<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>Albuquerque – NMPolitics.net</title> <atom:link href="https://nmpolitics.net/index/tag/albuquerque/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index</link> <description>The real story</description> <lastBuildDate>Tue, 14 Aug 2018 19:38:00 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <item> <title>Will citizen involvement make the difference in Albuquerque?</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/08/will-citizen-involvement-make-the-difference-in-albuquerque/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Kent Paterson]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Aug 2018 11:00:49 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Albuquerque]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=613882</guid> <description><![CDATA[The One Albuquerque Goals Summit convened four public meetings in July to discuss public safety, economics and the environment.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_613895" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-613895" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Albuquerque-771x542.jpg?x36058" alt="Albuquerque" width="771" height="542" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Albuquerque-771x542.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Albuquerque-336x236.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Albuquerque-768x540.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Albuquerque.jpg 876w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">L. Paterson</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Empty strip malls are among the many problems Albuquerque faces.</p></div> <p>When Tim Keller became Albuquerque’s mayor in late 2017, he inherited a city variously mired in economic stagnation, a public safety crisis, a projected $40 million budget deficit, and ongoing controversy over a pricey, new rapid transit system that dotted a revamped Central Avenue with futuresque bus stations but months later still has no buses.</p> <p>The administration of Keller, a former state auditor, faced a perfect financial storm whipped up by declining tax revenues, rising utility and employee medical expenses and state government cutbacks in assistance to cities.</p> <p>The 40-year-old mayor has since carved out a political identity for his new municipal administration under the rubric of “One Albuquerque,” a term defined by Keller’s press office as something of a crusade to “turn government inside out and get the community involved in solving some of the city’s toughest challenges while promoting things that make Albuquerque great.”</p> <p>Befitting that strategy, the One Albuquerque Goals Summit convened four public meetings last month corresponding to the distinct quadrants that form the Duke City. The issues? Public safety, economics and the environment.</p> <p>Facilitated by the nonprofit organization New Mexico First, the One Albuquerque Goals Summit attendees met in small groups to modify or augment desired community conditions like “the public is safe.”<span id="more-613882"></span></p> <p>Olivia Padilla-Jackson, deputy director of finance for the City of Albuquerque (CABQ) and one of the participating officials in the summit, said homelessness, climate change and the “root causes of crime” were among the topics considered at the first two events.</p> <p>Padilla-Jackson traced the history of the summit back to a 1995 city ordinance that mandates citizen input on city policy objectives. In 1998 a 12-member Indicators Progress Commission (IPC), currently headed by Fred Roth, was formed to chart and oversee the publication of the Albuquerque Progress Report, a state-of-the city assessment culled in part from the Goals Summits.</p> <p>In his introductory remarks to 2018 Goal Summit’s third gathering at the African American Performing Arts Center (AAPAC), Keller appealed for community unity.</p> <p>“We have to come together as one Albuquerque and face the challenges,” he intoned. Acknowledging a fondness for community governance, the new mayor added that his administration had revived and expanded the biannual Goals Summit from one event to four.</p> <p>“Nobody really knew about this in the last few years, but we’re going to work on it,” he said.</p> <p>Assembled at the AAPAC for a Friday afternoon session, about 55-60 people broke into small groups dedicated to economic development, the environment and public safety.</p> <p>This reporter attended a session of 22 people who mulled over the economy and public safety. Joining in were an Albuquerque Public Schools board member, business sector representatives, a commercial banker, political and social activists, a UNM police officer, and health care professionals.</p> <p>Given lists of prewritten goals and desired conditions which had been honed by the IPC over the years through previous summits and consultations with experts, the group added their proposals for reaching common ground.</p> <p>“We’re going to vote on (two) priorities, but every one of these is going to the city,” New Mexico First facilitator Katherine Cordova assured the group.</p> <p>For the economy, the session opted for a resource center where training and communications would be available to marginalized populations, and wagered on better economic opportunities via public-private collaborations.</p> <p>Attracting new retirees, turning Albuquerque into a beacon of solar, art and technology industries, and raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour were other ideas floated in the meeting.</p> <p>“All the youth I work with are working two jobs… none of them are living on one job,” stressed political activist and living wage advocate Guy Watson.</p> <p>In the public safety realm, proposals included developing specific city plans to fight neighborhood crime, relying on the regular budget instead of piecemeal tax increases like the gross receipts tax hike passed by the city council and signed by Mayor Keller, and changing public perceptions that homelessness is synonymous with crime.</p> <p>Tom Dent, anti-violence activist and current member of a community policing board, broached the issue of law enforcement corruption and alluded to recent scandals involving inter-institutional breakdowns in cases of murdered, abused and sexually trafficked children.</p> <p>“You can see some of these horrible child welfare things,” Dent said. “This information has to be shared within those departments.” Supported by others, Dent proposed effective coordination involving the Albuquerque Police Department, Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, the state’s Children Youth and Families Department, the local jail, behavioral and mental health services, and emergency responders.</p> <p>Resident Beatriz Valencia said public safety must consider vehicular, pedestrian and bicycle accidents, and include anti-crime solutions like improved lighting.</p> <p>Valencia later told this reporter that that five children have been victims of hit and run incidents outside the middle school where she is employed during the past few years. One was hospitalized, she said.</p> <p>“I’ve been involved in trying to find a solution to this for two and a half years,” she said, adding that a task force has made some progress.</p> <p>Burqueños were deeply saddened last March when a student at another middle school, 12-year-old Eliza Justine Almuina, was killed by a SUV while walking in a crosswalk in front of her school.</p> <p>A February 2018 City of Albuquerque document on the budget deficit lays out the interrelationship between the economic and public safety issues discussed at the 2018 One Albuquerque Goals Summit, asserting that growth “can only happen in a community that has taken control of its public safety problems and provides a vibrant environment to nurture, retain and attract businesses and families. The staggering needs of our city just to maintain the status quo of services and make long overdue improvements to our public safety operations necessitate major changes.”</p> <p>Coinciding with Albuquerque’s crime spike in the wake of the Great Recession, the average growth for the metro area wallowed below less than 1 percent annually, a rate lower than the national average of 1.6 percent and about half that of similar-sized, regional cities like El Paso and Tucson, according to the document.</p> <h3>More problems and solutions on the table</h3> <p>The Saturday morning after the AAPAC meeting, another group of more than 40 people convened at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) for the last Goals Summit, part of which was conducted in Spanish for the first time.</p> <p>The ideas discussed including adding more monitoring stations to Albuquerque neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by pollution like San Jose, financial vouchers for the homeless and addict populations in return for mandatory participation in programs, a new program focused on meth addicts, and greater attention on the relationship of young people and the economy.</p> <p>Ultimately voted down by participants, the voucher and meth proposals engendered debate. Advocate Steven Abeyta maintained that meth users are “really desperate and need our help.”</p> <p>Selinda Guerrero, who introduced herself as a proud mom, said statistics show a more complex problem than exclusive meth addiction with “a lot of people flipping back and forth between meth and heroin.”</p> <p>According to Padilla-Jackson, the public input collected at the Goals Summit will be reviewed by Mayor Keller and presented to the City Council for possible action by the end of the year. The process is important for framing resource allocations and budgets, she said. The city official said New Mexico First is responsible for writing a report on the 2018 Goals Summit, which should be available soon.</p> <p>Padilla-Jackson estimated about 220 people from “different walks of life” attended the four Goals Summit events. In order to accommodate broader public participation, two Saturday sessions were held while late afternoon meetings were organized in consideration of people who don’t have evening babysitters, she said.</p> <p>“I think in changing it from one location to the four different quadrants, people felt like we were going to their neighborhoods,” Padilla-Jackson added. A couple of the citizen participants also gave their take on the public exercise.</p> <p>“I’m glad the city is doing them. I applaud any effort to engage the public in deciding how to shape our city,” said Cristina Rogers of Urban ABQ/Vision Zero Albuquerque. “I hope that after the summit (city officials) continue the work they are doing with equity and inclusion.”</p> <p>Saying she previously worked 17 years for the City of Albuquerque under three different mayors but never had heard of the Goals Summit during those administrations, Guerrero said she appreciated “Keller’s administration opening it up.”</p> <p>Nonetheless, more Saturday and evening sessions would be desirable so working greater numbers of working folk could participate, she added.</p> <p>An activist with Millions for Prisoners New Mexico, Guerrero delved into issues that arguably merit a summit of their own, critiquing a criminal justice system she contended targets low-income, communities of color and consigns large segments of the population to second class citizenship.</p> <p>In an interview, Guerrero scored APD training, ticketing blitzes in low income neighborhoods, the treatment of ex-prisoners, and the expansion of the scandal prone private prison industry in the state. She differed with narratives that blame the public safety crisis on an understaffed APD or underfunded Bernalillo County district attorney.</p> <p>“I don’t think it’s a funding issue. I think it’s misused resources. I think if we got to the problem of that we wouldn’t have to raise taxes and (could) start the community policing program earlier than suggested,” Guerrero contended.</p> <p>The activist maintained that the best security comes from neighbors watching out for each other. “When you have true community policing, you don’t need cops,” Guerrero insisted.</p> <p>Asked if the current criminal justice system favors recidivism, slippage back into the lifestyle that landed a person behind bars, Guerrero nodded yes, offering examples of what amounts to societal straight jacking. Once out on the streets convicted felons are routinely denied Pell grants, small business loans, jobs, apartment rentals and more, she said.</p> <p>Together with undocumented immigrants, convicted felons form a large layer of residents who sometimes don’t have voting rights. In New Mexico felons’ voting rights are restored only after a person completes a sentence — probation and/or parole included, Guerrero said.</p> <p>“We have more second class citizenship now than we did in the Jim Crow South. We have reconstructed it in the form of being a felon,” she added.</p> <p><em><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/author/kent-paterson/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kent Paterson</a> is an independent journalist who covers issues in the U.S./Mexico border region.</em></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>The great crisis of Albuquerque</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/08/the-great-crisis-of-albuquerque/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Kent Paterson]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Aug 2018 14:00:35 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Albuquerque]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=611315</guid> <description><![CDATA[July's victims were among scores of violent deaths in New Mexico's largest urban area in 2018.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_66499" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/feverblue/7550299240/in/photolist-cvcfV7-92Yxoj-92VjYH-2VqKFS-ffJffR-4CaESc-5bzjuB-ffJfwP-dod3rs-vhH3xU-8dvo8A-dobxRi-5212Qa-4rhV4Y-rdqjy-4csaJH-92Vpev-5ZPuxr-92Vi5T-oA9iY-4csbqT-naNysN-ncTcyE-ncR2eX-naNwQz-ncRh5B-ncTfxA-ncQYji-ncTdnJ-naNA6Y-naNw94-ncTeWq-naNxKb-ncRiBz-naNyi5-92Vhxg-naNtLd-naNsTG-ncRcu4-naNtiQ-ncT8Z5-ncQU5g-dobAiR-uCxbrJ-dobHWq-dobHL5-dobH27-dobHpf-4cs92R-4rdPea" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img decoding="async" class="wp-image-66499 size-large" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-771x431.jpg?x36058" alt="Albuquerque" width="771" height="431" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-771x431.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-336x188.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-768x429.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-1170x654.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque.jpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /></a><p class="wp-media-credit">Will Keightley / Creative Commons</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Albuquerque at sunset.</p></div> <p>Wrapping up a trip to the border, I hopped aboard one of the El Paso Los Angeles Limousine Express buses that travel up Interstate 25. My destination was Albuquerque, the city of beautiful balloons, cool craft beer breweries, the deficit-strapped UNM Lobos, and Walter White wannabes.