Judge questions reversal of officer’s dismissal
City has appealed decision by the personnel board
A district court judge ruled that Albuquerque’s personnel board will have to explain to him why it overturned the chief of police’s decision to fire former officer Jeremy Dear.
Second Judicial District Judge Clay Campbell was considering an appeal from the city of Albuquerque, which was trying to reverse the city’s personnel board’s decision to reinstate Dear, an officer who was fired after an audit found he didn’t use his on-body camera on many encounters with the public.
For nearly two years, Albuquerque has been fighting to fire Dear, who also shot and killed 19-year-old Mary Hawkes, and keep him from working as a city police officer. The shooting led to a lawsuit and continues to create controversies for the department. Recently, its former records custodian filed a sworn affidavit in the case that accused officers of deleting or editing video from the Hawkes incident and other shootings.
City Attorney Jessica Hernandez said the city was pleased with the judge’s ruling.
“The city always had significant concerns with the personnel board’s decision,” she said. “The city believes it had good cause to fire Jeremy Dear and we’re pleased the board will now have to give an explanation to reinstating an officer with this type of record.”
Police Chief Gorden Eden fired Dear
in December 2014. Eden said that Dear was given an order to record all encounters with the public, but an investigation found Dear often didn’t make recordings on calls.
Dear, who started working for the police department in 2009, shot and killed Hawkes in April 2014. During his time as a police officer, he had a high number of use-of-force instances and civilian complaints made against him, and was disciplined for violating an order and wearing hard-knuckle gloves, according to city documents.
Thomas Grover, Dear’s attorney, appealed the termination to the city’s personnel board.
Grover argued that Dear hadn’t been given a specific order to record all encounters with the public and that there was no specific policy stating the department’s expectations for how often police officers should make recordings.
Grover could not be reached for comment on Wednesday about the judge’s ruling.
The personnel board voted 3-2 in November last year to reverse a hearing officer’s recommendation and give Dear his job back. Former board member Lee Peifer said during that hearing that the city had no standard for acceptable compliance with the on-body camera policy.
Campbell, in his ruling, ordered the board to provide to him within 60 days an explanation for its decision to overturn Dear’s conviction, including informing him of what specific evidence the board used to reach its decision.