City: Former APD Officer Stole $700 From Man He Arrested

By Jeff Proctor, Journal Staff Writer

A former Albuquerque police officer stole $700 from a man he arrested for drunken driving, according to an investigation conducted by the city's Independent Review Office.
The officer, who has not been named, initially agreed to cooperate with the office's investigation. But on the day he was to take a polygraph, the officer resigned.
"It is my finding that this officer stole the money, then lied about it in a statement," Independent Review Officer Jay Rowland told the Police Oversight Commission last week.
The commission voted unanimously Dec. 9 to uphold Rowland's findings and sustain the complaint filed against the former officer.
But APD Chief Gilbert Gallegos disagrees, saying there wasn't enough evidence to say the former officer was guilty.
APD Deputy Chief Paul Chavez could not be reached for comment on the case.
The allegation stems from a Feb. 28 traffic stop, according to the investigation. During the stop, the officer took $700 from the driver's pocket and threw it in his squad car, the investigation found.
"There was another officer present, and that officer did see some money," Rowland said.
The former officer arrested the man and took him to the now-closed Prisoner Transfer Station— a building Downtown where police took offenders to be processed before taking them to the Metropolitan Detention Center on the West Side.
When he was released from the West Side jail, the man refused to sign a property list because it did not contain his $700, the investigation shows.
The man filed a complaint with the POC in April, and investigators found he had cashed a check on the day he was arrested for about $3,000.
He spent money on attorney's fees, a paint job for his car and liquor at an Albuquerque bar, the investigation shows. The leftover $700 was money he owed his mother.
The man passed a polygraph test that asked whether he had money on him when he was stopped, the investigation shows.
In an interview, the officer denied stealing any money and agreed to take a polygraph. Shortly after the interview— sometime in May— the officer resigned.

APD Racial Profiling Allegations Continue

aturday, December 11, 2004

APD Racial Profiling Allegations Continue

By Jeff Proctor
Journal Staff Writer
The Albuquerque Police Oversight Commission says accusations of racial profiling have not ceased.
The commission voted unanimously Thursday to direct the city's Independent Review Office to send a letter to APD Chief Gilbert Gallegos, asking him to look closely at whether biased-based policing is practiced by the department.
According to APD's procedures, officers are not to target individuals based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation or economic status.
"If APD does not practice it, we need to find a way for them to not be accused of it so often," said the Rev. J. L'Keith Jones, a commission member. "Their standard needs to be upheld, and the mayor's task force needs to be upheld."
Mayor Martin Chávez created the 18-member task force in March to determine whether biased-based policing occurs within the city.
The commission has dealt with numerous instances of alleged profiling, most recently on Thursday, when it considered a complaint filed on behalf of Essa Dalloul.
In May, Albuquerque police detained Dalloul, then 20, for more than two hours at Coronado Center after mall security guards saw two Middle Eastern men praying outside. However, Dalloul was not one of the men praying, according to an Independent Review Office investigation.
The officers didn't arrest Dalloul, but when they checked his identification against a national database, a notice appeared to contact the FBI, the investigation shows.
Officers also detained several "Arab" people inside the mall who said they knew Dalloul and asked them for ID, the investigation states.
Initially, Gallegos told the officers not to talk about the reasons they called the FBI, and he also refused to be interviewed by the Independent Review Office. Gallegos and the officers later cooperated.
Gallegos and Independent Review Officer Jay Rowland determined there was not enough evidence to say the officers used racial profiling, so they did not sustain the complaint. Dalloul could not be reached for comment.
"I agree that racial profiling takes place, but, in this case, it sounds like the officers got it straightened out after they discovered they had the wrong guy," said Commissioner Michael Cook, who along with five other commissioners upheld Rowland's decision.
And though Jones also agreed to not sustain the complaint, he issued a stern warning: "We need to address this, and the chief needs to address this, or as long as our military is in Iraq, we're going to have a steady stream of cases coming before us with members of the Arab community."

We Got The Camera: CopWatch Starts Patrolling Albuquerque

For Immediate Release:

We Got The Camera: Cop Watch Starts Patrolling Albuquerque
Email: Copwatch505 (at) riseup (dot) net

In response to incidents of police brutality a group of Albuquerque
residents have banded together to change the way police treat people. They
will soon be hitting the streets with bright orange shirts, knowledge of
the law, and video cameras aimed at local police.