</p> <p>Upon entering the Duke City metro area northbound on the interstate, practically the first sight I beheld was the partial closure of the southbound lanes of Interstate 25, where a car and the yellow tape of a crime scene stood. Another road rage incident, like the one not long ago when a four wheeled nut attempted to provoke me into a street duel? High noon in <em>Burque </em>over three lost seconds at a red light.</p> <p>Turned out that the highway crime scene originated from a New Mexico State Police stop early that morning. A passenger in the detained vehicle fired a gun at the officer, forcing the cop to shoot back and kill the man, state police initially told the media. Eight men have died so far this year in incidents involving five different metro area police agencies.</p> <p>Unknown to me at the time, the crime scene on Interstate 25 was the second time the busy highway clutched death that summer day. Early in the wee morning hours, another El Paso Los Angeles Limousine bus, this one headed south from Denver to El Paso, was involved in a multi-vehicle accident just north of the Duke City. Three older women on the bus, originally from Mexico but living in Colorado, were killed. More than 30 other passengers were injured in a chain wreck that began with a Honda rear ending another vehicle, according to news reports.</p> <h3>The numbers game</h3> <p>The day after the Interstate 25 closures, I drove up a Mid-Town Albuquerque street only to encounter a fresh road closure and the yellow tape of another crime scene. Albuquerque Police Department (APD) officers milled about, a giant tow truck pulled away, and the bomb squad was parked.</p> <p>Within the 72 hours of the Interstate 25 crises, emergency responders were busy. His body found in an arroyo, the death of 56-year-old Herbert Hustito was being investigated as a homicide, an APD spokesman later told the <em>Albuquerque Journal</em>.</p> <p>A violent episode at an apartment complex ended with one man shooting and killing a second. The alleged shooter was later killed by police after a stand-off. Media outlet KOB-TV quoted a woman identified as the girlfriend of the man shot by police describing her slain boyfriend as a PTSD-afflicted veteran who was a good man. Elsewhere in the city, another man was shot and critically wounded.<span id="more-611315"></span></p> <p>In another instance of violent death, 28-year-old Alyssa Barboa never made it home after the car she driving was impacted by another at an intersection. A news account suggested that the surviving driver of the second vehicle had been drinking.</p> <p>July’s victims were among scores of violent deaths in New Mexico’s largest urban area in 2018. Though local media outlets repeat APD numbers of 40 plus homicide victims, a conservative reading of news accounts indicate at least likely 75 victims through August 6 if the four-county metropolitan area is considered. If deaths from incidents that conceivably could net vehicular manslaughter charges are thrown in at least another 11 victims are added to the roll, most of them female. All this with nearly five months to go in the year.</p> <p>Drug related crimes, road rage, personal disputes and gender violence — routinely labeled “domestic violence” — reportedly shroud the slaughter.</p> <p>The<em> Journal</em> recently stated that per Uniform Crime reporting guidelines used by the FBI, the newspaper’s numbers do not include non-negligent homicide, killings committed by law enforcement and other slayings “determined to be justifiable.” Based on its criteria, the New Mexico newspaper reported 75 murders within the Albuquerque city limits in 2017, “the highest in recent history.”</p> <p>In 2016, the last available year of comprehensive statistics, the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator (OMI) reported 103 homicides in the Albuquerque metro area, up from 86 in 2015 and 71 in 2014.</p> <p>To gauge the real level of Albuquerque metro area violence, and the fallout ranging from devastated families to multi-million dollar taxpayer payouts in lawsuits, this writer maintains that all homicides — “justified” or not — must be counted. For purposes of this story, a definition of homicide from the Merriam-Webster dictionary suffices: “a killing of one human being by another.”</p> <p>Firearms are the most common means of delivering death in the Duke City. Aping Ciudad Juárez, Mexico to the south, recent homicides have jarred hotels, supermarkets, retail outlets, gas stations, public parks and apartment complexes, sometimes in broad daylight and in front of many people.</p> <p>Earlier this year I witnessed a fight between two women in a laundromat that might have ended with a fatality if a gun or knife had been drawn. The precipitating reason for the slugfest? An argument over a towel in a dryer. Casual, violent encounters give a strong sense of a city on the emotional precipice — or already over it.</p> <h3>Domestic violence and women’s murders</h3> <p>As of July 31, 18 metro area murder victims in 2018 were women, or almost one quarter of the total.</p> <p>Rarely, however, does the media or state and local government frame the issue as femicide, the intentional killing of a woman because she is a woman.</p> <p>“Nobody wants to talk about that, but it should be,” said Ana Salazar, veteran staff member of the Albuquerque-based anti-domestic/ gender violence organization Enlace Comunitario. “There is a lot of silence when murders of women happen.”</p> <p>In Mexico, where femicides are on the rise and routinely go unpunished, a different discourse based on a gender perspective is nevertheless is emerging in academia, policy circles and the media. Some Mexican states have codified femicide into law and/or approved a system of alerts when gender violence reaches certain levels.</p> <p>Counting 15 years as an anti-violence professional in both Mexico and the U.S, Salazar was surprised to witness parallels of corruption in the U.S. justice system — despite the greater availability of resources on this side of the border.</p> <p>“It is very similar in many respects,” she said. “Not everything is perfect here. We’ve seen cases like the woman friend who was stabbed 17 times. She struggled with the courts, the law…”</p> <p>Though gravely injured, the stabbing victim survived the attack only to see her “boyfriend” aggressor receive a six-year sentence, according to Salazar. The community advocate recalled another local case in which a woman repeatedly reached out for help but was then killed by her partner.</p> <p>Mainly servicing the Spanish-speaking immigrant community, Enlace Comunitario’s work has been more difficult since what might be termed “The Big Chill” took effect after Donald Trump ascended to the White House.</p> <p>For three months after Trump took office, victims largely stopped coming to Enlace for help out of fear of public exposure, Salazar said. A Duke City judge even conducted proceedings by telephone because women were afraid of attending court in person, she added.</p> <p>Yet the after-shocks of violence ripple through families impacted by violence, including low self-esteem, PTSD, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, substance abuse, low grades, and lost income. “If you are immersed in violence, you are going to lose income, not go to work and get paid,” Salazar added.</p> <hr /> <div id="attachment_611326" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><a href="https://www.nmlegis.gov/Entity/LFC/Documents/Program_Evaluation_Reports/Review%20of%20the%20Criminal%20Justice%20System%20in%20Bernalillo%20County.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img decoding="async" class="wp-image-611326 size-large" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/LFC-ABQ-crime-771x599.jpg?x36058" alt="" width="771" height="599" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/LFC-ABQ-crime.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/LFC-ABQ-crime-336x261.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/LFC-ABQ-crime-768x597.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /></a><p class="wp-media-credit">Legislative Finance Committee</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Using FBI data, this map from the Legislative Finance Committee shows the spike in crime in Albuquerque from 2010-2016 compared to changes in other parts of New Mexico.</p></div> <hr /> <h3>Albuquerque over a cliff</h3> <p>Recent studies document a social and economic collapse in the Duke City metro area during the last decade. A <a href="https://www.nmlegis.gov/Entity/LFC/Documents/Program_Evaluation_Reports/Review%20of%20the%20Criminal%20Justice%20System%20in%20Bernalillo%20County.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">100-page report</a> by the program evaluation unit of the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) issued last month deciphers the Albuquerque metro area’s public safety/health crisis by examining crime, poverty and the economy. Giving some insights into the scope of a hydra-like crisis, the report analyzes the different parts of the local criminal justice system.</p> <p>According to the study, local and state governments spent $490 million on the Bernalillo County criminal justice system in Fiscal Year 2018.</p> <p>For the LFC, an uptick in crime was noticed in 2011 “around when metrics of poverty, homelessness, income inequality, drug use, and gun use all worsened…as social conditions deteriorated the criminal justice system held fewer and fewer accountable while crimes continued to increase.”</p> <p>A report graph shows crime contouring upward in Albuquerque since 2010 while trending downward nationwide.</p> <p>In a candid City of Albuquerque (CABQ) report examining 2016, the Duke City beats the national average for both violent and property crime, registering 900 violent crimes per 100,000 population compared to 400 nationally. In both categories, crime increased 26 percent between 2014 and 2016, with preliminary data showing the trend continuing through most of 2017.</p> <p>The LFC reveals that reports of “shootings and shots fired” received by APD soared from 250 calls in 2010 to 5,867 percent in 2017 — an astounding 2,000 percent increase. The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) handled 801 similar calls in 2010 compared to 1,371 in 2017, for a 71 percent increase.</p> <p>Although murder is up, the state study reports that APD’s homicide clearance rate plummeted from 90 percent in 2010 to 50 percent in 2017, while BCSO’s record declined from 71 percent to 60 percent in the same time frame.</p> <p>During the same years, the individual caseload of APD homicide detectives nearly tripled from 5 to 14 investigations.</p> <p>Violence has far-reaching repercussions, the LFC observes, citing studies that suggest children living close to violent crime perform worse on standardized tests and tend to have lower social mobility. “Researchers also found that children exposed to recent local violence regress the equivalent going back two years in school,” according to the LFC.</p> <p>As in 2016, the Albuquerque Metro Area ranked #1 nationally for stolen vehicles, according to a National Insurance Crime Bureau (NCIB) report cited in <a href="http://www.abqreport.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.abqreport.com</a>.</p> <p>The 9,898 vehicles heisted in 2017 broke down to more than one theft per hour over the course of a year. Quoted in a CABQ report, APD blamed auto theft on joy riding, chop shops and the city’s proximity to the Mexican border. Curiously, cities on or closer to the border ranked far down on the NCIB list, including Las Cruces (#No. 2), El Paso (No. 58) and San Diego (No. 171).</p> <p>Data from the LFC and CABQ provide an economic backdrop to the societal crisis. Graphing the loss of about 40,000 jobs from late 2008 to late 2011, the CABQ report adds that job growth is on the rebound but still has not reached the employment levels prior to the Great Recession. Of course, the big question is: What kind of jobs are being created, and do they pay living wages?</p> <p>The LFC reports a jump in Bernalillo County families with children living in poverty from 18.9 percent in 2010 to 23.1 percent in 2016, as well as a 63 percent leap in chronic homelessness since 2013.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the percentage of Albuquerque residents living in high poverty neighborhoods increased from 2.9 percent in 2010 to 10.7 percent in 2016.</p> <p>Notably, the CABQ report identifies an economic squeeze underway well before the Great Recession, saying wages for the bottom 10 percent of local workers declined by 11 percent from 1979 to 2014 while wages for the top 10 percent rose only by five percent, an increase for better-off workers that still fell “far short of the national average of 17 percent growth.”</p> <p>The city government’s numbers reveal racial disparities in wages, with people of color holding bachelor’s degrees earning $4 per hour less than whites and women of color making $10 per hour less than white males. In a key measurement of financial and emotional stress, 49 percent of <em>Burqueños </em>spent 30 percent plus of their income on housing in 2015, more evidence that the cost of living is growing impossible for a huge swath of the population.</p> <p>Ten years after the Great Recession hit, the city is still pockmarked by empty storefronts with “For Lease” signs. For many, the Great Recession has become the Great Crisis.</p> <p>As Albuquerque’s jobs disappeared, living costs crept upward and poverty spread. Underworld capitalists, however, had a field day. Consumption of methamphetamines, a drug associated with paranoia and violent behavior, yielded a tripling of emergency room visits in Bernalillo County since 2010. Opioid usage and alcohol abuse was likewise on the upswing in recent years, according to the LFC. From 2011 to 2016, the OMI reported 1,645 drug-caused deaths (accidental overdoses, suicides, etc.) in the four-county metro area.</p> <p>Although Medicaid expansion allowed for greater drug treatment options, the LFC study warns that “UNM and Bernalillo County have identified gaps in available drug treatment despite increases in Medicaid enrollment.”</p> <p>One can only imagine the statistics if some people added to the Medicaid rolls in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County hadn’t accessed behavioral health treatment in the last couple of years.</p> <h3>Looking at the bright side</h3> <p>While not downplaying the depth of the public safety/health crisis, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and APD Chief Mike Geier stress positive trends in 2018, casting the spotlight on new city programs they say will uplift Albuquerque.</p> <p>According to the CABQ, the Fiscal Year 2019 city budget includes $49.1 million set aside for an alternative responder team, behavioral health and homelessness programs, affordable housing, early intervention, and substance abuse treatment.</p> <p>The mayor recently helped unveil a new city-county needle clean-up initiative aimed at reducing the proliferation of publically discarded syringes, a common sight in the Duke City.