Release two inmates by mistake? Shame on MDC
One man is suspected of shooting a good samaritan to death after that man tried to thwart an attempted robbery outside a New Mexican brunch spot last summer.
The other was awaiting trial for allegedly shooting another person in the face.
Law enforcement officers did their jobs by nabbing the suspects and booking them into the Metropolitan Detention Center.
Unfortunately for the residents of Albuquerque, Bernalillo County and New Mexico, these pillars of society were able get out of jail due to errors by MDC employees.
Matthew Joe, 30 — the prime suspect in the July 2017 death of 36-year-old Jaime Dimas — was in jail on unrelated charges as the DA’s Office put together its murder case. Joe faced stolen vehicle charges and was supposed to be safely behind bars for a year. Instead, he was released May 8, the same day an employee entered the wrong date on Joe’s paperwork, which made it look like he had already served a year.
Luckily, Joe’s freedom was fairly short-lived since U.S. marshals located him in Cibola County, and arrested him Tuesday.
But Duwin Perez-Cordova, who had been in jail since December for allegedly shooting someone in the face, remains on the loose after the jail incorrectly released him June 10. Perez-Cordova fooled corrections officers and other jail staff into releasing him by posing as his cellmate. He was wearing the cellmate’s wristband, groomed his facial hair into a mustache to resemble the cellmate and had even memorized much of the cellmate’s personal information.
It should go without saying that each and every one of us makes mistakes.
The difference here is the consequences of mistakenly releasing an inmate are so much higher — potentially even deadly. Just look at the crimes these two men are suspected of committing: One is accused of shooting someone to death because he tried to stop a robbery, and the other is accused of shooting another individual in the face.
In fact, Perez-Cordova is suspected of committing an armed robbery at a North Valley business hours after he was released.
Releasing one allegedly violent suspect by accident is seriously troubling. But letting two out by accident over two consecutive months? That’s outrageous. And these are only the incidents we know about. MDC officials, after all, didn’t volunteer the fact that a mistake by an employee had resulted in Joe’s erroneous release when news broke about Perez-Cordova being accidentally let out.
MDC Chief Greg Rees needs to get to the bottom of these mistakes and come clean with the public about how, exactly, they occurred and what disciplinary actions, if any, his employees faced as a result of these errors.
He should also let the public know whether these are two isolated incidents or part of a larger, systemic problem at MDC. And if they are part of a larger problem, how he plans to address them as well.
Rees has already announced MDC would be scanning the irises of all inmates as soon as they are booked into jail, and that inmates would have their eyes scanned again when leaving to make sure the right person is being released. As we’ve said before, that’s a good step.
Rees must now figure out whether there’s something MDC should be doing to catch the type of clerical error that resulted in Joe’s release. And while he’s at it, he should conduct a review of all of the jail’s systems to ensure yet another dangerous MDC inmate doesn’t gain his freedom through another mistake.
Ultimately, it’s up to county commissioners to make sure jail operations don’t allow such errors and that those individuals deemed dangerous by the legal system are kept behind bars until they are adjudicated. Law enforcement shouldn’t have to do its job twice.
Bernalillo County taxpayers spend tens of millions of dollars on MDC every year, and they deserve better.