for them, neither City Council nor citizens make demands for accountability.
The problem of “good cops/bad cops” goes beyond the LCPD. A multi-agency task force investigated Cosper’s killing of Sra. Baca and then met to review its report at the Third District Attorney’s office on 13 June 2022. With due allowance for my possible misreading of some handwritten signatures, the attendees were:
District Attorney (2)
Ramus, Ashley
West, Brandon
New Mexico State Police (7)
Avilucca, Mike
Cardelaria, Phillip
James, Ray
Larecher, Randy
Ortega, Macrina
Sanchez, Imelda
Williams, Jesse
Dona Ana Sheriff’s Office (4)
Day, Jon
Louick, Lawrence
Pacheca, Jose N.
Thourenell, Chase
Las Cruces Police Department (6)
Bradley, Peter
Davis, Kenny, Facilitator
Delao, Veronica
Dominguez, Miguel, Chief
Henke, Mike
Porras, Ricardo
New Mexico State University PD (1)
McGuire, Nelson
The “independence” of this task force was compromised by the attendees’ conflict of interest or tolerance of conflict of interest. Six of the twenty attendees were officers from the LCPD, which employs Cosper. One of them was its Police Chief; another was the Facilitator. Given that Dominguez initiated a public-relations campaign biased for Cosper and against Sra. Baca, and that the LCPD did not bring charges against him, LCPD attendees were biased against charges. Ignoring their conflict of interest, these LCPD attendees were the “bad cops.” The two attendees from the DA’s office likely advised the task force what in the report would or would not likely be acceptable to District Attorney Gerald Byers—a conflict of interest and just bad, but also just lawyering. Insensitive or indifferent to LCPD attendees’ conflict of interest, all non-LCPD attendees were the “good cops.” These “good cops” countenancing “bad cops” are comparable to “good cops” standing around and watching “bad cops” beat up Tyre Nichols.
DA Byers did not disclose the report or act on it either to bring or dismiss charges. He faced a dilemma. If he brought charges, police would hinder his prosecutions; if he dismissed charges, voters might oust him in the next election. So, for either professional or political reasons, he sent the report to NM Attorney General Hector Balderas, who took no action. He left the matter to his successor, Raúl Torrez. With much to do in his first month in office, he cannot attend to every case at first. However, since the customs of New Mexico law enforcement are likely to hold true even on the watch of a self-professed reformer, he will quietly bury the case, and the killer will go free by default—by the fault of justice delayed, then denied, in this state.
Locally, those who wish to reform LCPD policies and practices have not said that this case would have come before a proposed citizen police oversight board. Yet those who vociferously profess to support police reform oppose the board. When one Councilor sought to get the proposal on the Council’s agenda, the Mayor rejected the suggestion with a long-winded, one-sided rebuttal of the need for a board. Following his lead as she has done before, Councilor Bencomo dismissed the proposal by smart citizens and skilled lawyers (e.g., Earl Nissen, Peter Ossorio, Peter Goodman) as “superficial”—who the hell is this woman to say so? She claimed to strongly support “real police reform” (emphasis hers) though she has never proposed or supported any herself—so how dare she say so? I know that my repeated criticisms of this self-promoter prompt reflexive support from her sisters on Council, but they need to act, not out of sympathy for her, but out of concern for public safety, and do something about a police department callous, corrupt, and incompetent, from the top down and the bottom up.
Meanwhile, local news coverage has allied itself with the LCPD’s thin blue line by maintaining its wall of silence about this case. None of its ace reporters has raised questions about the task force, its report, the DA, or the NMAG. Long into a 6-months-for-$1 subscription to the Las Cruces Sun-News, I have not gotten my money’s worth and have cancelled it. Of course, I cannot do the same with The Bulletin, but I would if I could. Where police misconduct is concerned, it is all quiet on the western front.
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