Santa Fe New Mexican, Sept. 8, 2014

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Broncos fend d off Luck Luck’s surge, beat Colts in season opener Sports, B-1

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Monday, September 8, 2014

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Arab League chief issues call to arms

In U.S. cities, police forces short on Hispanic officers

As Obama prepares U.S. plan, leader says members should confront militants. PAGE A-3

Officials say lack of diversity breeds mistrust

Border Patrol: Leave it to pros

By Eileen Sullivan and Jack Gillum The Associated Press

Coordinating law enforcement is challenging with extra agencies on the border. PAGE A-9

WASHINGTON — The killing of an unarmed black 18-yearold by an officer in a nearly all-white police department in suburban St. Louis refocused the country on the racial balance between police forces and the

Mystery no more Scientists discover the driving force behind moving rocks in California.

communities they protect. But an analysis by The Associated Press found that the racial gap between black police officers and the communities where they work has narrowed over the last generation, particularly in departments that once were the least diverse. A much larger disparity,

however, is now seen in the low number of Hispanic officers in police departments. In Waco, Texas, for example, the community is more than 30 percent Hispanic, but the police department of 231 fulltime sworn officers has only 27 Hispanics. Across the United States, there are police departments

Please see SHORT, Page A-10

Police guard the entrance to City Hall in Anaheim, Calif., as demonstrators gather in July 2012 to protest the deaths of two Latino men in 2012. While more than half the community is Hispanic, only 23 percent of the sworn police officers are. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO

Desfile de la Gente brings community together

PAGE B-5

Critics rushing to judge Rodella I

Group seeks less opaque government, elections Common Cause issues new call for improved transparency, financing By Steve Terrell The New Mexican

t’s hard to be unfair to Sheriff Tommy Rodella of Rio Arriba County, but his critics are pulling it off. They say Rodella should resign from office because the federal government has charged him with violating the civil rights of a motorist by pistolwhipping him, then lying about Milan what hapSimonich pened in the Ringside Seat arrest report. Rodella says the charges are false and he will be exonerated in a trial. Rodella, 52, has a long and ugly record in public life. When he was a state police officer, his own department said he fixed traffic tickets. Later, the state Supreme Court removed him as a magistrate judge for misconduct and barred him from ever again seeking a judicial office. Now, as a lame-duck sheriff with less than four months left in his term, he faces federal criminal charges for his alleged attack on the motorist in a case of road rage. Few see any reason to stand up for Rodella. But all of us should stand up for due process and fundamental fair-

Signs of Santa Fe employees and friends sail along the parade route Sunday. LUKE E. MONTAVON/THE NEW MEXICAN

Annual Historical/Hysterical Parade entertains with variety of entries By Robert Nott The New Mexican

P

irates, a headless crocodile, an Elvis impersonator and two Zozobras descended upon the downtown area as the annual Desfile de la Gente — commonly known as the Historical/Hysterical Parade — took place Sunday afternoon. More than 120 floats and vehicles took part in the procession, which ran 90 minutes and attracted crowds standing two- and three-deep along some parts of the route. Waiting on the curb on Palace Avenue just off the Plaza, an excited 7-year-old Kristin Edwards said this was her first parade, and she expected to see “tricks.” Across the street,

Please see RINGSIDE, Page A-9

6-year-old Bella Griego said she likes the parade because “there’s gymnastic people.” That there was, as cheerleaders and gymnasts from the two big public high schools and other educational facilities performed baton tossing, volleyball maneuvers and other athletic antics. School floats and marching bands made up much of the procession and were a hit with onlookers. Being that it is an election year, there were plenty of politicians in the parade, most of whom rode in snappylooking vehicles flanked by walking supporters distributing candy. Actually, nearly everyone in the parade gave out candy to happy kids holding out bags, buckets and baskets as if it were Halloween. New Mexico Attorney General and

gubernatorial candidate Gary King, a Democrat challenging Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, played a Dixieland jazz number on a clarinet as he walked the length of the parade. On Alameda Street, King was met with an almost equal mix of cheers and boos. “All right, King, go get her!” one man yelled. Almost immediately afterward, another man shouted, “We’ve got Susana! Get out of here!” While a cynic could despair at the number of businesses showcasing their services with less-than-colorful floats, the crowd certainly didn’t mind when Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Santa Fe employees handed out free cans of cold soda along the route. The parade was created decades