</p> <p>We’re fighting crime from all sides to make our communities safer,” Keller was quoted in a press statement as saying. “There’s no doubt that our city is facing many challenges related to addiction.”</p> <p>Albuquerque’s new mayor told the public that the S.H.A.R.P. Program “is one way we can work together to take back our parks and playgrounds.” Besides clean-up teams, the initiative includes the placement of six secure drop boxes, or kiosks, where used syringes can be safely disposed in places like Wilson Park, a shady patch of grass situated in the high poverty, high crime Southeast Heights.</p> <p>Neighborhood watch is one arena where the Keller administration is making itself visible. For August’s national anti-crime National Night Out event, the mayor announced enhanced participation by police, fire and other city employees.</p> <p>“This is a time when our special city is facing many challenges that no one leader or singular idea can overcome alone… this is an incredible opportunity for city officials to connect with the public in their own neighborhoods about the public safety issues we’re facing,” Keller declared in another statement.</p> <p>In a response tucked into the LFC report, Geier observed positive crime trends during the first six months of 2018 in comparison with the same period of 2017, including decreases in robbery (31 percent), auto burglary (32 percent) auto theft (18 percent), aggravated assault (5 percent) and rape (4 percent). Simultaneously, APD increased traffic stops by 35 percent, amounting to 6,000 additional stops, Geier wrote.</p> <p>Recognizing the positive trends reported by Geier, the LFC report nevertheless contains words of caution, pointing out that reported crime statistics are typically an “under representation” since many crimes go unreported.</p> <p>“According to the Crime Victimization Survey, people report certain crimes at higher rates, such as auto theft…other crimes such as rape may go unreported up to 77 percent of the time,” the study says.</p> <p>For his part, Geier reported changes or plans in the works that contemplate a return of police substations and bike patrols as well as the hiring of 400 more officers during the next four years. Some blame Albuquerque’s bulging crime stats on a severe officer shortage.</p> <p>“Despite our progress and the additional resources from Albuquerque taxpayers to pay for more officers, we have a long way to go,“ Geier insisted. “We are still constrained by aging infrastructure and understaffing throughout the department.”</p> <p>Accordingly, Geier appealed for more legislative support, detailing a wish list of new vehicles, gunshot detection equipment, a helicopter and mobile video trailers for monitoring “neighborhoods and business districts that are hot spots for crime.”</p> <p>Geier took over a department that was wracked by years of controversy and scandal under the administration of former Mayor Richard Berry. Among other things, public protests over police shootings, a plethora of lawsuits by victims’ relatives, and the intervention of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) marked those years.</p> <p>APD foot-dragging over compliance with department reforms mandated by the DOJ settlement, the failure to resolve high-profile crimes like the 11 women found murdered and buried on the West Mesa in 2009, and episodes of lying to or withholding information from the media such as in the Victoria Martens atrocity rounded out contentious times. The Keller administration has publically vowed to forge ahead with the DOJ reforms.</p> <p>Yet new questions and polemics surfaced in the media this summer over APD’s management, including the demotion of the person in charge of investigating wrongdoing by officers at APD, internal affairs head Jennifer Garcia, who was discovered altering documents, according to local media reports. Apart from replacing Garcia, Chief Geier reshuffled the leadership of two quadrant commands and the APD Academy.</p> <p>The LFC report endorsed the DOJ training and other reforms, detecting headway in making necessary changes. But the researchers conclude that “if reform efforts and cooperation are not improved and maintained, and system performance is not monitored, the potential for failure remains.”</p> <p>Meantime, the murder rate hasn’t gone down, violence hovers in the air and some are afraid to go out in the dark. More people are frustrated, demanding action.</p> <p>On Friday, about 40 protesters organized by a new group, Let Our Voices Be Heard, staged a demonstration outside the Children Youth and Families Department (CYFD) office in Albuquerque, outraged by incidents of violence against children such as the 2016 brutal murder of 10-year-old Duke City resident Victoria Martens, whose welfare was earlier probed by CYFD without any action taken.</p> <p>“CYFD hasn’t done their job and APD, the DA — I don’t think they’re really going after the criminals,” organizer Josh Perez later said. “I got to at least get my voice out there and make these people open their eyes.”</p> <p>Regarding the Martens case, Perez opined that law enforcement should reinvestigate earlier suspects and hold them accountable. “They’re letting off Victoria’s killers easy,” he said.</p> <p>In turning around <em>Burque</em>, Perez predicted that a young Mayor Keller would “do good,” but at this stage in his eight month-old administration “it’s still too early for him.” The community activist added that Let Our Voices Heard plans to keep up a public presence and urge authorities to act.</p> <p>“I feel Albuquerque’s crime has always been a problem,” Perez said. “It will continue until something’s done.”</p> <article id="post-391018" class="hnews item post-391018 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-news-and-analysis tag-albuquerque tag-crime tag-economy tag-homelessness tag-transportation"> <div class="entry-content clearfix"> <p><em><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/author/kent-paterson/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kent Paterson</a> is an independent journalist who covers issues in the U.S./Mexico border region.</em></p> </div> </article> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Good police work or racial profiling? How so many blacks were arrested in federal sting in ABQ</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/good-police-work-or-racial-profiling-how-so-many-blacks-were-arrested-in-federal-sting-in-abq/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2018 21:18:43 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Albuquerque]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Law enforcement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Race and ethnicity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Washington]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=569292</guid> <description><![CDATA[A debate over how so many black people came to be arrested in a 2016 sting operation in Albuquerque is playing out in the city’s federal courthouse.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_569318" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-569318" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/MMfeature-771x574-771x574.jpg?x36058" alt="ATF" width="771" height="574" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/MMfeature-771x574.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/MMfeature-771x574-336x250.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/MMfeature-771x574-768x572.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Courtesy photos</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Clockwise, ATF agents who participated in the 2016 Albuquerque operation; U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson; Federal Public Defender Brian Pori; and former Chief U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo.</p></div> <p>A debate over how so many black people came to be arrested in a 2016 gun- and drug-sting operation in Albuquerque is playing out in the city’s federal courthouse.</p> <p>Following months of silence from the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a narrative is beginning to emerge.</p> <p>It’s a story of good police work.</p> <p>According to this version, a pivotal moment happened a few days after the operation started in April 2016. Albuquerque Police Department detective <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2018/04/24/apd-detective-led-federal-agents-to-memphis-mob/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vic Hernandez handed ATF Special Agent Russell Johnson</a> two sets of documents.</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article comes from <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2018/04/24/good-police-work-or-racial-profiling-memphis-mob-and-how-so-many-blacks-were-arrested-in-atf-sting/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Mexico In Depth</a>. Sign up for <a href="http://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=9294743d38" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">their newsletter</a>.</p> <h3>Read more</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/apd-detective-led-federal-agents-to-memphis-mob/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">APD detective led federal agents to ‘Memphis Mob’</a></li> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/atf-agent-touted-stings-righteous-targets-in-email/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ATF agent touted sting’s ‘righteous targets’ in email</a></li> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/legal-wrangling-could-pose-challenge-to-proving-racial-profiling-claims-against-atf/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Legal wrangling could pose challenge to proving racial profiling claims</a></li> </ul> </aside> <p>Johnson had arrived in the city the previous month, but his unfamiliarity with Albuquerque hadn’t stopped the Mississippi-based agent from designing the sting. The operation employed five paid confidential informants — three black and two Hispanic — and would eventually nab 103 of what authorities called Albuquerque’s “worst of the worst,” including percentages of blacks and Hispanics disproportionate to the city’s population.</p> <p>The first document from Hernandez looked like a multi-page wanted poster with dozens of mugshots showing black men, their personal information and partial criminal histories. The phrase “Memphis Mob,” in bold, topped the document.</p> <p>It purported to show members of a “drug gang” that APD had named the “Memphis Mob” in 2009 in advance of several arrests and stories in the local news media. Questions continue to linger about how much of a gang it really is.</p> <p>The other document listed 20-some names of current members of the “Memphis Mob.”</p> <p>The exchange of documents — and Hernandez tipping Johnson off to the existence of the Memphis Mob — eventually led to the arrest of 14 black men, a Hispanic man and a Hispanic woman during the 2016 operation, according to Johnson’s testimony.</p> <p>In all, 28 black people were arrested in the ATF operation. That’s 27 percent of the total number of people arrested, in a city with only a 3 percent black population — and in a state where black people made up just 5 percent of gun and drug defendants in federal court from 2006 through 2015.</p> <p>How the ATF came to target so many black people has been a persistent question. For more than a year, criminal defense attorneys have raised it in court motions. And NMID raised the question following its <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/05/07/feds-sting-ensnared-many-abq-blacks-not-worst-of-the-worst/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">comprehensive analysis of the operation</a>, including <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/05/15/atf-used-traveling-well-paid-informants-in-abq-sting/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">how it was designed</a>, and a review of hundreds of federal court documents associated with those arrested.</p> <p>Prosecutors and Johnson say racial profiling didn’t lead to the racial breakdown of defendants, as defense lawyers have insisted, but good police work did.</p> <p>Criminal defense attorneys aren’t buying that narrative, however. They say the ATF’s operation fit the mold of the agency’s previous operations in other cities where it has been accused of racial profiling. And the “Memphis Mob” narrative, they say, is an after-the-fact story agents and prosecutors cooked up only after racial profiling allegations arose in late 2016.</p> <p>“For lack of better phrasing, judge, and this is not meant to be offensive, but Memphis Mob, Memphis Boys, it’s kind of like what we hear in politics, dog-whistle politics,” Assistant Federal Public Defender John Robbenhaar said during a court hearing in December. “It’s a phrase that gets everyone worked up. It’s suggestive. … It goes to the discriminatory intent of the agents in their operation, and it’s a post-hoc justification of the inordinately high number of African Americans in the class.”<span id="more-569292"></span></p> <p>Assistant U.S. Attorney David Walsh swatted away the assessment from Robbenhaar, who represents ATF sting defendant Lonnie Jackson, and another defense attorney, Aric Elsenheimer, who represents Diamond Coleman.</p> <p>“I just think that’s very disingenuous and unfair, to accuse the government of coming up with the Memphis Mob notion to somehow prevail with respect to these motions that have been filed by the defense,” Walsh said in December.</p> <p>Over the past year, at least two federal judges have found enough evidence to not summarily reject racial profiling claims filed by defendants’ lawyers and have agreed that defense attorneys, over prosecutors’ protests, should receive additional evidence to test their theories.</p> <p><a href="http://nmindepth.com/2018/04/24/legal-wrangling-could-pose-challenge-to-proving-racial-profiling-claims/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In a February ruling</a>, then-Chief U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo specifically cited testimony from Johnson and another ATF agent on how informants were selected in the Albuquerque operation when ordering prosecutors to turn over records. Defense attorneys say those records will help determine if “discriminatory intent and discriminatory effect” were at work in the Albuquerque operation.</p> <p>Federal prosecutors and ATF agents have refused numerous interview requests over the past year, leaving NMID and the public largely in the dark about how the operation netted so many minorities and how the operation was designed. The “Memphis Mob” surfaced in multiple court hearings that NMID attended over several months.</p> <p>NMID’s review of the “Memphis Mob’s” origin story and evidence in cases, including audio recordings from arraignments or detention hearings for 16 black defendants snapped up in the ATF operation, has produced more questions than answers.</p> <p>News of the operation, its design and its results <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/06/12/black-community-wants-answers-on-atfs-albuquerque-sting-say-it-was-punch-in-the-face/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">roiled black people in Albuquerque</a>. Many who spoke with NMID last year said it harkened back to law enforcement tactics used against black communities in the 1960s and 1970s that are now roundly out of favor.