Head of police union retires from S.F. force
Sergeant’s departure comes amid probe into controversial online posts
More than six months after his inflammatory Facebook posts about Muslims, African-Americans, women and illegal immigration triggered a Santa Fe Police Department internal affairs investigation, Sgt. Troy Baker has retired, a department spokesman said Tuesday. The spokesman, Greg Gurulé, said in an email that Baker, who recently was placed on restrictive desk duty, is no longer working as a police officer and his retirement under a contract with the city is effective Thursday. The departure of the 22-year department veteran and head of the city police officers’ union apparently brings to a close a simmering controversy over Baker’s suitability to serve as a law enforcement officer, one that reemerged earlier this month after the country was shocked by racial violence in Charlottesville, Va., where a man
plowed his car into a crowd of people protesting against white supremacists, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19 others.
Among Baker’s offensive Facebook posts, which were published in February by the Santa Fe Reporter, was a cartoon image that depicted a car running over protesters, under the headline “All lives splatter,” an apparent reference to the Black Lives Matter movement that seeks to draw attention to police shootings of African-Americans.
“Nobody cares about your protest,” a caption read. “Moral of the story .. Stay off the road!!”
Baker had told the Reporter the post was a joke. “We don’t need to be running over people intentionally,” Baker was quoted as saying, “but people shouldn’t be blocking roadways either.”
A day after the Charlottesville incident, Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales told The New Mexican there should be “no acceptance” of Baker’s behavior.
Days later, police Chief Patrick Gallagher announced that he had put Baker on restricted desk duty after internal affairs investigators made the chief aware of a “new item” that had come up during their investigation. The city has not provided specifics about that new information and appears ready to keep records of the probe from public view.
Gurulé said the city will not release any records of the internal affairs investigation that the police chief launched in February. He said personnel rules prohibit the release of records of internal affairs investigations, despite the state attorney general’s stance that municipalities may release such records.
It wasn’t the first time that Baker had come under scrutiny. In July 2011, then-City Manager Robert Romero upheld then-Chief Ray Rael’s recommendation to fire Baker and another officer over allegations they falsified reports about a scuffle with a man arrested in a Wal-Mart parking lot who made allegations of police brutality. But the two officers were allowed to remain on the job after an external review board reinstated them three days later.
The New Mexican that year reported that Baker was the second-highest paid city employee in 2010. Then in charge of the department’s bomb squad, overtime pay had pushed his annual earnings to more than $120,000.
Online city payroll records show Baker’s current base salary as a sergeant is about $69,500.
Baker did not return a voicemail message left Tuesday evening, and attempts to contact officials with the Santa Fe Police Officers Association were unsuccessful.