A group that long has advocated reforming campaign finance laws and strengthening laws related to government ethics is launching a $200,000 advertising campaign in the state to draw attention to the issue of money in politics. Common Cause New Mexico is calling on voters to sign what they’re calling the “New Mexico Pledge.” It states: “I pledge my support for solutions that address the harmful impact of money in politics, increase transparency in our government and help get our state focused on big issues that impact us all.” “The modern campaign system is broken and prevents elected officials from solving big problems,” said Viki Harrison, executive director of the state’s Common Cause chapter, in a news release. “While the vast majority of elected officials in New Mexico are hard working and ethical people who want the best for our state, candidates must raise an egregious amount of money to run for office. What’s worse, outside groups with sometimes little interest in the good of our state spend millions of completely undisclosed money to try to influence our votes. This makes candidates dependent on big funders and makes it difficult for New Mexicans to have their voices heard.” Among the specific “solutions” Common Cause is calling for: u Improving disclosure in elections, including a clear definition of coordination between campaigns and

Please see SEEKS, Page A-10

Please see DESFILE, Page A-10

Today Mostly cloudy; storms possible. High 81, low 56.

A safer world through disease mathematics ABOUT THE SERIES The Santa Fe Institute is a private, nonprofit, independent research and education center founded in 1984, where top researchers from around the world gather to study and understand the theoretical foundations and patterns underlying the complex systems that are most critical to human society — economies, ecosystems, conflict, disease, human social institutions and the global condition. This column is part of a series written by researchers at the Santa Fe Institute and published in The New Mexican.

Index

Calendar A-2

I

n the fourth grade, I read Eventually that led me Richard Preston’s contahere, to the Santa Fe Institute, gion thriller The Hot Zone where I am fortunate enough and became fascinated with to be able to pursue my interthe idea that an organism so est in epidemiology in an small as to require a powerenvironment where ideas ful microscope to view and combine continually into usesophisticated tests to discover ful new ideas. could wreak such havoc. Epidemiology is the study Ben This fascination led me to of the patterns and causes of Althouse study pre-med at the Univerdisease in populations of indiScience in a sity of Washington. There, I viduals. This population-level Complex World fell in love with the beauty approach is what makes it difof mathematics and was ferent from medicine. While delighted to discover that I your doctor’s primary concern is the well-being of the patient sitcould combine these passions, viruses ting in her office or lying on her operatand mathematics, to model the spread ing table, the epidemiologist’s concern of infectious diseases in populations.

Classifieds B-5

Comics B-12

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Crosswords B-7, B-11

Life & Science B-5

El Nuevo A-8

is the general well-being of the population. Of course, the two professions work hand in hand (the physician’s recommendation to her patient to quit smoking is based on population studies of tobacco use), but each is focused on fundamentally different scales and processes. Just as the physician and the epidemiologist have complementary but different jobs, infectious disease epidemiology (what I study at the Santa Fe Institute) concerns itself with problems and processes distinct from that of classical, or chronic disease, epidemiology. A hundred years ago, Sir Ronald Ross, a British physician and army offi-

Opinions A-11

PAGE B-4

Pasapick www.pasatiempomagazine.com

Aziz Ansari Stand-up comic, 7 p.m., Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco St., $35, 9881234, ticketssantafe.org. More events in Calendar, A-2 and Fridays in Pasatiempo

Please see SCIENCE, Page A-9

Sports B-1

Tech A-12

Time Out B-9

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Two sections, 24 pages 165th year, No. 251 Publication No. 596-440


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