John Bear

Feature

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Every city administration tiptoes on a precarious thin line, balancing public safety against the civil rights of its citizens.

There have been 11 officer-involved shootings this year. Seven of those people have died, and one 19-year-old is at University of New Mexico Hospital in stable condition. On Tuesday, Sept. 14, Chandler Todd Barr tried to get a bus ticket to Oklahoma, according to Police Chief Ray Schultz. Barr grew frustrated, left, and returned with a knife and his wrists covered in blood, the chief says. Two officers confronted him, told him to drop the knife, and when Barr advanced, an officer shot him twice in the chest, according to Schultz. (The Alibi spoke with the director of training at the police academy. Read that story here.)

A few days earlier on Friday, Sept. 10, for the first time in his career, the police chief fired an officer for killing a suspect. Schultz said the shooting, which happened at the scene of a burglary in 2009, wasn't justified. This kind of firing doesn't happen very often. In fact, T.J. Wilham, APD’s public safety spokesperson, says no officer has been terminated because of an unjustified killing in recent memory.

The 2010 spate of officer-involved shootings is on Burqueños’ minds. But what about the situations that don't make headlines, excessive use of force that doesn't result in death? Andres Valdez, executive director of human rights organization Vecinos United, says that's not so rare. "Many times we don't hear about it or know about it."

That’s why citizens are forming a local copwatch, a group that intends to observe and record police activity.

The Catalyst

Liza and Derek Minno Bloom moved to Albuquerque a year ago from New York City. A couple of months after they got here, APD gave the Minno Blooms a shocking welcome to their new home.

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The two were at a Downtown micro bar on Second Street near Central on Oct. 24. A large window faces the street, and through it, they saw a woman being arrested outside. "It was going on for a long time," Liza says.

The recent Albuquerque transplant says she didn't understand why the woman wasn't just loaded into a police car, show over. Liza and partner Derek were involved in protests and community activism in New York City, she says, "so we knew our rights. We knew that we were able to go and observe peacefully from a safe distance."

They went outside and announced their intent to watch the arrest, Liza says. "They kept asking us, Why are you here? Why do you want to watch us?" Liza replied that there are fewer instances of police brutality when people are observing. "We just wanted to be there until she got into the car. I'm sure they were arresting her rightfully or whatever. That wasn't our bone to pick."

Liza and Derek returned to the micro bar—until the woman being arrested was hog-tied, says Liza. "I've never seen that before," she says. "They tied her wrists together and her ankles together and then tied those two together. Everyone in the bar was noticing."

So Liza and Derek headed back out of the taproom. They told the officer he was using excessive force and then were ordered to cross the street, Liza says. She and Derek refused, replying that they were at a safe distance. Patrons came out of the bar to see what was going on. Other officers were called for backup.

Finally, the woman was loaded into the car. As Liza and Derek turned to leave, Liza says the officers shouted at them insultingly. “I told them that was really unprofessional,” Derek says. He says he was pushed up against a wall and then thrown to the ground. "The crowd was like, Let him go!" Derek says. "The cops were stressed, but it wasn't really a riot situation. They just lost all skills of de-escalation and threw me into the middle of the street."

"Everyone is treated with suspicion. Everyone is a potential enemy." Civil rights attorney Joe Kennedy

Derek was arrested and charged with blocking traffic, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, according to court records.

The Arrest

Officer Christopher Maes wrote in his police report that the woman being arrested outside the taproom that night was disorderly. When she was seated in the police car, she kicked Maes with her high-heeled boot, he says, so he pulled her out and put her into what’s known as a Passive Restraint System. This system is used to control someone who is noncompliant and a threat to herself or others, explains public safety spokesperson Wilham.

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As Maes was loading her back into the car, he says, he heard people yelling at officers and saw them stepping into the road in front of northbound traffic on Second Street. "Traffic was forced to stop and remain stopped until the pedestrians were cleared."

He told Derek Minno Bloom to get out of the street about five times, according to the report. "He continued to ignore my commands, and at one time told me, 'I'm peaceful.' ” Maes says he grabbed Derek's arm and told him to turn around and put his hands behind his back, but Derek tried to pull away. Another officer came to assist, and "after several commands, and after Derek trying to pull away several times, we were able to forcefully get Derek to his knees and were able to handcuff him without his cooperation." Maes notes that Derek got a cut on his lip and a scrape on his knee.

About 30 people "that were known to Derek" crowded around, according to the report. "While we were trying to take him into custody, they continued to close distance with us.”

The Belt Tape

Joe Kennedy is the civil rights attorney who represented Derek Minno Bloom. He says Derek's situation was pretty typical of Albuquerque police, especially those Downtown. "Everyone is treated with suspicion," Kennedy says. "Everyone is a potential enemy."

Derek's court case came down to a device called a "belt tape," which officers are supposed to use to record certain interactions. "They claimed to have tape-recorded the interaction between Derek and the officers and were unable to produce it in court," Kennedy says. "That was a big issue in his case, whether he was complying with the officers or not."

Officer Maes writes at the end of his report that his belt tape was tagged into evidence. APD's evidence center sent a letter to the Kennedy Law Firm on Feb. 18 saying the tape was blank. Derek’s charges were dropped and not refiled.

Kennedy says officers consistently fail to comply with the APD’s belt-tape rules. The department demands officers turn on their belt tapes for domestic violence situations, during searches, when a person is resisting arrest and when someone announces they're going to file a complaint. The recordings are often lost, or the recorders fail or officers forget to turn them on, he says, and “unless they get some serious discipline for that issue, they're not going to do it.”

In 2009's annual report from the Police Oversight Commission, Chairman Steve Smothermon recommends that the penalty be more severe for not using belt tapes. He says it would help the commission determine what happened during an incident. This has been an ongoing problem for APD, Smothermon adds, citing a 17-year-old Independent Council report that asked that police be required turn on recorders for all calls. "It is amazing, but since 1993, some things have not changed," writes Smothermon.

In July, APD announced it would switch to mini digital cameras by the end of fall and may include more circumstances on the list of calls that must be recorded.