</p> <p>Civil rights leaders in the city said the operation smacked of “failed War on Drugs” policies that led to an explosion in the nation’s prison population — disproportionately imprisoning black men.</p> <p>And ATF’s work in Albuquerque took place against a backdrop of longstanding national complaints from minority communities about the way their neighborhoods are policed.</p> <h3>A gang is born?</h3> <p>“Memphis Mob” first entered the public and law enforcement lexicons in April 2009, when the <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/0985859069newsmetro04-09-09.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Albuquerque Journal published a front-page story</a> about an APD-led operation. According to the newspaper, the investigation produced 35 arrests on gun and drug charges and was a potentially fatal blow to the gang.</p> <p>APD had invented the name of the gang, the newspaper reported, after police noticed a Memphis connection among suspects in numerous felony crimes, including some individuals who were allegedly shipping cocaine between Albuquerque and Tennessee.</p> <p>The 2009 list of alleged “Memphis Mob” members Hernandez, the APD detective, gave to Johnson at the start of the ATF operation in April 2016 is dated the day before the Journal published its story.</p> <p>Aside from a few stories about the convictions and sentencings for some purported “Memphis Mob” members, the so-called gang soon disappeared from public discourse.</p> <p>Lawyers representing defendants arrested in the ATF operation question whether the gang even exists — or whether it was created from whole cloth by APD and later seized upon by the ATF.</p> <p>Through his attorney, Cedric Laneham, one of the 2016 ATF defendants accused of gang membership, denied ever hearing the name “Memphis Mob” until it showed up in one of agent Johnson’s reports. Laneham admitted past membership in the Gangster Disciples in Chicago.</p> <p>Two former APD detectives who worked on the investigation from 2007 through 2009, meanwhile, said department higher-ups inflated the “Memphis Mob’s” significance in 2009.</p> <p>The former detectives spoke to NMID in return for not being named because they still have dealings with APD.</p> <p>“I remember doing some surveillance on some African American guys, and one of them might have been from Tennessee,” one said during an interview. “They were moving some small quantities of dope, and one or two of them might have been involved in a homicide. But there was no big, interstate nexus, and I honestly don’t remember hearing the term ‘Memphis Mob’ till it hit the papers.”</p> <p>The other said he arrested one of the men on suspicion of a $200 cocaine sale, but was never told the man was a gang member until he saw the Journal article.</p> <p>The selling of small amounts of drugs would fit the profile of many of those swept up in the 2016 ATF operation. The vast majority of the ATF cases involved drug buys for less than $5,000, a NMID review found last year. Such small amounts are highly unusual for federal cases, seasoned defense lawyers say. Normally, amounts range from about $15,000 into the millions of dollars, they say.</p> <p>Johnson testified in court last year the only additional materials he reviewed when he was researching the gang were the Journal story and a KOAT-TV article about the 2009 takedown.</p> <p>Robbenhaar and Elsenheimer questioned Johnson about the Journal story, pointing him to its assertion that APD had made up the name “Memphis Mob.”</p> <p>Johnson agreed with the plain language used in the story.</p> <p>Current APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said in an email in response to NMID last month that “Memphis Mob” gang members remain on the department’s radar, although to a lesser degree than in the past because “it’s a small number relative to past activity.”</p> <p>APD uses the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/about-violent-gangs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">federal definition for street gangs</a>, “which among other things, includes committing crimes for the betterment of the gang.”</p> <h3>A developing concept?</h3> <p>Sixteen of the 28 black defendants arrested in the 2016 operation appeared in federal court for arraignments or detention hearings. There was not one mention of the “Memphis Mob” in those hearings by prosecutors or Johnson, an NMID review found. Johnson appeared to be in attendance at several of the hearings that were conducted soon after the defendants’ arrests over a couple months.</p> <p>Robbenhaar and Elsenheimer have sought to admit the recordings as evidence in their clients’ cases. Prosecutors say they are irrelevant.</p> <p>In a December court hearing, Robbenhaar asked why agents and prosecutors wouldn’t have mentioned gang affiliations, given that dangerousness is among the factors a federal magistrate must consider at a detention hearing in determining whether to release a person.</p> <p>“It was never an issue when these cases were brought,” Robbenhaar told Judge Armijo. “This is now a central explanation, justification for the large number of African American defendants. It’s a big issue for the government now.”</p> <p>David Walsh, the prosecutor, responded that “a lot of our defendants have affiliations, but we don’t bring it up at hearings.”</p> <p>For his part, Johnson testified in the same court hearing that he did not recall whether “Memphis Mob” came up at the detention or arraignment hearings he attended.</p> <p>There appears to have been no mention of the “Memphis Mob” or the takedown of several of its members at an <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/825137/104-charged-in-federal-firearm-and-drug-crackdown-in-bernalillo-county.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">August 2016 news conference announcing the operation’s results</a>, which was attended by several law enforcement officials, including then-U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez.</p> <p>Nor was there a mention in an <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2018/04/24/righteous-targets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">email Johnson penned to colleagues</a> days before that news conference directing them to a list of 24 “righteous targets” who had been ensnared by the sting.</p> <p>As cases from the ATF operation have continued to move through the courts, there have been no mentions of the “Memphis Mob” in scores of news releases from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, either, even though several cases involve individuals Johnson named as “Memphis Mob” members in court in December.</p> <p>Robbenhaar and Elsenheimer have pointed to another data point in their theory that the “Memphis Mob” connection is an after-the-fact justification.</p> <p>In mid-December 2016 — more than four months after the operation concluded —Johnson amended one of the reports in the Cedric Laneham case to include a paragraph about Laneham’s alleged links to the Memphis Mob, a connection that does not appear in earlier versions of the report. Johnson also attached the Journal article to the report.</p> <p>“The date is key. December of 2016 is about the commencement, about the time the selective enforcement litigation started,” Robbehnaar told Judge Armijo in December, using legal nomenclature for what is known in everyday language as racial profiling.</p> <p>“My letter to counsel requesting discovery was in January, early January, but we had certainly had discussions in the month of December,” Robbenhaar told Armijo. “I know other colleagues of mine were also talking about getting discovery on selective enforcement. The issue was certainly made aware. (Prosecutors) knew of the issue.”</p> <p>Walsh, the prosecutor, denied that Johnson’s amending of the report in Laneham’s case was an attempt to create a post-operation justification for the number of blacks snapped up. He told the judge the U.S. Attorney’s Office had requested additional information from Johnson because prosecutors needed more evidence in the Laneham case.</p> <p>“It certainly wasn’t the case where Special Agent Johnson was generating a report after the fact in order to concoct some type of Memphis Mob scenario,” Walsh told Armijo. “It’s nothing along those lines whatsoever. … We really deny it. There was no after-the-fact concoction vis-a-vis Memphis Mob.”</p> <p>It is now up to federal judges to determine whose narrative — the prosecutors or criminal defense attorneys — wins out. But it won’t be Armijo, a President George W. Bush appointee who was the chief federal judge for New Mexico until February 2018, when she assumed senior judge status.</p> <p>U.S. District Judge William P. “Chip” Johnson, another George W. Bush appointee, is now presiding over the cases against ATF defendants Jackson and Coleman. At a hearing earlier this month, Johnson signaled that he was more skeptical of the racial profiling claims than Armijo was.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>APD detective led federal agents to ‘Memphis Mob’</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/apd-detective-led-federal-agents-to-memphis-mob/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2018 21:18:30 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Albuquerque]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Law enforcement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Race and ethnicity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Washington]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=569321</guid> <description><![CDATA[APD's involvement appears to have led, in part, to one of the more controversial aspects of the ATF sting operation: the arrest of black people at a rate highly disproportionate to their population in the city.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_66499" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/feverblue/7550299240/in/photolist-cvcfV7-92Yxoj-92VjYH-2VqKFS-ffJffR-4CaESc-5bzjuB-ffJfwP-dod3rs-vhH3xU-8dvo8A-dobxRi-5212Qa-4rhV4Y-rdqjy-4csaJH-92Vpev-5ZPuxr-92Vi5T-oA9iY-4csbqT-naNysN-ncTcyE-ncR2eX-naNwQz-ncRh5B-ncTfxA-ncQYji-ncTdnJ-naNA6Y-naNw94-ncTeWq-naNxKb-ncRiBz-naNyi5-92Vhxg-naNtLd-naNsTG-ncRcu4-naNtiQ-ncT8Z5-ncQU5g-dobAiR-uCxbrJ-dobHWq-dobHL5-dobH27-dobHpf-4cs92R-4rdPea" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-66499 size-large" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-771x431.jpg?x36058" alt="Albuquerque" width="771" height="431" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-771x431.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-336x188.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-768x429.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-1170x654.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /></a><p class="wp-media-credit">Will Keightley / Creative Commons</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Albuquerque at sunset.</p></div> <p>How and even whether the Albuquerque Police Department was involved in a 2016 undercover federal drug and gun sting has lingered for more than a year under scrutiny from legal scholars, defense lawyers and <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/05/07/feds-sting-ensnared-many-abq-blacks-not-worst-of-the-worst/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New Mexico In Depth</a>.</p> <p>Police and city officials under previous Mayor Richard Berry’s administration <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/08/25/abq-city-councilor-wants-congressional-investigation-into-atf-sting/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denied the department was involved</a>.</p> <p>Now, with a new mayor at City Hall and new leadership at APD, the city is acknowledging the department had a “minimal role” in the sting, which was led by the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF). That included “cross-commissioned” APD officers who have long worked as part of an ATF task force assisting the federal agency during the operation.</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article comes from <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2018/04/24/apd-detective-led-federal-agents-to-memphis-mob/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Mexico In Depth</a>. Sign up for <a href="http://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=9294743d38" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">their newsletter</a>.</p> <h3>Read more</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/good-police-work-or-racial-profiling-how-so-many-blacks-were-arrested-in-federal-sting-in-abq/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Good police work or racial profiling?</a></li> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/atf-agent-touted-stings-righteous-targets-in-email/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ATF agent touted sting’s ‘righteous targets’ in email</a></li> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/legal-wrangling-could-pose-challenge-to-proving-racial-profiling-claims-against-atf/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Legal wrangling could pose challenge to proving racial profiling claims</a></li> </ul> </aside> <p>Whatever the size of APD’s role, the department’s involvement appears to have led, in part, to one of the more controversial aspects of the sting operation: the arrest of black people at a rate highly disproportionate to their population in the city.</p> <p>Many of the black people targeted in the sting came to the ATF’s attention through APD’s involvement, Special Agent Russell Johnson testified during a hearing for two of the defendants in October.</p> <p>As the operation was beginning to pick up steam in April 2016, APD detective Vic Hernandez handed Johnson a pair of documents purporting to show past and current members of the “Memphis Mob,” a group of people, some with ties to Tennessee, APD had classified as a street gang in the latter part of the last decade, according to Johnson’s testimony.</p> <p>The agent testified that those lists, along with “intelligence” gathered by ATF agents and informants, ultimately led the agency to target and arrest at least 16 people in the sting. Fourteen were black, and two were Hispanic, Johnson testified.</p> <p>In court, federal prosecutors displayed a chart with those people’s names and identified them as members or “associates” of the “Memphis Mob.”</p> <p>APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told NMID that Johnson’s team had made a “solicitation about the Memphis Mob’s activities in Albuquerque.”</p> <p>“APD provided the information,” he continued.<span id="more-569321"></span></p> <p>Gallegos did not make detective Hernandez, or anyone in his chain of command at the time of the ATF sting or current department leadership available for interviews for this story.</p> <p>Defense lawyers and former APD detectives have questioned whether the “Memphis Mob” even exists as a gang, although Gallegos said the department still occasionally comes across members.