Cop Watch seeks to change the ways in which police treat youth of color,
homeless people, and the public generally.

Cop Watch is hosting a training on how and why citizen monitoring of police
behavior is a good idea, how to be safe and effective, and what your legal
rights are when dealing with the police.

Inspired by the community cop watching patrols of the Black Panther Party
and the Brown Berets, the Cop Watch movement has grown in recent years to
include several groups across the country. The goal of CopWatch is to
change the behavior of the police, and in some cities, they have. In
Phoenix, AZ, police are now trained to always behave as if they are always
being filmed and watched by citizens. This was not part of their training
until Phoenix Cop Watch began patrolling.

Houston Cop Watch member Heather Ajani says that Cop Watch has changed
police behavior in cities like Phoenix and Houston. “When they are being
filmed, police are more polite and respectful of people they are
detaining, questioning, or apprehending.”

The impetus to start civilian patrols of the police in Albuquerque came
from a series of meetings that Vecinos United and other community based
organizations were having with victims of police brutality. Vecinos United
organizer Andres Valdez was part of the campaign which pushed the city to
create a Police Oversight Commission four years ago.

Now he says that the POC, lacking independence and authority has proved to
be “pretty much a rubber stamp for the police and they regard it as a
joke.” Valdez says that Cop Watch will be good because “Now we have to do
as much as we can for and by ourselves.”

Many victims of police brutality fear lodging formal complaints with the
city and say that police have engaged in intimidation to silence them.
Cop Watch hopes to change this by educating people about their legal rights
and working with community organizations to bring about justice.

The day long training session will be on December 4th at 929.5 4th St SW,
starting at 9:30 am. The training is free to the general public, but no
public or private law enforcement officers are allowed to attend. Coffee
and meals will provided. Those who need childcare should notify the
organizers. Those who wish to attend should RSVP by email or phone.

Weak Link in Police Oversight

Letters to The Editor, Albuquerque Journal

HAVE YOU EVER wondered why police get abusive and unprofessional and why they mistreat those that they are paid to serve and protect? From my experience, it appears that the police chief encourages them by supporting them and defending them, no matter how wrong they are.
Two officers came on my property looking for someone else and I was kicked in the back. The officers refused to identify themselves, so we took their picture in order to document their identity. We requested a supervisor and the sergeant that came out did not even want to interview us. She only wanted to speak to the officers. ...
I filed a citizen's complaint and Internal Affairs (APD) tried to investigate. When I found out that their decision would be final, without my having a right to appeal, I demanded that the independent review officer handle the investigation.
Jay Rowland's office conducted a cursory investigation and found in favor of the police. Out of a total of 13 witnesses, plus an additional three police officers, Rowland's office interviewed only two of the officers and only three witnesses in order to reach a conclusion.
I appealed this decision to the Police Oversight Commission (POC), which, at Rowland's recommendation, voted not to hear my appeal. I appealed this decision to the chief administrative officer for the city and he decided that my appeal should be heard.
I presented my case and the POC found in my favor and overturned Rowland's findings. They found that the officers used excessive force, acted in an unprofessional manner and violated standard operating procedure by refusing to provide me with their names and badge numbers. I felt vindicated.
Now, I've found out that the police chief will not accept the POC's decision and instead continues to back his police officers. ... It's quite evident the chief does not respect the POC and will back his officers, even if their actions are wrong.
The City Council has made changes to the POC ordinance to strengthen it. May I suggest one more change, the police chief!
JAIME A. GALINDO
Albuquerque

Ex-City Cop Won't Be Retried on Sex Charge

Journal Staff Report

Bernalillo County prosecutors say they will not seek a retrial for a former Albuquerque police sergeant charged in 2001 with molesting a child.
Mike Garcia, 47, was tried last month, but the jury deadlocked on the most serious charge of criminal sexual contact with a minor. Jurors voted 11-1 in favor of acquittal.
Jurors acquitted Garcia on a lesser charge of tampering with evidence.
Deputy District Attorney Lisa Trabaudo this week filed papers to drop the sexual contact charge against Garcia, saying the victim in the case did not want a retrial.
Mary Han, Garcia's attorney, applauded Trabaudo's decision Thursday.
"I know the district attorney is not going to regret doing this," Han said. "I'm grateful that Lisa Trabaudo made the right decision."
Garcia, an 18-year veteran of the force, had been a supervisor of APD's school resource officer program.
He was fired in October 2001 shortly after he was indicted by a Bernalillo grand jury for inappropriately touching a 12-year-old girl who was staying at his family's Albuquerque home. He was fired less than two years before retirement.

