BCSO on a bad roll under Sheriff Gonzales
Frequently reckless. Sometimes lawless. Chronically unaccountable. Sadly, all of the above terms apply to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office under leadership of Manuel Gonzales, whose regime continues to unravel with expensive and sometimes deadly consequences.
In the reckless category, Gonzales has taken significant restraints off his deputies, allowing them to engage in many more chases, putting the lives of deputies and innocent civilians at risk. Under a new Gonzales policy the number of pursuits soared from 11 in 2016 to 74 last year. Just this week, a car being chased by sheriff’s deputies caused a wreck involving three other vehicles that injured 10 people. The reason for the chase — the car was reported stolen.
What makes this recklessness so unnecessary is other means by which offenders can be tracked and apprehended, including tracking a suspect vehicle by helicopter.
A chase late last year ended with deputy Joshua Mora — son of Undersheriff Rudy Mora — jumping out of his vehicle and firing into the truck driven by Isaac Padilla. Padilla and a passenger in the back seat, Martin Jim, were both killed.
Jim’s attorney, Sam Bregman, has been critical not only of the chase — saying the stolen vehicle had been tracked by an APD helicopter until it crossed into the county and “the cowboys took over” — but of the fact that it doesn’t appear Padilla and Jim were even given a chance to surrender.
Expensive? The county’s lawyer has already deposited $750,000 in state court to divide up between the plaintiffs in the shooting. The $750,000 is the cap in a state claim but will have no relevance in the federal civil rights lawsuit.
The county can say its offer to settle isn’t an admission of negligence. But, in fact, it is. What it will do is end discovery in the state case, and the federal case isn’t likely to gear up until after Gonzales’ re-election bid in November. Hmmm.
In the lawless category, the former instructor at the academy when Joshua Mora was a cadet said he had pulled Mora and other cadets from a driving course, but that the sheriff and undersheriff showed up at the track to intimidate him.
Gonzales sat in on the deposition of former instructor Deputy Leonard Armijo and incredibly has now ordered an Internal Affairs investigation of Armijo. Bregman has compared Gonzales to a “mob boss” and asked the attorney general to investigate possible intimidation of a witness.
For icing on the cake, the Sheriff’s Office last week cleared deputies who had a run-in with a bunch of motorcycle punks who were harassing the officers by doing wheelies and racing round their car. Video taken by one of the bikers and circulated on social media shows one deputy pulling a gun and pointing it out the window. No question the motorcycle riders were obnoxious, but it’s hard to believe the potential of a motorcycle running into your car is deadly force.
Meanwhile, Gonzales has stonewalled lapel cams for his deputies at every turn. Not only does that promote reckless behavior but emphasizes that no accountability to the public will be tolerated by this sheriff.
Gonzales says there is more video of the motorcycle incident that shows his deputies’ version of events. But he won’t allow it to be released, claiming it would violate “an officer’s right to privacy.” Cleared in secret by secret video.
Leave it to this sheriff to make up exceptions that don’t exist to the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act. If the video exists, and the department had it, it’s a public record unless it fits into another specific exemption. None comes to mind.
The sheriff is an elected official. The County Commission doesn’t have direct control over him. But it’s not without influence over his operation and his budget. Gonzales needs to be reigned in before he costs taxpayers any more money, or somebody else dies or is injured needlessly.