</p> <p>He declined to comment on statements made by the previous administration about APD’s involvement in the operation.</p> <p>Mayor Tim Keller, who took office Dec. 1, <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/09/15/video-federal-sting-draws-responses-in-abq-mayors-race/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">was openly critical of the ATF operation on the campaign trail</a> last year, saying it appeared to him that the agency had racially profiled the city in search of people to arrest. He described the tactic as “wrong.”</p> <p>And according to Gallegos, APD expects a different style of cooperation and collaboration with federal law enforcement agencies under APD Chief Michael Geier.</p> <p>The new chief “expects the department to more fully engage with law enforcement partners in order to ensure operations are in line with Mayor Keller’s vision for community policing,” Gallegos told NMID. “That should include a proactive approach to prevent racial profiling, while ensuring APD has a role in identifying the most effective strategies to identify the most dangerous criminals.”</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>ATF agent touted sting’s ‘righteous targets’ in email</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/atf-agent-touted-stings-righteous-targets-in-email/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2018 21:18:24 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Albuquerque]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Law enforcement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Race and ethnicity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Washington]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=569333</guid> <description><![CDATA[The email offers a window both into the lead agent's thought process and what defense lawyers made of the correspondence and how it fits into allegations about the ATF’s conduct during the operation.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_569338" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 633px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-569338" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/20180423_101001.png?x36058" alt="ATF email" width="633" height="702" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/20180423_101001.png 633w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/20180423_101001-336x373.png 336w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 633px) 100vw, 633px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Courtesy photo</p><p class="wp-caption-text">An email ATF agent Russell Johnson sent days before an August 2016 press conference notes the probation or parole status of 24 people arrested in a “second wave takedown” of the agency’s four-month operation.</p></div> <p>Days before federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials announced more than 100 arrests from an undercover operation in Albuquerque in 2016, the sting’s lead agent was thinking about who, exactly, had been arrested.</p> <p>“If anybody ever asks if we are going after the worst of the worst or righteous targets, show them this list,” Special Agent Russell Johnson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) wrote in an Aug. 4, 2016, email to colleagues.” These are people for our second wave takedown.”</p> <p>The email names 24 individuals and notes each person’s probation or parole status: 14 had successfully completed their obligations to the state, two were listed as “current and compliant probationer/parolee,” three had never been on probation or parole and four were “absconders.”</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article comes from <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2018/04/24/righteous-targets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Mexico In Depth</a>. Sign up for <a href="http://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=9294743d38" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">their newsletter</a>.</p> <h3>Read more</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/good-police-work-or-racial-profiling-how-so-many-blacks-were-arrested-in-federal-sting-in-abq/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Good police work or racial profiling?</a></li> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/apd-detective-led-federal-agents-to-memphis-mob/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">APD detective led federal agents to ‘Memphis Mob’</a></li> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/legal-wrangling-could-pose-challenge-to-proving-racial-profiling-claims-against-atf/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Legal wrangling could pose challenge to proving racial profiling claims</a></li> </ul> </aside> <p>The 24 names are blacked out, as are the sender and recipients of the email and a handful of other words.</p> <p>Eight days after Johnson dashed off the email, a phalanx of high-ranking local, state and federal law enforcement officials <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/825137/104-charged-in-federal-firearm-and-drug-crackdown-in-bernalillo-county.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told the press</a> they had taken “the worst of the worst” off the city’s crime-ridden streets.</p> <p>The controversial operation has come under scrutiny over the past year for the <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/05/07/feds-sting-ensnared-many-abq-blacks-not-worst-of-the-worst/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">highly disproportionate number of black people</a> who were arrested. Meanwhile, the sting netted few, if any, of the hardened, repeat violent criminals supposedly targeted.</p> <p>Those questions match a pattern found in operations Johnson and other ATF agents have led around the country — operations that have provoked scrutiny from federal judges and newspaper investigations.</p> <p>In all, 28 of the 103 arrested in the 2016 Albuquerque operation were black; that’s 27 percent, compared to the city’s black population of 3 percent. Criminal defense attorneys have accused the ATF of racial profiling.</p> <p>Johnson, through testimony in court hearings last year, cited the “Memphis Mob,” an alleged drug gang with ties to Tennessee, as one reason for the arrest of so many black people. Johnson’s email surfaced in a court hearing last year for Lonnie Jackson and Diamond Coleman, two black defendants who are pursuing racial profiling claims.</p> <p>Johnson never mentioned the “Memphis Mob” in the email, which he wrote as the four-month operation was wrapping up and the ATF agent was ruminating on who was arrested.</p> <p>NMID obtained a copy of the email from the court after Johnson testified about it at two separate hearings late last year. It offers a window both into his thought process and what defense lawyers made of the correspondence and how it fits into allegations about the ATF’s conduct during the operation.<span id="more-569333"></span></p> <p>Johnson has testified several times in federal court in Albuquerque that he was aware of the critical coverage and harsh judicial opinions around the country. But he has said none of that factored into how ATF went about its business in subsequent operations because the agency “is not biased.”</p> <p>Defense lawyers questioned Johnson at length about whether some of the people ATF arrested in the sting were “righteous targets.” They showed the agent reports detailing minor or nonexistent criminal histories for some of the people. Johnson declined to answer questions, saying that “many factors” went into agents’ decisions about whom to pursue.</p> <p>Assistant Federal Public Defender Aric Elsenheimer pressed Johnson about the email, asking: “You sent it to others so that if there was any question or if anybody ever asks if you’re going after the worst of the worst or righteous targets, you were going to show them this list?”</p> <p>“That’s absolutely incorrect,” Johnson replied, then added that it was simply a list of people who were set to be arrested in the operation’s “second wave.”</p> <p>“So it wasn’t a trophy email,” Johnson said.</p> <p>Elsenheimer then re-read the email back to Johnson and asked whether he was quoting from it correctly. He was, Johnson answered.</p> <p>At a subsequent hearing on Dec. 13, Johnson testified that he didn’t know how many of the 24 people listed in the email were black.</p> <p>It is not clear whether Johnson was anticipating criticism of the Albuquerque operation when he wrote the email in the summer of 2016. ATF has repeatedly denied interview requests to discuss the sting, Johnson has refused in-person interview requests, and the agency has declined to make him available to speak to a reporter.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Legal wrangling could pose challenge to proving racial profiling claims against ATF</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/legal-wrangling-could-pose-challenge-to-proving-racial-profiling-claims-against-atf/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2018 21:18:16 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Albuquerque]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Law enforcement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Race and ethnicity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Washington]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=569341</guid> <description><![CDATA[Some defendants are trying to prove that ATF racially profiled them in a massive undercover operation.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_66499" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/feverblue/7550299240/in/photolist-cvcfV7-92Yxoj-92VjYH-2VqKFS-ffJffR-4CaESc-5bzjuB-ffJfwP-dod3rs-vhH3xU-8dvo8A-dobxRi-5212Qa-4rhV4Y-rdqjy-4csaJH-92Vpev-5ZPuxr-92Vi5T-oA9iY-4csbqT-naNysN-ncTcyE-ncR2eX-naNwQz-ncRh5B-ncTfxA-ncQYji-ncTdnJ-naNA6Y-naNw94-ncTeWq-naNxKb-ncRiBz-naNyi5-92Vhxg-naNtLd-naNsTG-ncRcu4-naNtiQ-ncT8Z5-ncQU5g-dobAiR-uCxbrJ-dobHWq-dobHL5-dobH27-dobHpf-4cs92R-4rdPea" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-66499 size-large" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-771x431.jpg?x36058" alt="Albuquerque" width="771" height="431" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-771x431.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-336x188.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-768x429.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-1170x654.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /></a><p class="wp-media-credit">Will Keightley / Creative Commons</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Albuquerque at sunset.</p></div> <p>On her last day as chief of the U.S. District Court for New Mexico in February, Judge Christina Armijo granted a motion from the lawyers representing Lonnie Jackson and Diamond Coleman. Prosecutors, the order said, must turn over all background checks run through the National Crime Information Centers (NCIC) database during a 2016 law enforcement sting operation in Albuquerque.</p> <p>Jackson and Coleman, two of the 28 black people arrested in the <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/05/07/feds-sting-ensnared-many-abq-blacks-not-worst-of-the-worst/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">federal Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)’s operation,</a> are trying to prove the agency racially profiled them in a massive undercover operation. Armijo’s order represented a step toward that goal.</p> <p>The NCIC queries, not only for the 103 people arrested during the four-month operation but everyone ATF agents investigated but did not pursue, would enable them to test their theory. They could compare the information on every individual, and their race, the ATF queried in the national database against those the ATF arrested.</p> <p>“The court agrees that defendants’ burden to demonstrate disparate treatment in the face of ATF’s criteria for arrest is essentially insurmountable without access to the information ATF had when it made” decisions about who to arrest and who to let go, the judge wrote in her Feb. 7 order.</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article comes from <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2018/04/24/legal-wrangling-could-pose-challenge-to-proving-racial-profiling-claims/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Mexico In Depth</a>. Sign up for <a href="http://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=9294743d38" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">their newsletter</a>.</p> <h3>Read more</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/good-police-work-or-racial-profiling-how-so-many-blacks-were-arrested-in-federal-sting-in-abq/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Good police work or racial profiling?</a></li> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/apd-detective-led-federal-agents-to-memphis-mob/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">APD detective led federal agents to ‘Memphis Mob’</a></li> <li><a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/atf-agent-touted-stings-righteous-targets-in-email/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ATF agent touted sting’s ‘righteous targets’ in email</a></li> </ul> </aside> <p>Two months after Armijo’s order, prosecutors have refused to follow the judge’s instructions, Armijo has transitioned to senior judge status, and a new judge assigned to the case has signaled he may view Coleman and Jackson’s racial profiling claims differently.</p> <p>Prosecutors argued in a hearing earlier this month that producing all the NCIC reports would be overly burdensome — and likely even illegal. In many instances, there were not hard-copy reports for people who were investigated but not pursued.</p> <p>Judge William P. “Chip” Johnson invited prosecutors to file a motion asking him to reconsider Armijo’s order.</p> <p>Johnson likely won’t rule on the motion for weeks, if not months.</p> <p>Coleman, 29, is charged with two counts each of distributing methamphetamine, illegally possessing a firearm as a felon and carrying a gun during drug transactions. Jackson, 49, faces a lone count of meth distribution.</p> <p>Previous felony convictions against both men, although not for violent crimes, mean Coleman could face 20 to 140 years in prison and Jackson 10 years to life. Both men have been behind bars since their arrest in the summer of 2016, a period in which both their mothers have died. Neither was allowed to attend the funerals.</p> <p>Armijo’s order giving them access to additional information from the government based on a claim of “selective enforcement” is rare in the federal court system, said Katie Tinto, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine who has studied large-scale ATF operations across the country.</p> <p>“You don’t see many selective enforcement claims, partly because you have to have some sense of a group who are being targeted,” Tinto said in a telephone interview. “It’s even more unusual to see a judge willing to take the step of letting defense counsel at least partially explore the claim.”