krqe/2014/10/30/city-doj-to-make-apd-announcement/ ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – The U.S. Justice Department and Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry’s administration have reached an agreement for sweeping reforms related to officers’ use of excessive force and ineffective oversight at Berry’s troubled Police Department, KRQE News 13 has learned. The agreement, known as a consent decree, is expected to be revealed publicly during a news conference at the local U.S. Attorney’s Office on Friday, News 13 has learned. No one who spoke with News 13 on Thursday could confirm specifics of what would be in the agreement, which will be filed in federal court. In July, the Justice Department and Berry’s administration agreed to eight areas within APD that would be reformed. Elizabeth Martinez, an assistant U.S. Attorney and spokeswoman for the local office, sent out a news release just after 6 p.m. Thursday saying federal and city officials would make an announcement regarding APD at 1:30 p.m. Friday. The release said Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Vanita Gupta would be in Albuquerque from Washington, D.C., Friday and would attend the news conference. The release did not mention the consent decree. Martinez did not return telephone calls or text messages seeking comment. A spokeswoman for Berry declined to comment on the substance of Friday’s news conference. Families of some of the people shot by APD officers during the past half-decade have been invited to attend a meeting with federal officials 30 minutes before the news conference. And community stakeholders have been invited to another meeting right after the public event. This week, DOJ officials have held several meetings related to APD reform — with the American Civil Liberties Union, local civil rights lawyers, community groups and others. The feds have been cagy at those meetings, offering little in the way of detail about a timeline for the unveiling of the consent decree. The broad strokes of what’s expected to be in the consent decree were revealed this summer. That’s when APD and the Justice Department announced they had agreed to clean up: APD’s tactical units; its training; Internal Affairs investigations and the investigations of citizen complaints; APD’s use of force policies; the way city police interact with people living with mental illness and other disabilities; the management and supervision of the department; the way the department engages with the community and citizen oversight; and the recruitment and selection of officers. That announcement followed a 16-month DOJ investigation into Albuquerque police that found parallel patterns of excessive force by officers and a culture among department leaders of turning a blind eye to it. APD officers have shot more than 40 people since 2010. Twenty-eight of them have died. Reached by telephone Thursday evening, Renetta Torres, whose son, Christopher, was shot and killed by an APD officer in 2011, said she had not been told whether the DOJ and city leaders had reached a consent decree. Whenever they announce it, though, let’s hope it’s a hard-hitting consent decree,” Torres said. A federal monitor will oversee the city’s implementation of police reforms. In other cities, consent decrees have included accountability mechanisms that would penalize those cities for not complying with DOJ-mandated reforms. In many cases, those penalties have been monetary. Non-compliance costs aside, changes to police departments in cities such as New Orleans and Seattle have cost millions of dollars. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has been conducting an undisclosed number of criminal investigations into individual APD shooting cases. Unrelated to the civil investigation that led to the consent decree, those probes could result in indictments against officers. News 13 reported last week that charges are unlikely in the March fatal shooting of homeless camper James Boyd. It is unclear where other criminal investigations stand. News 13 will be covering the news conference with live streaming and social media. Get updates by downloading the KRQE app and sign up for email and text alerts.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 15:23:24 +0000
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