This former intelligence officer knows better than to trust a single source of information except for special reasons. The ACLU’s filing in the Third Judicial District Court for its six plaintiffs against the Dona Ana Board of Commissioners doing business as the Dona Ana County Detention Center (DACDC) is one of those single-source exceptions. The ACLU is generally reliable; in a court filing about widespread, long-term abuses, it can be trusted to be responsible with the facts and the law
Few Dona Ana or Las Cruces residents have learned about systematic abuses at the Detention Center. The ACLU filed its lawsuit on 16 October. In El Paso, both KTSM and KVIA/ABC reported on the filing on the same day. Since then—it is now 20 October—, in Las Cruces, neither the Las Cruces Sun-News nor The Bulletin has mentioned it.
The ACLU filing provides the basic facts about the abuses committed at the DACDC. I first quote the first paragraph and then build an account based on the 26 “factual allegations” of its complaint. For convenience in presenting these allegations in this blog, I have rewritten them without differentiating between quotations or paraphrases and added some comments of my own. I have substituted “prisoners” for “detainees” because the latter implies political incarceration. Readers may check the accuracy of my account by using the hyperlinks provided.
For years, Doña Ana County Detention Center’s corrections officers have embarked on a terror campaign using paramilitary operations, violent midnight operations, training drills on actual detainees, surprise flash bang grenades, and other threatening and harmful conduct. The officers’ actions subject detainees to anxiety, fear, and uncertainty daily, never knowing when their pod will be the next one subjected to inhumane paramilitary tactics or for what innocuous behavior they might be targeted. These unwarranted and abusive operations at the Doña Ana County Detention Center do nothing to further security or safety and egregiously violate the rights of the people housed within the detention center.
In 2018, DACDC contracted with a private firm to provide training in military tactics to a select group of officers designated the Special Operations and Response Team (SORT). By virtue of this training, SORT is a paramilitary group trained to handle high-risk situations, including riots, evacuations, and all other situations which exceed the abilities of regular officers. They are required to know, among other competencies, the use of deadly force, “conceptual pod dynamic domination,” “controlled F.O.R.C.E. operations,” and breaching operations. They are trained to use Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) equipment including, but not limited to, tactical vests with armor plate inserts, shotguns, AR-15s, 9mm weapons, and gas masks.
DACDC intended SORT for use only as the last resort using “control measures” only when necessary. Yet, so I am told, “the County Manager started using their guards—presumably SORT folks—for crowd control at the recent contentious BOCC Meetings. That is totally against the law—those folks are for Detention Center duty only, and specifically NOT for crowd control.” This dangerous mission creep outside the DACDC has no apparent restraints.
The first officers trained under this program graduated in 2019 and were soon deployed within the center. The abuses apparently began in that year and have continued ever since. According to the ACLU media statement, SORT “has conducted at least 112 such operations since January 2023.” The abuses are astonishing in an American carceral institution.
Since 2019, DACDC has directed or allowed SORT to conduct unwarranted operations day or night with paramilitary tactics and psychological warfare against prisoners who are not resisting and who comply or try to comply with SORT’s often conflicting commands. Its operations often occur late at night after housing units (“pods”) have been locked up or early in the morning while prisoners are asleep. It conducts random, violent operations when no critical incidents have occurred or are occurring. It escalates routine cell shakedowns into excessive force situations to practice using special tactical gear and to run training scenarios for new SORT officers. In other words, SORT trains officers to use military tactics and riot weapons on unsuspecting prisoners who have done nothing wrong. Sometimes, they use tasers or other weapons on compliant, restrained prisoners just because they ask questions about why they are being abused.
SORT, with weapons drawn, sometimes storms a pod while prisoners are playing cards, watching TV, getting a haircut, engaging in Bible study, or sleeping. Its operations often begin with officers firing Bore Thunder flash bangs without warning, cause, or provocation. A Bore Thunder is a 12-gauge muzzle flash bang that produces approximately 174 decibels of sound. Its 150 decibels can burst a person’s ear drum; even short-term exposure to any sound above 140 decibels can cause permanent damage.