</p> <p>Armijo is the second judge in Albuquerque to grant a motion for discovery based on a selective enforcement claim. Last year, Senior U.S. District Judge James Parker <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/06/15/black-man-swept-up-in-atf-sting-wins-legal-victory-but-stiffer-prosecution-looms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ordered federal prosecutors to turn over additional documents</a> to Yusef Casanova, another of the black defendants netted in the operation.<span id="more-569341"></span></p> <p>A third judge, James Browning, denied a similar motion from Cedric Laneham, ruling that his lawyer had not met the legal standard of “some evidence… of discriminatory effect and discriminatory intent” in a law enforcement operation.</p> <p>Parker’s and Armijo’s rulings have differences and similarities.</p> <p>While Parker determined Casanova’s lawyer had met the standard, Armijo left that question open. She did not find it persuasive that 28 of the 103 people arrested in the ATF operation were black, or 27 percent, in a city whose black population is 3 percent. Or that the ATF agents who oversaw the Albuquerque operation had been accused of racial profiling in other cities. Instead, she ordered prosecutors to turn over the NCIC reports to give defense lawyers a way to determine if enough evidence exists of a race-based arrest pattern.</p> <p>Both judges seized on the design of the operation.</p> <p>The methods of the ATF agents made it likely they would arrest a disproportionate number of minorities, Parker concluded. In the case involving his ruling, the ATF arrested a black man for brokering the sale of about an ounce of methamphetamine to an undercover agent but not the white man who appeared to supply the drugs minutes before the transaction.</p> <p>In her case, Armijo zeroed in on an aspect of the operation that <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/05/15/atf-used-traveling-well-paid-informants-in-abq-sting/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NMID focused on</a> last year: ATF’s use of confidential informants. Three were black and two were Hispanic; all were from out of town, like the agents who supervised them.</p> <p>Attorneys for Jackson and Coleman raised the notion of “homophily,” a sociological principle that says “a contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than among dissimilar people,” as part of their argument for the NCIC reports.</p> <p>Prosecutors dismissed that idea as “ridiculous,” arguing that criminal histories and ongoing criminal activity were the sole criteria for whom the ATF targeted, but Armijo explored homophily at length in her order.</p> <p>During two hearings on the motion for additional discovery, defense lawyers and Armijo questioned supervising ATF agents at length about how the informants were chosen. One agent said he did not have any white confidential informants at the time of the operation, and the other said he did not consider race when settling on informants.</p> <p>Prosecutors have pressed judges to view the ATF operation as a series of “conspiracies” that often involved multiple suspects of different races, rather than to look at the racial and ethnic breakdowns of who was arrested. Law enforcement has no control over who one suspect might lead agents to next, the agents testified.</p> <p>But Armijo found in the ATF’s own numbers support for the defense’s theory of homophily, noting in her opinion: “Of the 26 cases involving multiple suspects, 15 involved a black confidential informant. Of these 15 instances, seven involved one or more black suspects. At the same time, only two of the 11 multiple suspect cases involving non-black confidential informants involved black suspects.”</p> <p>Those figures, along with with agents’ testimony, Armijo reasoned, supported the defense theory of homophily — although that, by itself, was not enough to “show that ATF purposefully selected black confidential informants so as to target black people.”</p> <p>Armijo also acknowledged in her ruling that several black people wound up behind bars while white people were not pursued for potentially committing the same crimes.</p> <p>Tinto reviewed Armijo’s order before speaking with NMID and was quick to say “no one is saying any one person is a racist.”</p> <p>“But there are growing questions about how ATF sets up these stings, how the (informants) are chosen and used,” the law professor said. “That’s a conscious choice. It’s something agents are aware of. In this case, the judge seems to be expressing similar discomfort with how the Albuquerque operation was structured and its apparent results: targeting poor people of color.”</p> <p>Defense lawyers hope to use the NCIC reports in a regression analysis they believe will show race was a determining factor in who was arrested.</p> <p>Armijo’s ruling will not be the final word, however.</p> <p>Prosecutors filed a court pleading in March saying they had complied with Armijo’s ruling by turning over “all of the NCIC reports that exist” and had no obligation to produce hard-copy reports for people the ATF investigated but did not not arrest.</p> <p>Handing over that information to defense lawyers might constitute a felony, the prosecutors argued. The NCIC database is maintained by the FBI — not the U.S. Attorney’s Office or the ATF — and the FBI is unwilling to produce the reports without an explicit order from the court.</p> <p>Defense lawyers never had a chance to respond to the prosecutors’ filing.</p> <p>The U.S. Attorney’s Office withdrew the filing at a hearing on April 9 before Judge Johnson, who appeared skeptical of the racial profiling claims. Rather than settle the dispute over which documents the U.S. Attorney’s Office would turn over pursuant to Armijo’s order, he asked prosecutors to file a motion asking him to reconsider the order altogether.</p> <p>Prosecutors indicated they would by the end of the month.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and New Mexico’s political year of the woman</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/cesar-chavez-dolores-huerta-and-new-mexicos-political-year-of-the-woman/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Kent Paterson]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 10 Apr 2018 13:00:33 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[2018 election]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Albuquerque]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Women]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=559942</guid> <description><![CDATA[Dolores Huerta took to the stage Saturday at Albuquerque's annual Cesar Chavez Day celebration.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Looking spry as ever, Dolores Huerta once again took to the stage Saturday at Albuquerque’s annual Cesar Chavez Day celebration, just three days short of her 88th birthday. The co-founder of the United Farm Workers union urged hundreds of people gathered in the plaza of the National Hispanic Cultural Center to support an effort to make Chicano Studies at the University of New Mexico a master’s degree granting program and get ethnic, labor, women’s and LGBTQ studies from kindergarten up in public schools across the nation.</p> <p>“There’s never been a time like this one. There’s so much ignorance out there,” Huerta contended, adding that “our president wouldn’t get away with what he is doing” if a more educated public was part of the political equation.</p> <div id="attachment_559953" class="wp-caption module image alignright" style="max-width: 336px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolores_Huerta#/media/File:Dolores_Huerta_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-559953 size-medium" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Huerta-Dolores-336x289.jpg?x36058" alt="Dolores Huerta" width="336" height="289" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Huerta-Dolores-336x289.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Huerta-Dolores-768x660.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Huerta-Dolores-771x662.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Huerta-Dolores.jpg 800w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px" /></a><p class="wp-media-credit">Gage Skidmore</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Dolores Huerta</p></div> <p>A native New Mexican who went on to chart a legendary life of multi-faceted activism from her California base, Huerta encouraged <em>Burqueños </em>to get involved in politics, reminding them that her colleague Cesar Chavez spent considerable time going door-to-door registering people to vote. Protesting is fine, “but if we don’t get good people elected, nothing changes,” Huerta insisted. “We are going to build our own wall, but our wall is going to be the U.S. Congress… volunteer to campaign. Whatever candidate you choose, please campaign for that candidate.”</p> <p>Huerta was introduced by Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, who drew cheers when he said, “she’s reminding us and Washington that we should be building bridges, not walls.”</p> <p>In contrast, Keller elicited boos from the crowd when he said, “We have a federal government that is trying to take our police officers literally and send them to the border,” a reference to the Trump administration’s recent announcement that it was dispatching National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.</p> <p>Duke City media reported last week that the Albuquerque Police Department was seeking an exemption from a call-up for several dozen officers who are enlisted in the National Guard because of an officer shortage and the subsequent risk to public safety cutting available staff would entail.</p> <p>Expert at pumping up a crowd, Huerta dropped a political bomblet of sorts — and was greeted by another loud round of cheers — when she said that Native American congressional candidate Deb Haaland needs to get elected.</p> <p>A former chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party who hails from Laguna Pueblo, Haaland is in a contested Democratic primary for the U.S. Congressional District 1 seat being vacated by gubernatorial hopeful Michelle Lujan Grisham.</p> <p>Haaland is running against another woman, attorney Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, and four men: Albuquerque City Councilor Pat Davis, former U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez, Pat Moya, and Damian Lara.<span id="more-559942"></span></p> <p>On the Republican side, former state Rep. Janice Arnold- Jones is the sole candidate in the contest for a seat widely considered safely Democratic.</p> <p>In one important sense, a great struggle of Huerta’s life, advancing women’s rights and their representation in politics, is bearing great fruit in New Mexico this year. While Lujan Grisham is aiming for the governor’s seat, two women are leading contenders to replace the Albuquerque representative in Washington.</p> <p>In other key races, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver is running for re-election, while two women, Madeline Hildebrandt and Xochitl Torres Small, are vying to be the Democratic nominee in the race for the southern New Mexico Congressional seat Steve Pearce is leaving to run for governor. As a result of the March 6 elections, the City Council of Sunland Park now includes five women and one man.</p> <p>Yet Huerta’s legacy cuts far deeper than electoral politics, as was showcased at this year’s Cesar Chavez Day march and rally. Every year the event’s organizers award the Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez Sí Se Puede awards to community activists.</p> <p>Huerta this year personally handed the award named after her to Dr. Dely Alcantara, UNM director of population and geo-spatial studies, and a longtime leader in the local Filipino and Asian communities.</p> <p>Although often overlooked in histories of the United Farmworkers Union, Filipino American farmworkers were pivotal in launching the Delano grape strike of 1965. Filipino American labor leader Larry Itliong worked alongside Chavez and Huerta in the early years of the movement.</p> <p>Alcantara spoke about the long-term and intergenerational nature of activism, exemplified by the Seventh Generation concept of Native Americans. “It takes seven generations to create a sea change,” Alcantara said. “For change to happen, every single generation needs to have a voice.”</p> <p>At Cesar Chavez Day, Dolores Huerta’s inspiration was readily evident in the voter registration and issue-specific informational tables, where women activists were highly visible. A woman who handed free onions at a photo display that depicted the laboring conditions of contemporary farmworkers illustrated how the issues, tactics and strategies popularized by Huerta and Chavez more than a half-century ago are still very much alive in the 21st Century.</p> <p>Above the onions, a sign proclaimed that workers in Southern New Mexico earn a quarter for every bucket harvested, with 40 buckets needed to earn $10.</p> <p>Diana Martinez-Campos, an adviser to UNM students participating in the College Assistance Migrant Program, described the onion giveaway as a method of transmitting the notion that everyone is involved in agriculture one way or another. She urged the public to contact their legislators so pro-farmworker legislation could be passed.</p> <p>Prior to Cesar Chavez Day, UNM activists organized a week of events dedicated to farmworkers. The sexual abuse of women farmworkers was among the concerns highlighted on campus last week.</p> <p>The farm labor display also contained information about a growing boycott of Wendy’s over tomato harvesting.</p> <p>Led by Florida’s Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the boycotters want Wendy’s to sign on to the coalition’s Fair Food Program, a pact agreed to by many fast food chains that upholds worker rights and provides for wage increases. Wendy’s however, claims it adheres to an enhanced supplier code of conduct.</p> <p>“Our response in promoting the Wendy’s boycott has been very positive,” Martinez-Campos said. “People were supportive, they didn’t know about it… we hope to put a little grain of sand toward farmworker justice.”</p> <article id="post-556831" class="hnews item post-556831 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-news-and-analysis tag-2018-election tag-mexico"> <div class="entry-content clearfix"> <p><em>Kent Paterson is an independent journalist who covers issues in the U.S./Mexico border region.</em></p> </div> </article> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>ABQ City Council sends cannabis decriminalization to Keller’s desk</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/abq-city-council-sends-cannabis-decriminalization-to-kellers-desk/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 03 Apr 2018 14:36:11 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Albuquerque]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Drug policy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tim Keller]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=556333</guid> <description><![CDATA[The City of Albuquerque is one step closer to reducing the penalties for the possession of small amounts of cannabis.