- Ringside Seat: Berry’s bunker mentality fails to fix police situation - By Milan Simonich Blatant bullying is the latest tactic of Albuquerque Mayor Richard J. Berry’s administration now that two of his police officers have been charged with murder. Berry’s staff declined to allow a senior member of the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office into a command briefing last week after police officers shot and killed a man. This happened just one day after District Attorney Kari Brandenburg filed murder charges against two other Albuquerque officers in the March shooting of a mentally ill homeless man who had camped illegally on a mountainside. Berry’s administration couldn’t have been clearer or more misguided in the message it sent in freezing out Brandenburg: Rock the boat by charging our officers with murder, and we throw you over the side. If you’re not backing us every time somebody complains about police brutality, we don’t want you around, even if you are the chief law enforcement officer of the county. If ever a city needed a tough-minded prosecutor’s staff to review police shootings, it is Albuquerque. The U.S. Department of Justice said last year that Albuquerque’s police department has a pattern of using unnecessary force, including deadly force. The city then promised reforms and improvements in a legal settlement with the Department of Justice. Albuquerque police have been involved in some three dozen shootings since 2010. Many were so questionable that the federal government finally intervened. Brandenburg and then-state Attorney General Gary King wasted years doing nothing about police abuses. Critics of Brandenburg said she was part of the festering problem. Now, cops on the beat and the suits in City Hall argue that she has a conflict in reviewing police cases because she is trying to convict two officers of murder. Like her or not, and many police do not, Brandenburg has a job in which she is supposed to make independent findings, not necessarily agree with Berry or his officers. Every police shooting has to be judged on its own set of facts. Neither Brandenburg nor anybody else ought to assume that an officer is in the wrong because other cops have cracked heads when they simply could have snapped on the handcuffs. Police, like the people they arrest, deserve a presumption of innocence. That said, they should not be immune from prosecution in criminal court just because they’re cops. If Berry is committed to cleaning up his police department, he cannot exclude Brandenburg from the supposedly thorough investigations of officer-involved shootings that he promised the Department of Justice. There are some good police officers in Albuquerque, and what’s happening is especially tough on them. They know that many of their co-workers have a well-deserved reputation for being anything but peace officers. More important, good police know they are accountable to the public. They expect scrutiny from prosecutors. But if Berry and his staff continue to take a bunker mentality against Brandenburg, nothing will improve. Sunshine is the best disinfectant for the Albuquerque Police Department. So Berry and his staff need to re-establish a working relationship with the district attorney. If she can’t make her case against the two officers she’s charged with murder, police can gloat all they want. They shouldn’t, though, because there’s nothing to celebrate, no matter how this case ends. The shooting death of the homeless camper, James Boyd, was an unnecessary tragedy. Berry has been in charge for five years, a period in which police shootings and abuses have caused the public to lose confidence in his officers. Now Berry’s police department wants to run roughshod over the district attorney. He can stop the latest misconduct, if he cares to. Ringside Seat is a column about New Mexico’s people, politics and news. Look for it in Monday’s print edition. Follow the Ringside Seat blog at santafenewmexican. Contact Milan Simonich at 986-3080 or msimonich@sfnewmexican.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 05:57:35 +0000
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