After firing flash bangs and disorienting prisoners in the pod, SORT officers often cause confusion by shouting conflicting commands such as one officer yelling “on your feet” and another officer shouts “get on the ground.” In addition to the confusion which they have created, officers further escalate the unwarranted encounters and abuse by firing more flash bang rounds. Even when prisoners comply with their commands, officers still point their guns and threaten or actually use physical force against them.
Some DACDC and SORT officers conduct themselves in violation of the Prison Rape Elimination Act. During strip searches, they point tasers at prisoners’ genitals and tell them that if they make any sudden movements or if any contraband is found on them, they will be tased in the genitals. Sometimes, officers point non-lethal guns with rubber bullets at prisoners’ genitals during strip searches and make the same threats. There is no legitimate purpose or reason for an officer to point weapons at prisoners’ genitals. DACDC and SORT officers engage in this behavior for the purpose of humiliating, degrading, and frightening prisoners.
As a direct result of the SORT’s abusive tactics at DACDC, prisoners housed within the detention center have suffered emotional distress, psychological injuries, dignitary harm, and physical injuries.
These ICE-like abuses have not occurred in a vacuum. DACDC officers have perpetrated them, and DACDC and Dona Ana County officials have permitted or tolerated them. Not one can claim ignorance of the facts, at best, only indifference to them, at worst, approval of them.
Bryan Baker has been the DACDC Director since September 2020. He began as a DACDC cadet in 2001 and became a sergeant, lieutenant, and captain. He manages DACDC's day-to-day operations, security, finances, and staff. Although he might not have initiated the idea of SORT in 2018 or launched its first operations in 2019, he has invested in and directed it throughout his tenure. The Director reports to the County Manager.
Fernando Macias (Jan 2018-May 2024), Stephen Lopez (interim, May-Oct 2024), and Scott Andrews (Oct 2024-present) have been County Managers throughout the existence of SORT at the DACDC. The County Manager is not directly responsible for the DACDC but is responsible for overseeing all county departments, including the DACDC. The County Manager appoints the Director. The Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office is not in charge of and has no operational relationship with the DACDC.
Nine people serving as Commissioners on the Doña Ana Board of Commissioners have held office during SORT operations:
District 1: Christopher Schaljo-Hernandez (2019-present)
District 2: Susanna Shapato (2019), Diana Murillo-Trujillo (2020-2024), Gloria Gameros (2024-present)
District 3: Shannon Reynolds (2019-present)
District 4: Isabella Solis (2019), Lynn Ellins (2019-2020), Susana Chaparro (2021-present)
District 5: Manuel Sanchez (2019-2025)
Those commissioners serving for only short periods of a year or so—Shapato, Gameros, Solis, Ellins—might not have known much about SORT, but those serving long periods—Schaljo-Hernandez, Murillo-Trujillo, Reynolds, Chaparro, and Sanchez—must have known a lot.
These officials share responsibility for SORT operations and its abuses of prisoners. Baker is directly responsible for them. County Managers have indirect responsibility. Commissioners have at most indirect responsibility and at least guilty knowledge. Accountability should mean that Baker be fired, SORT officers be demoted and permanently denied promotion, and cadets be discharged. Andrews should be fired. Schaljo-Hernandez, Reynolds, and Sanchez should be recalled or defeated in the next election. The only reason for not taking these steps to hold these officials accountable is a belief that they define and exemplify the moral and political character of the residents of Doña Ana County.
In Las Cruces, similar possibilities are emerging in Police Chief Jeremy Story’s request for five SWAT vehicles. No member of City Council questioned this request. District 1 Councilor Cassie McClure, at my request, made a perfunctory request for information, was ignored, and dropped the matter. District 37 State Representative Joanne Ferrary told me that she was concerned and would make inquiries. If she did—I believe that she did not—she got no response which she shared with me. District 36 State Representative Nathan Small acted likewise. The failure of these three elected officials in particular to question the need for the LCPD to have a large number of military-type vehicles and related equipment should be alarming at a time when state and federal forces are being deployed against civilians. To put it bluntly, Trump has a lot of sympaticos among local officials.
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