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THE NEW MEXICAN Thursday, June 19, 2014
Shooting: Delay part of national trend Continued from Page A-1 officer’s timetable,” said Taylor, a professor and director of the justice administration at the University of Texas in Dallas. “That’s ridiculous.” He said four days is “too long” to interview officers involved in a shooting because it can lead to inaccurate statements about the incident. Jeffrey Noble, a retired deputy chief with the Irvine Police Department in California, agreed that investigative interviews with officers should be conducted within a few days — primarily to prevent potential collaboration between officers who might want to cover up any wrongdoing. But other experts say there are no hard and fast guidelines, and that officers often need a few days to rest before going into an interview because the shooting can be stressful — which could lead to inaccurate statements. State police have released few details of Villalpando’s shooting and have not said if the teen had a gun. They have only said that Villalpando called 911 on June 8 and reported that a suspicious person around Riverside Drive and Corlett Road was armed and hitting himself with a stick. In the phone call, Villalpando identified himself as “James,” state police said in a statement. When officers arrived at the site, Villalpando “pointed a weapon” at them, and one of the officers fired a single shot, the statement said. The shooting comes amid intense scrutiny over a rash of police shootings in New Mexico, involving the Albuquerque Police Department as well as the state police. In April, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a scathing report criticizing the Albuquerque department for a pattern of police brutality and unnecessary use of deadly force. Because the Department of Justice report has shown New Mexico law enforcement agencies in a bad light, said Thomas Grover, a former sergeant with the Albuquerque Police Department, law enforcement agencies should be as transparent as possible. The Justice Department report doesn’t criticize APD for the length of time it took to interview officers involved in shootings, but it did question the department’s methods of conducting those interviews. APD’s policy was to interview officers two days after the shooting, but sometimes it would take up to a week, Grover said. Grover acknowledged an officer should have some time to rest after a traumatic situation. But “four days is way too long,” he said. “It’s a balancing test of two things. If you do it too soon, the cops are still under the psychological symptoms of being stressed from the incident, which presents barriers in providing a decent accounting of what happened,” Grover said. “But if you wait too long, they’re subject to suggestion and impression about what
happened in the event.” He added: “The more barriers there are to get information on what happened from the officer, the less weight the interview is going to carry.” Patrick O’Bryan, a retired Reno Police Department officer who has nine years of SWAT team experience, said whenever one of his team members shot at a suspect, everyone involved would be interviewed within three hours of the episode. He said New Mexico State Police should have interviewed the Española officers as soon as possible. Other experts said the fourday wait is part of national trend police departments are practicing because studies show a cooling-off period can provide more accurate statements from an officer who shot at a suspect. “The trend nationally is to delay post-shooting interviews for at least 48 hours after the incident,” said Tim Dees, a former police trainer for the Oregon Department of Public Safety. “Although it’s not intuitive, waiting those two days usually produces a much clearer and accurate account of the incident.” John A. Eterno, a former police captain for the New York Police Department, agreed, saying the department had a 48-hour rule, in which police officers would not be interviewed until after that time. “An officer who shots a 16-year-old child and kills that person, it would not be unusual for that officer to be experiencing stress,” said Eterno, now a professor of criminal justice at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, N.Y. “And it would not be unusual for a police department to wait a few days to question those officers.” Alexis Artwohl, a Tucson, Ariz.-based behavioral science consultant to law enforcement departments, said, “There’s really no compelling reason in these very dramatic incidents … to rush to interview them for fear that they might forget some details.” Apart from psychological stress that could delay an officer interview, there are also legal considerations. Like any homicide suspect, an officer has the right to consult with an attorney, and he or she needs to understand their rights before going into an interrogation room, the experts said. Matt Martinez, the head of the Santa Fe police union, said it’s best to reserve judgment on an officer who shot and killed a suspect until a full investigation is conducted. He said such incidents not only reflect negatively on the police department but also affect the whole community. “I don’t think [an officerinvolved shooting] leaves a black eye for the department,” Martinez said. “It leaves a black eye for the entire community, because it hurts the whole community.” Contact Uriel J. Garcia at 9863062 or ugarcia@sfnewmexican. com. Follow him on Twitter at @ ujohnnyg.
Train: 2nd bicyclist to be struck in 2 months Continued from Page A-1 was no safety gate across the sidewalk to block bicycle and pedestrian traffic, and the man continued pedaling along the sidewalk on the north side of St. Michael’s Drive and into the path of the train. Emergency responders rushed the man to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, where medical staff pronounced him dead. The man was the second bicyclist within two months to have been struck and killed by a Rail Runner train. In April, Suzanne LeBeau, 60, was struck and killed near Zia Road and St. Francis Drive as she was getting onto the Rail Trail, which also has no crossing gate. There are no safety gates at any pedestrian rail crossings in the city, such as sidewalks and trails.