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_66499" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/feverblue/7550299240/in/photolist-cvcfV7-92Yxoj-92VjYH-2VqKFS-ffJffR-4CaESc-5bzjuB-ffJfwP-dod3rs-vhH3xU-8dvo8A-dobxRi-5212Qa-4rhV4Y-rdqjy-4csaJH-92Vpev-5ZPuxr-92Vi5T-oA9iY-4csbqT-naNysN-ncTcyE-ncR2eX-naNwQz-ncRh5B-ncTfxA-ncQYji-ncTdnJ-naNA6Y-naNw94-ncTeWq-naNxKb-ncRiBz-naNyi5-92Vhxg-naNtLd-naNsTG-ncRcu4-naNtiQ-ncT8Z5-ncQU5g-dobAiR-uCxbrJ-dobHWq-dobHL5-dobH27-dobHpf-4cs92R-4rdPea" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-66499 size-large" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-771x431.jpg?x36058" alt="Albuquerque" width="771" height="431" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-771x431.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-336x188.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-768x429.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque-1170x654.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Albuquerque.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /></a><p class="wp-media-credit">Will Keightley / Creative Commons</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Albuquerque at sunset.</p></div> <p>The City of Albuquerque is one step closer to reducing the penalties for the possession of small amounts of cannabis. City councilors voted 5-4 Monday night to replace the current ordinance that allows for possible jail time for cannabis possession with a $25 fine.</p> <p>Now it’s up to Mayor Tim Keller to make it official.</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article comes from <a href="http://nmpoliticalreport.com/821058/cannabis-decriminalization-heads-to-kellers-desk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Mexico Political Report</a>, a nonprofit news organization focused on promoting a greater public understanding of politics and policy in the state of New Mexico.</p> </aside> <p>Under current city law, possession of an ounce or less of cannabis could result in a $50 fine and up to 15 days in jail for a first offense and a possible $500 fine and up to 90 days in jail for repeat offenses.</p> <p>Councilor Cynthia Borrego was the only Democrat to vote against the proposal. She explained that there is “not really any empirical evidence” showing a correlation between decreased penalties and reduced crime rates. She added that she supports medical cannabis programs and has “friends that do medical marijuana,” but said she’s also worried that unregulated cannabis may be “laced” with other toxic substances.</p> <p>Supporters of the measure far outnumbered opponents during the public comment period of the meeting. About a dozen people, including advocates from New Mexico’s American Civil Liberties Union and Drug Policy Alliance, urged councilors to vote for the measure. One person spoke against the legislation, arguing police can use criminal drug charges as a “tool” to hold suspects while furthering an investigation.</p> <p>This isn’t the first time the council approved this type of ordinance. But it is the first time this specific, politically left-leaning council has sent such a measure to the progressive Keller.</p> <p>During his campaign in 2017 Keller said he would be willing to sign decriminalization legislation.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Children in one ABQ neighborhood face onslaught of risk factors</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/02/children-in-one-abq-neighborhood-face-onslaught-of-risk-factors/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 19 Feb 2018 04:31:57 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Albuquerque]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Children]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Poverty]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=527462</guid> <description><![CDATA[New Mexico is one of the toughest states to be a child. Within the state, the so-called International District is among the toughest neighborhoods.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It’s June and it’s hot and Alexxus Prudhomme’s 17-month-old son, Zymiir, teeters about in a diaper on an apartment balcony, grasping a can of grape soda while his grandmother smokes a joint and argues with the neighbors about the dog mess in the courtyard. “People can’t even sit on their porch in peace without smelling s***!” she shouts.</p> <p>Her voice travels through the open door to where Alexxus, 17, lies sprawled on the sofa, holding her 5-month-old daughter, Zyhala, and covering her chubby neck in kisses.</p> <p>Alexxus still wears braces on her teeth, and she misses the carefree social life she might have had if she weren’t stuck in this apartment with two kids. Alexxus got pregnant with Zymiir when she was 15 and a high school freshman.</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article is part of <a href="http://searchlightnm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Searchlight New Mexico’s</a> year-long journalistic investigation into child well-being in New Mexico. Read the series, Raising New Mexico, <a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/series/raising-new-mexico/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by clicking here</a>.</p> </aside> <p>She’s a dropout now, and home is her mother’s apartment on the second floor of an eight-plex on Wisconsin Street in southeast Albuquerque. The complex consists of two squat buildings separated by a courtyard of dirt and weeds. Concrete sidewalks are cracked and crumbling. The house number is spray painted on the front wall.</p> <p>Alexxus doesn’t take the kids out much because of the crime and the debris of drug use in the streets around the apartment.</p> <p>“There’s parks. But there’s a lot of shootings,” she says. “There’s a lot of fighting, drug dealing, needles outside on the floor.”</p> <p>Alexxus would like her children to know something different.</p> <p>“I want them around an environment that’s clean, a neighborhood that’s clean,” she says. “I don’t know. I just want them to have the things I never had.”</p> <h3>‘Life vests in the river’</h3> <p>New Mexico is one of the toughest places in the United States to be a child, but within the state there are certain neighborhoods that have the grim distinction of being among the toughest.</p> <p>Epidemiologists with the New Mexico Health Department have combined U.S. Census tracts to create 108 “small areas” of roughly the same population size – ranking them according to a dozen risk factors associated with the well-being of young children. Those factors include teen pregnancy, inadequate prenatal care, mothers who are single, mothers who are high school dropouts, family poverty, unemployment, juvenile crime, child abuse and neglect.</p> <p>The area bounded by San Mateo Boulevard on the west, Wyoming Boulevard on the east, Lomas Boulevard on the north and Kirtland Air Force Base on the south – called “Central Penn” by the Health Department – conforms roughly to the neighborhood known as the International District. While the neighborhood doesn’t rank No. 1 in any single risk factor, it ranks high in almost all, making it statistically the worst in the entire state.</p> <p>This is the place Alexxus has been raising her children.</p> <p>And there are a lot of Alexxuses in the neighborhood.</p> <p>A close look offers a window into the challenges facing children who grow up there. It shows how the trauma they suffer can have life-long impacts and add to a cycle of poverty, neglect, addiction and abuse. It also offers glimmers of hope when those challenges are met with interventions and services – and what happens when they are not.<span id="more-527462"></span></p> <p>Health Department statistics show about 8 percent of the babies here are born to teenage mothers, 68 percent to unmarried mothers, 43 percent to mothers without a high school degree, and 54 percent into families that are poor.</p> <p>“We’re the best at being the worst,” says Reynaluz Juarez, who grew up here when it was just a poor neighborhood, before gangs and drug dealers took over the streets in the 1990s and it was nicknamed the War Zone. The neighborhood rechristened itself the International District in 2009, a new name to try to erase the stigma of poverty and crime and to highlight its strengths – an immigrant and refugee population of Asians, Africans and Central Americans that offers vibrant cultural exchanges, dozens of languages and some of the best food in the city.</p> <p>Juarez works with the International District Healthy Communities Coalition, a Bernalillo County-funded initiative that supports the building blocks of a better community: jobs, nutritious food, safe streets, green spaces where adults and children can exercise and play.</p> <p>When she was growing up here, kids had to be wary of certain apartment complexes. But they could safely ride their bikes to a friend’s house or walk west to the shady boulevards of Ridgecrest and see how the rich people lived.</p> <p>The opioid epidemic had not yet taken hold and parks were not littered with needles, yet even then she carried a can of oven cleaner spray — “Mexican Mace,” Juarez calls it — if she was going to be out after dark.</p> <p>Today, the neighborhood is still mixed ethnically and economically, with trim single-family homes sharing blocks with run-down apartment complexes. Central Avenue runs east and west, dotted with bus stops, restaurants and old motels left behind from Central’s glory days as a portion of iconic Route 66.</p> <p>The Young Children’s Health Center, run by the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, shares a block of San Pablo Street with a family services agency, a WIC office and a city services center that provides food boxes, emergency diaper supplies and help with rent and utility payments.</p> <p>Clinic medical director Sara Del Campo de González, a pediatrician, treats childhood illnesses while also providing care for adult parents. Guided by an emerging medical consensus, she’s become a firm believer that family life has an enormous effect on children’s health.</p> <p>“When we’re trained in this trauma-informed model, [it] means we recognize adversity and trauma and how it impacts kids,” she says. “We have our radar set up for it.”</p> <p>González ticks off a series of questions: “Is a parent depressed? Is a parent incarcerated? Are they having trouble with transportation? Paying bills?</p> <p>“A big trauma is deportation or separation from their parent or threat of deportation. These kids are living in constant fear.”</p> <p>Besides feeling scared or on edge, stressed-out children can show developmental delays, increased infections, behavioral problems, and even stunted growth due to chronically high levels of cortisol, the hormone released in response to stress. Those effects were first documented in the 1997 CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. Now regarded as one of the most significant medical reports of the last two decades, the ACE Study looked at 17,000 patients, examined their backgrounds for childhood abuse and neglect, and concluded that cumulative childhood stress increases the risks later in life for heart, liver and autoimmune disease, substance abuse and depression.</p> <p>So, González says, just offering vaccinations and treating sore throats isn’t enough in a neighborhood like this. Once families enter the sunlit clinic to seek medical care for their children, she surrounds them with offers of help.</p> <p>The clinic employs a dozen social workers in addition to eight physicians. It provides home visitation, parent support groups, family therapy and a crisis intervention team. Lawyers are on hand once a week to help with immigration cases and landlord disputes. Every Friday, a healthy breakfast is served and parents can sort through a well-stocked clothing bank for their children.</p> <p>“Trying to have more global impact is really hard from our little place, just trying to keep families afloat,” González says. “We are throwing life vests in the river.”</p> <h3>Going to sleep with gunshots</h3> <p>Outside a low-slung brick apartment building on Palomas Drive, Patricia Aguirre sits with some relatives and her little white poodle. Her husband, Gregorio, a welder, is at work. Her three daughters are inside, right where she likes them.</p> <p>When Patricia and Gregorio came from the state of Durango, Mexico, to join relatives in Albuquerque in 2004, they landed in this neighborhood.</p> <p>They have raised their daughters – Clara, 18; America, 15; and Tanya, 11 – in a small apartment, shielded as best they can from the drugs, shootings and gangs outside.</p> <p>“As soon as you tell someone you’re from this neighborhood they say ‘War Zone’ – that’s how they know it,” says Clara, a senior at Highland High School.</p> <p>Her guide to the neighborhood? Stay west of Louisiana Boulevard. Avoid The Purple Park (so named because its buildings are painted purple). Don’t worry about the Mexican Park (where Mexican families gather) during the day. “But when the sun goes down, go home.”</p> <p>She pauses and takes that back. No matter where you are, she says, “as soon as the sun goes down, you go in.”</p> <p>Children here often go to sleep to the sounds of gunshots and sirens. Clara’s parents have enforced a lot of rules about where the girls can go and how much they study. They fear the influences that lurk outside their apartment walls – as Clara puts it, someone “who could pull you over to the dark side. … My mom was probably the biggest mama bear you could probably find,” she says. “My dad has always been our superhero, always defending us.”</p> <p>Clara knows her family is poor and worries she is disadvantaged because she didn’t learn English until first grade. She knows the neighborhood schools are poorly rated. Emerson Elementary, Van Buren Middle School and Highland all earn Ds and Fs in the state’s school grade report card.</p> <p>Highland is one of the poorest high schools in Albuquerque, with 78 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced-priced lunches. And, like the neighborhood itself, it is diverse – 10 percent Anglo, 73 percent Hispanic, 6 percent Native American and 5 percent black. It has the lowest graduation rate of Albuquerque high schools: just 49 percent.</p> <p>Yet, Clara is plowing her way through a roster of AP courses: calculus, English, Spanish literature, Spanish language, world history. She is applying to the University of New Mexico and dreams of becoming a pediatric oncologist.</p> <p>Now that she’s a teenager, Clara has started to question why children in this neighborhood are expected to live with stunted opportunities.</p> <p>“Why do I have to go to sleep with gunshots?” she asks.</p> <p>At the same time, she sees strengths in her school and her neighborhood, especially in their racial diversity, and is thankful for the opportunity to learn to navigate and overcome difficulties. She says it has made her stronger.</p> <p>“Honestly, I wouldn’t change anything that’s happened in the last 17 years for anything,” she says. “I’ve learned from every experience. As tough as people may think this neighborhood is, it’s my home.”