Community members at a Sept. 17
speak-out at Albuquerque’s Main Library called for an end to New Mexico’s high
rate of killings by police.
Speakers expressed particular
outrage at the disproportionately high number of young people being shot.
Police shootings have claimed 14 victims mostly under the age of 35 since 2008.
Signs with pictures of victims
Eric Fuentes, Alan Gomez and Kaitlyn Arquette were placed along the stage.
Attendees held a moment of silence for the victims and their families, and
their names were announced with calls of “Presente!”
Quoting a judge, one sign read:
“Albuquerque Police Department training methods are designed to result in the
‘unreasonable use of deadly force.’”
Rey Garduño, the sole City Council
member in attendance, said: “This is what democracy looks like. We’re connected
and we know what struggle is like. Struggle brings us together,”
Calls to investigate the police
department have been largely ignored by Mayor Richard Berry and Police Chief
Ray Schultz. “The mayor vetoed the resolution passed by the City Council, but
we have the power to undo it,” Garduño said.
“I want to thank ANSWER New
Mexico, Veterans for Peace, the Martin Luther King Jr. Task Force on Social
Justice, folks who have taken it on for many years and aren’t afraid,” he
continued. “We can’t let them see that we’re afraid of them, because we’re
not.”
Activists who have been demanding
an external, objective investigation of the police department noted that
two-thirds of the shooting victims are Latino. “They disproportionately affect
Hispanic men,” Dennis Montoya, League of United Latin American Citizens
district director, said.
Montoya maintained that the
shootings are not spontaneous, but occur because of a widespread culture of
covering up misconduct and corruption within police departments all over New
Mexico.
In addition to the high number of
shootings in Bernalillo County, police have shot civilians in areas with high
Native American and Latino populations across the state, like Valencia and
Socorro counties.
In the Albuquerque Police
Department, there is a “kill rather than capture mentality,” Jewel Hall,
president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Task Force on Social Justice for Public
Safety, said. “Their expectation is that certain people with certain economic
standing are a target.”
ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and
End Racism) New Mexico organizer Joel Gallegos said: “When people are denied
important things like a living wage, this denies our dignity as human beings …
this denial can lead to crime. What is a crime? Desperate people struggling for
food, clothing, shelter, some with mental illnesses.”
“There are more of us out there
than the people who hold us in a steel cage, in shackles, and dangle the law in
front of us,” Gallegos concluded.
Applause swept the meeting for
Mike Gomez’s organizing efforts and endorsing organizations for tighter police
control. Gomez is the father of 22-year-old victim Alan Gomez, who was shot in
the back while holding a spoon in May 2011. “There was a missing police report
from the shooter, and parts of the police tape were missing,” he said. “There
is corruption in the APD.”
The Martin Luther King Jr.
Memorial Center video “They Didn’t Have to Die” was presented at the meeting.
“There are so many alternative ways it could have been worked out,” Steve
Torres, father of victim Christopher Torres, said on the video.
“Police lie about what you say
during the report,” Sylvia Fuentes, mother of victim Eric Fuentes, said.
Fuentes spoke to the audience
about the media’s questionable coverage of events and minimizing of police
brutality in their reports. Dennis Montoya pointed out that one of the victims
of police violence was tased 18 times.
Andres Valdez, with Vecinos
Unidos, explained: “The system ran them down, the families that tried to
organize. The problem has been every mayor and police chief since we’ve been
organizing against police brutality. We need people to stand up for human
rights. Police need to be prosecuted with battery and aggravated assault.”
Only sustained community action,
as with the recent demonstrations initiated by the ANSWER Coalition leading to
the arrest of two Fullerton, Calif., police officers, will press police and
judges to stop the epidemic of police brutality and unjust executions.