The hat the unidentified bicyclist was wearing when the train struck him. COURTESY PHOTO
At the time of LeBeau’s death, bicycling experts questioned whether a crossing gate in front of the trail could have prevented her death, but they also questioned the cost of such measures. Local bicycling safety expert Tim Rogers said he expected that issue to be raised again in light of the most recent fatality. The New Mexico Department of Transportation has stated that it has investigated the LeBeau incident, and it hasn’t decided yet if gates are needed at pedestrian crossings.
King: Pollster says AG handled episode well Continued from Page A-1 after King’s primary victory, saying he wanted to “spend more time with his family.” Verzwyvelt resigned after a conservative Washington, D.C., online publication published an article about several controversial, sophomoric tweets Verzwyvelt had authored in recent years, many of which were potentially offensive to women. In announcing Verzwyvelt’s resignation Tuesday, King said, the tweets in question were “not up to the standards of what I expect from my employees and in direct conflict with my own beliefs of tolerance, respect and decency.” When considering Verzwyvelt, King said, the campaign did a “standard background check” and asked him if he had anything in his past that might be embarrassing.
Asked why the vetting didn’t include Verzwyvelt’s social media accounts, King said, “I try not to dictate the private life of any staff member.” King also noted that Verzwyvelt has managed several campaigns in the past, “and this never came up.” Verzwyvelt’s Twitter account has been made private, apparently after The Washington Free Beacon was able to view it and take screen shots of several controversial tweets. A Facebook account of a man named Steve Verzwyvelt was visible Wednesday only to his Facebook friends. Albuquerque pollster Brian Sanderoff said Wednesday that King handled the Verzwyvelt situation well. “He moved quickly and decisively,” Sanderoff said. “This is a minor embarrassment that he’ll learn from.” Unfortunately for King,
though, Sanderoff said the episode played into Martinez’s narrative about King — that he’s the wrong candidate for women. The governor’s most recent campaign ad attacks King over three former female employees who sued him for gender discrimination. (Two of those cases were settled, while one, not mentioned in the ad, was decided by a judge in King’s favor.) It’s not good for King to have to deal with front-page newspaper stories about his dismissal of a campaign manager, Sanderoff said, adding that the Verzwyvelt debacle is an indication of one of King’s major problems: Lack of funds. “Campaigns with financial stability have fewer problems,” Sanderoff said. “With financial stability, a campaign could have afforded to vet a new campaign manager properly.”
The most recent campaign finance reports showed Martinez had $4.2 million in the bank a few days before the primary. King had about $75,000. Martinez’s strategy is using attack ads to define King before the Democrat’s cash-strapped campaign can define him for itself, Sanderoff said. King said his campaign is trying to move ahead. On Wednesday, it released a statement in which King endorsed raising the minimum wage to $10.10 — and idea Martinez opposes. But his campaign apparently doesn’t have the money to run ads about the issue. Contact Steve Terrell at sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at www. santafenewmexican.com/ news/blogs/politics.
Crowded: Influx began in October 2013 Continued from Page A-1 Children began backing up in already overcrowded Border Patrol stations. Eventually, the Border Patrol began flying them to Arizona, where it set up a massive processing center in the border city of Nogales, where reporters also were granted access Wednesday. From there, the children are sent to private shelters or temporary housing at barracks on military bases in California, Texas and Oklahoma. The tours were a shift from previous weeks, when the government refused to provide basic details about the location of the facilities. But the tours also came with restrictions, such as no interaction with children and no on-the-record conversations with employees. Inside the Fort Brown station in Brownsville, dozens of young boys were separated from dozens of young girls, with many lying under blankets on concrete floors. Mothers with children still younger were in another cell. Happier faces could be found in a side yard just outside the station. There, young children colored pictures under a camouflage tent. A group of about a dozen girls of perhaps 5 or 6 sat under another tent outside the shower trailer, dark hair wet and shiny. Women wearing blue gloves combed each girl’s hair. Tables held stacks of clean blue jeans, T-shirts and toiletries. Deeper into the yard, teen girls kicked
A young boy bows his head in a holding cell the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s placement center in Nogales, Ariz., where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed. ROSS D. FRANKLIN/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
a soccer ball and tossed a football with workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In Nogales, girls playing soccer with two male border agents shrieked when
their ball crossed over the chain-link fence and away from the small recreational area covered by a white tent. Others playing basketball cheered on their teammates. But inside, the approximately 1,000 children in the clean, 120,000-square-foot warehouse were silent. In a roomy area with teenage boys, a large, high-definition TV playing the World Cup went largely ignored. A small group of boys in that fenced-in area played soccer. But most lay on tiny mattresses and covered themselves with thin, heat-reflective blankets that look like aluminum foil. Chain-link fences 15 feet tall and topped with barbed wire separate the children by age and gender. Federal agents said they could not provide an estimate of the number of minors at the facility because the figure is fluid as children transition in and out. Authorities in Nogales have struggled to adjust to their new role as temporary caretakers. For example, it took a few days of children rejecting breakfast burritos before agents learned that Central Americans aren’t accustomed to flour tortillas. FEMA renegotiated its contract with a food vendor to begin receiving corn tortillas instead. The children are fed three times a day and take turns by group to use the 200-seat dining area.