</p> <div id="attachment_527472" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-527472" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_153-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Rhonda Ramirez" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_153-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_153-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_153-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_153-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_153.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Don Usner / for Searchlight New Mexico</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Rhonda Ramirez with her son Josiah and daughter Jade in Albuquerque.</p></div> <h3>A continuing cycle</h3> <p>Rhonda Ramirez knows these streets better than most. She lived on them for three years, walking the lengths of busy Central Avenue and Zuni Road, up and down the quieter cross streets looking for shelter in alleys and places to score crack, meth and heroin.</p> <p>When Rhonda first arrived in Albuquerque in 2012, she was trying to escape a life of drinking and drugs in Gallup. She was 30 and had just left behind five kids.</p> <p>Christiana, 15; Randy, 13; Erica, 11; and Gabriel, 8; were taken in by various relatives on the Navajo reservation and cities nearby. Five-year-old Avelino was adopted by a family in Texas.</p> <p>In abandoning her children, Rhonda was repeating a family pattern. Fifteen years before, her mother had left her with relatives for weeks or months at a time while she went on drinking binges in Gallup. When she was sober, she was kind, but indifferent, paying more attention to whichever man she was living with than to her daughter.</p> <p>Rhonda started drinking in middle school, and when her mother found out, she brought Rhonda into a drinking circle of grown men and women who frequented the cheap motels along old Route 66.</p> <p>When she was 16, an aunt shared some of her second-hand crack smoke, launching Rhonda on a 20-year struggle with heroin and crack addiction.</p> <p>There were juvenile arrests and time spent in lockups. She dropped out of school in ninth grade and gave birth to five children by five fathers by the time she was 25.</p> <p>Her life took a series of tragic turns. She was shot in the head in a drive-by while she was pregnant and spent days in a hospital in Albuquerque. Then Gabriel’s father, a crack dealer, was found dead on a street in Gallup, his killing unsolved.</p> <p>“I was like, ‘Why am I having all of these kids and I can’t even take care of them? And I can’t even take care of myself?’ I was trying to make a change,” she says. “And I couldn’t.”</p> <p>As she says this, Rhonda is sitting on a comfy leather couch in an apartment on Kathryn Avenue and Palomas Drive in the heart of the International District – or War Zone, as she calls it. Her sixth child, a moon-faced 2-year-old named Josiah, is balancing his kiddie chair on an ottoman, looking to his mother for a reaction.</p> <p>Rhonda is talking about the past, but she prefers to look forward – to raising one of her children for the first time, in sobriety, grounded in a life of church, parenting classes and barbecues.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Josiah carries many of the risk factors that predict a hard life. His mother was in an unmarried relationship with his father. She never completed high school. She was unemployed. Josiah was born addicted to heroin and methamphetamine. He spent his first year in foster care. His father had a felony record. His mother went to prison for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.</p> <p>A lot of people find God in prison, and so did Rhonda. She also found the Residential Drug and Alcohol Treatment Program, which taught her how to control her cravings and reject the drugs that are so easily available in prison. She learned how to deal with substance-abusing family members and began to attend Native American sweat lodge ceremonies.</p> <p>Her motivation was to stop feeling ugly inside and to be a mother to Josiah. She repeated a mantra to herself: “I want my son back. I’m going to get my family back together. I want reunification.”</p> <div id="attachment_527473" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-527473" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_254-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Rhonda Ramirez" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_254-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_254-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_254-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_254-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dju_20171219_Rhonda_Ramirez_254.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Don Usner / for Searchlight New Mexico</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Rhonda Ramirez with her 3-year-old son Josiah Lucero in Albuquerque.</p></div> <p>When Rhonda was released from prison after serving 16 months, she went into a re-integration program and began working with the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department to regain custody of Josiah.</p> <p>On May 9, 2017, she returned home to the apartment on Kathryn where Josiah was now living with his father, Frank Lucero, and Lucero’s 9-year-old daughter, Jade. CYFD closed her case. She suddenly had custody of a toddler who didn’t know her.</p> <p>Josiah screamed and kicked and threw things at her. He pulled her hair. And he refused her attempts to hold him.</p> <p>She kept trying.</p> <p>In a matter of weeks, he was cuddling with her and calling her Mom. But he still had a temper that could come out of nowhere.</p> <p>On a recent afternoon, when Rhonda had been talking too long and not paying him attention, Josiah marched to the refrigerator, picked up a plastic gallon of milk and heaved it across the living room.</p> <p>He faced his mom, waiting for her reaction. She gave Josiah a look, calmly picked up the intact milk carton and put it back in the fridge.</p> <p>Rhonda wonders whether her son’s anger is due to his drug exposure or experiences in foster care. She takes parenting classes to learn how to talk to Josiah, how to play with him and how to set expectations without yelling “no!” all the time.</p> <p>But she’s also hoping to find a behavioral specialist who can help her cope with a son whose emotions can turn on a dime.</p> <p>“We just comfort him and love him,” she says. “But I think we might need some help.”</p> <h3>‘He didn’t ask to be here’</h3> <p>When Alexxus Prudhomme first became pregnant at age 15, her mother told her to consider her options. She herself had been a teenage mother; she knew the uphill battle her youngest daughter was facing.</p> <p>Alexxus didn’t want to hear about it. She briefly considered an abortion, but decided to keep her unborn son. “He didn’t ask to be here,” she says. “He didn’t ask for me to open my legs, either. So I can’t really take it out on him.”</p> <p>Six months following his birth, she got pregnant again. When her second child was born, the infant girl was found to have marijuana in her system and CYFD put Alexxus in a weekly parenting program run by Claudia Benavidez.</p> <p>With her plume of curly blond hair and wide open smile, Benavidez has been helping parents and children in the International District for the past seven years through the programs she runs for PB&J Family Services across the street from the pediatrics clinic.</p> <p>Alexxus says the classes taught her “how to be a parent. How to be responsible. How to nurture them. How to talk to them. Discipline. Better ways to do it, basically.”</p> <p>According to Benavidez, though, it is not that quick or simple.</p> <p>“Most of our families are lost. They are lost in society,” she says. “The children – you can see it on their face. They have this fighting mode.”</p> <p>Last summer, Alexxus turned 18, got her driver’s license and found a job at McDonald’s. Things were looking up.</p> <p>A few months later, she abruptly got her wish to leave the neighborhood she found so dirty and dangerous. But it wasn’t the change she had been hoping for. After a fight with a relative, she and her children moved out of her mother’s apartment and took refuge at a domestic violence shelter in a different part of town.</p> <p>Alexxus was now on her own.</p> <p>She was pregnant again.</p> <h3>By the numbers: the International District</h3> <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-527474" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/international_district_graphic-771x1340.jpg?x36058" alt="" width="771" height="1340" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/international_district_graphic-771x1340.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/international_district_graphic-336x584.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/international_district_graphic-768x1334.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/international_district_graphic.jpg 800w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /></a></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Woman who alleged informant exploited romantic relationship receives reduced sentence</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/01/woman-who-alleged-informant-exploited-romantic-relationship-receives-reduced-sentence/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sun, 07 Jan 2018 03:45:47 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Albuquerque]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Judiciary]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=497845</guid> <description><![CDATA[Jennifer Padilla likely won’t spend a single day locked up in federal prison.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Jennifer Padilla likely won’t spend a single day locked up in federal prison.</p> <div id="attachment_413228" class="wp-caption module image alignleft" style="max-width: 336px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-413228" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/1-Padilla-Profile-FB-336x364-336x364.jpg?x36058" alt="Jennifer Padilla" width="336" height="364" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Courtesy photo</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Jennifer Padilla, shown in spring 2016.</p></div> <p>Under an agreement accepted Wednesday by U.S. District Judge William P. “Chip” Johnson, the 39-year-old mother of five received 24 months behind bars instead of the 10 to 13 years prosecutors originally wanted.</p> <p>Arrested in August 2016 on methamphetamine trafficking and conspiracy charges, Padilla is one of scores of people who were dubbed among Albuquerque’s “worst of the worst” after their arrests in a controversial 2016 undercover sting by the federal bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF).</p> <p>Padilla’s reduced sentence followed allegations she made in court motions that an ATF informant exploited their romantic relationship to lure her into a crime she would not otherwise have committed.</p> <p>NMID independently verified many of Padilla’s claims and laid them out in<a href="http://nmindepth.com/2017/08/23/boyfriends-betrayal-abq-woman-jailed-after-atf-informant-lured-her-into-drug-deals/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> a story co-published with the Santa Fe Reporter on Aug. 23</a>.</p> <p>Since her arrest on Aug. 10, 2016, Padilla has been incarcerated at the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Center – 17 months Johnson credited as time served, leaving only seven months on her sentence. Rather than assign her to a prison or jail cell, Johnson said from the bench during a sentencing hearing on Wednesday that he would “strongly recommend” the U.S. Bureau of Prisons release Padilla to a halfway house.</p> <p>If Padilla were sent to a halfway house, it would represent a return to a familiar setting.</p> <p>It was while Padilla was living in a state-funded, Albuquerque halfway house in 2016 that she met the ATF informant. She had just gotten out of prison for a string of burglaries fueled by her heroin addiction.</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article comes from <a href="http://nmindepth.com/2018/01/04/woman-who-alleged-informant-exploited-romantic-relationship-receives-reduced-sentence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Mexico In Depth</a>. Sign up for <a href="http://nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&id=9294743d38" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">their newsletter</a>.</p> </aside> <p>The two began dating.</p> <p>According to Padilla and her attorney, she and ATF Informant No. 9097 grew close as the couple had sex at the halfway house and he spent time with her five children. He also re-introduced her to drugs, slipping her an Ecstasy pill one night at the halfway house, ending more than a year of sobriety.</p> <p>In late July 2016, the informant told her that he had been robbed and his Florida-based drug dealing partners would hurt him if she didn’t arrange a couple of drug deals to help him earn some quick cash, Padilla says.</p> <p>Padilla grudgingly agreed and called two old acquaintances who allegedly sold meth to ATF agents with the informant acting as a middle-man.</p> <p>Padilla was not present for either transaction and did not negotiate prices or the amounts of meth — facts Johnson noted in court Wednesday as part of his reasoning for accepting the plea deal, which was hammered out late last year by Padilla’s lawyer, L. Val Whitley, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.</p> <p>Johnson acknowledged Wednesday that Padilla’s allegations about the ATF informant’s actions could have led to an acquittal if her case had gone to trial. But, he added, she might also have been convicted and sentenced to a decade or more in prison if a jury didn’t trust her version of events.<span id="more-497845"></span></p> <p>“This was truly a compromise plea,” Whitley, her attorney, said in court. “She made some bad decisions, but she was in a compromised position when this happened. She was very vulnerable.”</p> <p>Wearing a blue jail jumpsuit and recently styled hair, Padilla told Johnson: “I’ve had a rough past few years.”</p> <p>“I was really trying to get my life back together when this happened,” she continued. “I’ve lost another year and a half … It’s just sad and upsetting. I had no intention to do this.”</p> <p>Padilla’s mother and 15-year-old daughter watched from the gallery. Her mother, Denise “Scooter” Sullivan, wiped away tears.</p> <p>After the hearing, U.S. Marshals allowed Padilla, who was shackled, and her daughter to sit across the courtroom railing from one another and chat. The two exchanged a series of emotional grins and laughs.</p> <p>In addition to the 24-month sentence, Johnson ordered Padilla to serve three years’ probation after her sentence ends and to complete mental health and substance abuse counseling programs.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> </channel> </rss> <!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: https://www.boldgrid.com/w3-total-cache/ Object Caching 124/197 objects using Disk Served from: nmpolitics.net @ 2025-03-15 03:06:54 by W3 Total Cache -->