WHAT DOES IT TAKE?

Civil Rights bill will only punish the bad actors

NEW MEXICO Civil Rights Act (HB 4) subcommittee substitution passed out of its final committee and now heads to the House floor for a vote. The substitution addresses concerns about caps on legal fees and financial impacts on public bodies. This is a common-sense piece of legislation, and passage of this bill is an investment in our communities to address known abuses of authority when New Mexicans’ civil rights have been violated.

The Civil Rights Act will provide an incentive for government, public bodies and law enforcement to adopt better policies and procedures that prevent civil rights infractions. This bill is not about attacking police officers but provides a mechanism for bad actors to be held accountable and eliminates the unfair use of qualified immunity, which contributes to public mistrust in government and law enforcement.

This bill is about fairness, justice and equal treatment under the law, and every New Mexican should have their day in state court when their civil rights have been violated. SHARON KING

Albuquerque

We need a crackdown on ABQ’s many criminals

WE ALL know Albuquerque has a terrible crime problem. We are at the upper end of all the bad lists, at the bottom end of the good lists and in the company of other major U.S. crime centers. We had to do a lot of things wrong as a city, county and state to reach this dismal level of public safety in such a relatively short time. Despite recent progress in property crime reduction, we obviously have a long way to go with violent crime.

Over the last seven years we have seen the Metropolitan Detention Center population reduced by half — or more — while the violent crime rate in Albuquerque has nearly doubled. This dramatically and unambiguously illustrates the inverse relationship between jail population and crime. The problem simply stated is way too much crime perpetrated by way too many criminals on the street rather than incarcerated.

The remedy is more arrests, more prosecutions and more incarcerations. I am aware of the arguments against this strategy, which are easily refuted by our actual experience.

I believe Albuquerque could be one of the safest cities in the United States if we were willing to face reality and address crime — all crime — headon and take the criminals off the street. We must not continue to allow criminals the freedom to prey on our law-abiding citizens and visitors. We need a major crackdown on crime that incorporates arrest, prosecution and incarceration. Unfortunately we have been distracted/impeded from these fundamental crime remedies by the ABQ-DOJ Court-Approved Settlement Agreement(’s) use of force (policy), the McClendon Decree (on) jail overcrowding, (the N.M.) constitutional amendment (on) limited use of bond and pre-trial detention and a desire to save money on resources and detention. These distractions have led to de-policing and a systemic failure to protect the general public.

We need to get back to the basics of protecting the public, reducing crime and enforcing the law. These objectives can be accomplished in a constitutional manner and in partnership with the community.

JOE ABBIN Albuquerque

3 picks equal no real choice for APD chief

AND THEN there were three (candidates for APD chief). Chief (Clinton) Nichols comes to us from Commerce City, Colorado. Commerce City has a population of 60,000 and a physical area of 34 square miles. In other words, about the size and population of one of Albuquerque’s nine council districts. How is this a fit?

(Retired) Deputy Commissioner (Joseph) Sullivan is to be commended for his work with the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federation and LGBTQ communities in Philadelphia, but the fact remains that Philadelphia continually ranks high on the list of most racist cities in America.

If interim APD Chief (Harold) Medina was coming from outside APD we would reasonably be concerned about his tenure with a department that has been engrossed in a yearslong supervision by DOJ. However, Deputy Chief Medina appears to be the Hobson’s choice. I guess we should be thankful there are even three still interested in taking a mayoral appointment to a job in which (there) will be two administrative levels, Public Safety Czar and CAO, removed from the mayor who may or may not be out of office by year’s end. ALAN SCHWARTZ

Albuquerque

Time to hold our judges accountable on releases

GOOD EDITORIAL in (the Jan. 24) Journal. However, once again it proves my point that bail reform brought to N.M. in July 2017 by the late Justice Charles Daniels will not work and is the cause of our crime problem. If I may quote a few things from your editorial as proof:

■ “what’s happening on the streets of Albuquerque is distressing” “in-your-face lawlessness” “the woman was released ROR pending trial”

■ “Not surprisingly, (Cisco) CasausAlires is a repeat offender. He was sentenced (in 2018 to supervised) probation”

■ “a testament to how our criminal justice system works — or doesn’t —at the state level”

■ “with an aggressive posture from prosecutors and a public willingness to hold judges accountable”

The key is as you stated — it is holding judges accountable. Right now, judges across the state are daily releasing offenders on nothing but a promise to appear on everything from shoplifting to murder, and we wonder why these same people go right back out and re-offend. Going to jail is no longer a problem for them because they all know it will be a very short stay.

As the only active bail bond agent in Albuquerque, I get the phone calls daily, and I see over and over again a judge releasing career and repeat offenders ROR.

Therein lies the problem. It doesn’t take a lot of brains to figure it out, and regardless of who the chief of police is, the problem will persist, so long as judges continue in what they are doing. Judges have the discretion to set secured bonds, but refuse to, unless you call a $100 bond for a fourth DWI a secured bond. The police can make the arrest, take the offender to jail knowing that the next day he/she will be right back on the street.

As long as bad behavior is continuously rewarded with a free and unsecured release from jail by a judge or pre-trial services staff, the criminal activity is going to continue. There is no incentive for offenders to change their ways, so why would they?

I can tell you from personal experience growing up in a large family, with my dad in the military, that there were swift consequences for any bad behavior. However, it is clear that consequences and accountability are missing in our criminal justice system. The offenders will continue breaking our laws knowing that a judge will just turn him/her right back out.

Finally, it doesn’t matter if John Wayne was selected as the new APD chief, because the police can only do so much. The rest is up to the criminal justice system in N.M. that doesn’t work.

GERALD MADRID Albuquerque

What is the Paseo BCSO building being used for?

IN YOUR editorial of Jan. 23, “BCSO substation in Far NE Heights deserves support” you lay out a strong case for allocating $350,000 for the BCSO to purchase land and design a substation for the unincorporated areas of Bernalillo County in the far Northeast Heights.

However, before receiving or spending any money, I would like the Bernalillo County sheriff and his office to explain why a new substation is needed when the existing substation located at 10401 Holly NE is apparently not being utilized for a separate command for this area.

As a resident of Sandia Heights, one of the portions of unincorporated Bernalillo County that this new substation would cover, I regularly drive past the existing building when driving on Paseo del Norte and can see the Sheriff’s Department Star even from Paseo del Norte. This building is also listed on Google Maps and other sources as being a sheriff’s substation. The current Google Street View images show that the building signage recently included the words “Substation” on the building as well.

Yet my perusal of the Sheriff’s Department website turned up no command or other part of the department utilizing this facility.

So, before the Legislature allocates money to the Sheriff’s Department to acquire land for a new building, an adequate explanation for why the existing building cannot be used for this purpose needs to be made. RON OAKES Albuquerque