Complaints Against APD Are On Rise

By Jeff Proctor, Journal Staff Writer

Citizen complaints against the Albuquerque Police Department are on the rise, according to a report compiled by the city's Independent Review Office.
The report also concludes that APD and the district attorney's office need to deal more swiftly with cases that involve police shootings and possible criminal wrongdoing by officers.
A record 25 citizen complaints were made to the Albuquerque Police Oversight Commission in June, bringing the yearly total to 136, according to the quarterly report.
The 220 complaints filed last year were the most in the commission's five-year history, and Rowland is convinced that record will be broken this year.
However, the rising volume of complaints doesn't reflect negatively on APD, said Independent Review Officer Jay Rowland.
"It means citizens have more faith in the system and they're more willing to come forward for resolutions," he said. "These complaints have (been) shown to benefit the department. This is what oversight is all about."
For example, the POC for months was inundated with complaints about inadequate staffing, medical care and other shortcomings at a prisoner transfer station, Rowland said.
The station was closed March 10 after an inspection by Rowland and an APD Internal Affairs commander.
Though the citizen complaint portion of the oversight process has improved each year, cases involving police shootings and officer wrongdoing are taking far too long to be resolved, the report shows.
Those cases begin with an APD criminal investigation, then go to the DA and Internal Affairs before Rowland reviews them.
Rowland said he knows of at least eight cases that are backlogged at APD and the DA's office, some of which have been pending longer than 18 months.
Several months ago, the POC sent letters to Mayor Martin Chávez and the DA's office requesting police shooting cases be dealt with faster, Rowland said.
Since then, the DA's office has completed five cases and sent them to the POC, he said.
Commissioners and police recently began researching ways to speed up cases involving criminal wrongdoing by officers, he said.
"We're starting to gather information about which cases are pending (with APD) so we can keep the system moving," Rowland said.
The POC has resolved 99 of this year's citizen complaints; 37 are pending, according to Rowland's report. In 17 cases, the oversight commission has sustained the complaint.
APD has disciplined 94 percent of the officers in sustained cases, the report shows.
Last year, officers were disciplined in 87 percent of sustained cases, as compared with 58 percent in 2002 and 60 percent in 2001, according to the report.

Muslim Mallgoers Detained by Police

By Olivier Uyttebrouck, Journal Staff Writer

Members of Albuquerque's Islamic community said police practiced racial profiling on Sunday by detaining eight people for up to two hours at Coronado Center.
Essa Dalloul, 20, said an Albuquerque police officer stopped him about 6 p.m. in the mall concourse, placed him in handcuffs and made him sit on the floor for nearly two hours before releasing him.
"I felt kind of embarrassed and humiliated," Dalloul said Friday at a news conference at the Islamic Center of New Mexico. "I just went shopping, and I find myself on the floor in handcuffs."
Albuquerque Police Department Chief Gil Gallegos said officers were summoned by mall security after two Middle Eastern men were seen praying outside the mall. Dalloul, who was not one of the men praying, was cuffed and detained for about 45 minutes, he said.
"He was not arrested and he was not mistreated," Gallegos said of Dalloul. "There was no racial profiling."
Police have remained on heightened alert since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said.
"We responded to (mall) security's call," he said. "Doing anything less would be a disservice because of security concerns since 9/11."
Ahmad Assed, Dalloul's attorney, said the report of Islamic men praying near the mall did not justify police detaining and cuffing Dalloul, an Albuquerque resident and U.S. citizen.
Muslims pray five times a day and the two men had found a grassy place near the mall to pray, Assed said. Police brought the two men into the mall but did not cuff them, he said.
Five of Dalloul's friends and relatives asked police why they were holding Dalloul, Assed said. Police responded by seizing their identification cards until about 8 p.m., he said.
"We strongly recommend that (Albuquerque police) make an effort to educate its personnel on Islamic practices and that it make an effort to reach out to our Islamic community," board members of the Islamic Center said in a written statement.