ALBUQUERQUE POLICE ACCUSED BY DOJ OF USING EXCESSIVE FORCE

In one case, Albuquerque cops fired at a man who yelled ‘Bang, bang’ as they approached him

Cops in New Mexico seem to be living in a different world, one reminiscent of the old wild-west.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ACCUSES ALBUQUERQUE POLICE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE
By Fernanda Santos

The New York Times
April 10, 2014

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — At least 37 times in the last four years, police officers here have responded to threats with bullets, killing 23 people and injuring 14 others. On Thursday, the Justice Department weighed in with a scathing assessment, accusing the Albuquerque Police Department of a “pattern or practice of use of excessive force” that routinely violated people’s constitutional rights.

Too often, the Justice Department said, the officers kicked, punched and violently restrained nonthreatening people, and seldom were the officers reprimanded. Many of the victims suffered from mental illnesses, and some were disabled, elderly or drunk, the 16-month investigation concluded.

“What we found was a pattern or practice of systemic deficiencies that have pervaded the Albuquerque Police Department for many years,” Jocelyn Samuels, acting assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division, said at a news conference here on Thursday.

The Albuquerque police, she said, suffered from “inadequate oversight, inadequate investigation of incidents of force, inadequate training of officers to ensure they understand what is permissible or not.” As a result, the Police Department had engaged “in a pattern or practice of violating residents’ Fourth Amendment rights” and of using deadly force “in an unconstitutional manner,” Ms. Samuels said.

Police departments in several other cities have been targets of similar investigations, also in the wake of accusations of bias, brutality and other types of misconduct. Some cities — including Seattle, Portland, Ore., and New Orleans — remain under federal oversight as they try to adjust to new policies and procedures that took months, sometimes years, to put in effect.

The report on the Albuquerque police did not specifically ask for a federal monitor, but the city’s mayor, Richard J. Berry, has said that he would like to have one appointed to ensure that the department is in compliance with whatever changes are ultimately agreed upon.

The changes called for by the Justice Department — 44 remedies in all — included extensive revisions to the department’s use-of-force policies. The term “force” would be more clearly defined, and officers would have to report to superiors when they used various tactics: chokeholds, kicks, leg sweeps and tackles. Under the recommendations, officers would be trained to rely more on verbal warnings and less on stun guns, and new recruits would be required to undergo psychological, medical and polygraph examinations to assess their fitness for the job.

Also recommended: clearer procedures for handling people with mental illnesses and minimizing the use of unnecessary force against them, as well as an expansion of the number of officers trained to work with them.

The review was prompted by complaints about the department, particularly the fatal shootings. One of he most recent killings was of James Boyd, a homeless man with a long history of violent outbursts and mental instability, who was shot by heavily armed police officers last month and whose death led to street protests and cries for reform.

At a news conference last week, Mr. Berry, the mayor, unveiled other measures, among them hiring a deputy police chief to oversee the implementation of the federal recommendations. Calling Mr. Boyd’s death a “game changer,” Mr. Berry said he wanted all of the Police Department’s field officers to be trained and certified in crisis intervention, which would better equip them to handle people with mental disturbances.

“I’m calling on our legislators to take action as well,” Mr. Berry told reporters, “to craft laws to help individuals living with mental health issues, particularly individuals who have a propensity to do harm to themselves or others.”

The Justice Department report brimmed with examples of police misconduct. Police officers here once fired a stun gun at a deranged man who had doused himself in gasoline, setting him ablaze. Another time, they fired one at a man who yelled, “Bang, bang,” as the officers approached. They have fired one at a 75-year-old homeless man for refusing to leave a bus stop, at a 16-year-old boy for refusing to lie on a floor covered in broken glass and at a young man so drunk he could not get up from a couch.

City officials, mindful that calls for reform were inevitable, had already started to make changes, like mounting video cameras on police officers’ helmets and lapels. One of those cameras recorded the dispute in the Sandia Foothills that ended in Mr. _Boyd’s death. But by releasing the video in the name of transparency, the Police Department also stoked outrage in many residents, setting off protests that brought hundreds of people to the streets in this city of 500,000 — New Mexico’s largest — and, on one day, ended in violence.

Though Mr. Boyd’s death did not figure in the Justice Department’s report, it has been the subject of a federal criminal investigation, and it amplified calls for reform.

The city of Albuquerque has already paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits and will have to spend more to comply with the new remedial measures. Workers for the Justice Department interviewed dozens of rank-and-file officers after the investigation began in November 2012, as well as community leaders and relatives of some of the victims, carrying out an investigation that some people here had been seeking for years.

Often, the Justice Department report said, the criminal background of the victims of excessive force “receives greater scrutiny than the actions of officers,” fostering what victims’ families and civil rights advocates here have characterized as an “us-versus-them” culture that undermined trust in the Police Department.

“Many of us don’t have a great deal of confidence in the mayor and the police chief,” Steve Torres told Ms. Samuels during the report’s release at the United States attorney’s office here. Mr. Torres’s son, Christopher, found to have schizophrenia, was fatally shot by plainclothes officers at his home in 2011.

Later, Kenneth Ellis, the father and namesake of another of the shootings’ victims, an Iraq war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder killed while pointing a gun at his own head, said, “Officers in this city have literally gotten away with murder.”

In a statement, Stephanie Lopez, president of the Albuquerque Police Officers Association, said that her organization welcomed the recommendations. “Change is hard for everyone,” she said, adding that the police force “looks forward to learning and advancing,” using the Justice Department’s guidance and additional training “to make us a better department in the future.”

Any change requires agreement among the Justice Department, city officials and the police union, and Ms. Samuels warned on Thursday that reaching such agreement could take time.

Damon P. Martinez, acting United States attorney for the District of New Mexico, said that despite the “serious constitutional problems” uncovered, the investigation “also has confirmed that the great majority of officers are honorable law enforcement professionals who risk their physical safety and well-being for the public good on a daily basis.”