Redskins: Some say issue not important Continued from Page A-1 Native Americans beginning in the 1960s,” wrote Administrative Trademark Judge Karen Kuhlke in the Wednesday ruling. The decision reignited a bitter debate among New Mexican tribal leaders and tribal members, with some praising the decision and others saying it’s not important. “The term itself is a reminder of the historically traumatic incidents and only objectifies and disrespects an entire ethnic group,” Dinée Dorame, an Albuquerque native and former president of the Association of Native Americans at Yale University, said in an email. Dorame, who is doublemajoring in history and women’s gender and sexuality studies at Yale, added: “The U.S. Patent office’s decision is certainly not the end of the fight. However, it serves as a very serious threat to Dan Snyder [the owner of the Washington team] and his organization. It is a long overdue decision, but has been celebrated today by Native people as one more step towards a society that respects its Indigenous people.” Even federal lawmakers have jumped into the debate, with some signing onto a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to change the team’s name. “The U.S. Patent Office took a positive step today toward the goal of changing the Washington, D.C., football team’s name,” U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said in a statement. “Racism
and bigotry have no place in professional sports. Our tribal communities have always enhanced New Mexico’s rich culture and traditions. It’s past time for the football team to change its name.” But other American Indian people say teams with racist names are the least of their concerns. Officials with Santa Clara Pueblo said it isn’t that they don’t think the NFL team’s name isn’t offensive, but they prefer to spend time discussing more important issues. Edward Calabaza, a spokesman for Santa Clara Pueblo, said tribal officials declined to comment because they’re focused on more pressing concerns. For example, he said, the pueblo has dealt with natural disaster recoveries and sees that as a priority over the NFL team’s name. “In the grand scheme of things … they’ve got worries about the Santa Clara Canyon [which has suffered from forest fires] and the growing expenses,” Calabaza said. “There’s just more important matters right now.” In fact, there are some tribal members who don’t see the team’s name as offensive and want national American Indian advocates to focus on other issues, such as health care access for Native people. ReGina Zuni, a former Isleta Pueblo council member who is running for a seat this year, said tribes across the country are still suffering from lack of health care and from water and land issues — and the team name shouldn’t be a focus. “This is what you want to pound your chest and highfive and call victory over?”
asked Zuni, a tribal legal advocate who proudly said she’s a Washington Redskins fan. Meanwhile, the team plans to file an appeal to trademark the name because federal courts in the past have ruled in favor of the team, said Bob Raskopf, the team’s trademark lawyer. “We are confident we will prevail once again, and that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s divided ruling will be overturned on appeal,” Raskopf said. “This case is no different than an earlier case, where the board canceled the Redskins’ trademark registrations, and where a federal District Court disagreed and reversed the board.” The board’s Wednesday decision is similar to a 1999 ruling, which was overturned four years later, after it was appealed. But if the appeal ruling stands in the current case, it means any organization can legally use the team’s name, patent lawyers say. In the meantime, the team can continue to use the name with trademark protection until an appeals court reviews the decision. “But I don’t know why anybody would want to continue to use this mark,” said Diane Albert, an Albuquerque-based patent and trademark attorney. “As a business sense, why would you? It’s generating so much negativity.” Some Native American advocate groups have used social media campaigns to pressure the NFL team to change its name. For example, the National Congress of American Indians, a Washington, D.C.,based group, for years has
protested the use by professional sports teams of Native American logos or names that it considers racist. The group has recently targeted the NFL team because some say the term redskins is derogatory toward American Indians. Just before the Super Bowl, the group produced a YouTube video titled Proud to be, in which it shows footage of various Native American cultures across the country. “Proud, forgotten, Indian,” the narrator says in the beginning of the video as images of young and older Indian people appear. Toward the end of the twominute video, the narrator says, “Native Americans call themselves many things. The one thing, they don’t … ” and a clip of a Washington Redskins helmet appears next to a football. The YouTube video was shortened to a minute for a TV advertisement, which ran in certain cities June 8, during halftime of Game 2 of the NBA Finals. “It is a great victory for Native Americans and for all Americans,” Amanda Blackhorse, one of five petitioners in the lawsuit, said in a statement to The New York Times after the trademark board’s decision.”We filed our petition eight years ago and it has been a tough battle ever since. I hope this ruling brings us a step closer to that inevitable day when the name of the Washington football team will be changed.” Contact Uriel J. Garcia at 986-3062 or ugarcia@ sfnewmexican.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ujohnnyg.