APD has a BIG Leak

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This just in: (31July12 @ 1740 hrs) ONE OF OUR EYES HAVE SPOTTED "PERCY WILHAM" AT A LOCAL STREET CORNER! THE EYE IS STILL TRYING TO VERIFY RATHER THIS IS ACTUALLY LOCAL PERSONALITY TJ WILHAM OR SOMEONE WHO FAVORS HIM AN AWFUL LOT!

Percy Wilham??? Former PSO, Darren White??? or ???

For many years, the Albuquerque Journal’s crime and police beat was covered by TJ Wilham (or Todd Wilham as he’s also known). TJ broke many stories against the Albuquerque Police Department including the beating of New York surgeon Vincent Moss to false arrests made by APD Special Investigations Division car technician David Young to KOB cameraman getting beat up to the infamous “Red Light” cameras. Mr. Wilham held the position until he was hired by then Public Safety Director Darren White upon R.J. Berry’s election as Mayor in late 2009. Jeff Proctor took over Mr. Wilham’s position and has since covered the Journal’s crime and police beat.

Mr. Wilham continued to act as Mr. White’s PIO until early 2011 when the Mayor’s administration found out he leaked information concerning text messages between Mayor Berry’s PIO, Chris Huffman-Ramirez and APD Officer Byron “Trey” Economidy after Officer Economidy’s shooting incident. For reasons unknown Mr. Huffman-Ramirez was texting Officer Economidy directly during the night of Officer Economidy’s shooting incident with Jacob Mitschelen. But it seems Mr. Wilham had an ace up his sleeve as while there was a flurry of talk about Mr. Wilham’s termination, he in fact got promoted. He went from being a Public Information Officer, “Special Projects Coordinator.” Mr. White shortly thereafter self-destructed and was fired as the city’s Chief Public Safety officer.

We at the Eye wonder what exactly “Special Projects Coordinator” means. Aside from its sinister overtones (“Special Projects” is something the Nazi’s were fond of using to describe the indescribable…)and the fact that Mr. Wilham makes as much as an APD lieutenant at $32.57/hour, what exactly is Mr. Wilhelm doing? We know that Chief Schultz has become fond of Mr. Wilham’s loyalty, despite the fact Mr. Wilham has gone from APD critic to APD fan in the course of one pay check. If a better paying job were to come down the food line, would Mr. Wilham realign his loyalty? We know Mr. Wilham has gone with Chief Schultz to the chief’s favorite casino at Ruidoso’s Inn of the Mountain Gods (information courtesy of some of our Eyes). We also know that many of our other Eyes report that Mr. Wilham is the consummate tag-a-long always present on the 5th floor, engorging himself to whatever food is available. But what does he do? Mr. Wilham is supposedly assigned to the Emergency Operations Center. Mr. Wilham has no experience, no knowledge, and no skills relating to emergency operations. However, if he was hungry and one stood between him and a burrito, we’re sure there’d be an “emergency” situation. But our Eyes tell us Mr. Wilham is mostly involved in commuting between places and hitting take-out wherever you can. As the pictures here below reveal, Mr. Wilham has done very well for himself as a public servant! How is it Mr. Wilham can go from consummate critic of APD to Chief Schultz’s biggest fan? Our friends in the media tell us nobody is a bigger snag in satisfying Inspection of Public Records Act requests than Mr. Wilham, something we find ironic given Mr. Wilham’s previous profession. Our Eyes tell us the 5th floor is sitting on a video that makes the Blume incident look tame (and our legal Eyes tell us the Blume incident was indeed reasonable and justified). So far, Mr. Wilham has banked over $38,000 in income for his year to date work. It seems Mr. Wilham’s current assignment is to take notes and brief the Mayor Berry’s police chief on the latest issues. And given his predisposition for continuing to leak information….

Is He Just a Monkey?

Albuquerque City Councilor, Ken Sanchez, is calling for the replacement of Mayor Berry's Chief of Police, Ray Schultz. Sanchez claims the chief should be elected every four years just like the mayor. According to Sanchez, the full City Council may have a change to vote on this proposal next month.

Councilor Sanchez, who is at the forefront of this attack, has also thrown his name in the hopper to run for mayor. A mayor needs to control and have control of his top administrators; especially the Chief of Police. Sanchez appears to be frustrated but he is acting foolishly by making outlandish statements. This will not gain him any votes; it will only cause people to speak under their breath and talk about how foolish this attack really is. It would be more prudent to encourage the voters to pressure the Mayor to correct the problems and issues in the police department.

Sidebar
Here is a prediction from the Eye; this proposal from Sanchez will fail. This council vote only buys Berry and Schultz a few more months to “skate” on by.
End Sidebar

Berry is just as guilty as Schultz when it comes to all the problems that have plagued APD. Sanchez should be placing the pressure where it belongs; with the mayor. And for those political jesters like Brad Winter, they too have the blood of the citizens on their hands. Backing a mayor who refuses to correct a clear and obvious problem because he is the same political party is just rubbish. It is time for the voters to put these problem councilors out along with this mayor.

What do you think? Is Schultz a simpleton and nothing more than Berry's monkey who does what he is told or is he a washed up hag who needs to leave?

Give us your thoughts?

Pay to Play Alive and Well

About a year ago, then city of Albuquerque Public Safety Director, Darren White, exerted his position as the city’s highest ranking law enforcement official at the scene of an accident involving his wife. Not that a husband shouldn’t be concerned if his wife is possibly injured, but when you are responsible for overseeing the operations of the very agency responding to your spouse’s care; one would expect a little bit of discretion. After all, the appearance of any impropriety by and of itself is enough to influence any objective investigation towards that of favoritism. Kind of like how Chief Schultz says the appearance of police misconduct is itself police misconduct.

We’re not saying that Darren White did indeed influence the investigation by now deceased Officer Al Walck, but we are saying there are times when because of your title and it means you don’t get all the rights a regular citizen has. In the case of what occurred with PSD Darren White, he should not have ever even arrived on scene and should have respected his position and waited for an update. It’s clear the scene was handled in a way much different than it would have been for any other citizen because of Mr. White’s presence. Mr. White then paid the price for this incident by “resigning” from his position with the City of Albuquerque.

But Mr. White did not have to worry about employment for long. His friend, Dan Mourning (of Capo’s restaurant on Lomas NW) quickly arranged to have White hired as Director of Security at Expo New Mexico's struggling Racino. Then, and as broken by the Eye, Mr. White was then promoted to “Project Manager” of the renovation of the casino located at the Expo. Despite not having any professional experience or a contractor’s license, Mr. White was given authority over a multi-million project. Now our Eye’s tell us, Mr. White is now the general manager of the entire Racino facility. We at the Eye are curious about this because aside from the obvious question “When does it end?” we wonder what Governor Martinez is thinking given Mr. White’s track record of quitting, resigning and failure.

As Governor Johnson’s Secretary of Public Safety, Mr. White was the focus of numerous no-confidence votes and objections by rank and file officers of the New Mexico State Police and the New Mexico Department of Corrections employees. In the midst of a total inability to manage his position (Mr. White redefines the term “overpromotion”) Mr. White then abandons Governor Johnson under the false assertions of protesting the governor’s decriminalization of marijuana campaign. Mr. White then rallies the Republican votes and is able to earn the position of Bernalillo County Sheriff. But again, he flirts with abandoning this position to run for Congress whereby he is solidly trumped by rookie politician Martin Heinrich by over 11 points. Shortly upon returning as sheriff, his department is stung by a class action lawsuit whereby the county had to pay millions because Mr. White’s authoriezed is deputies to seize funds illegally. Again with too much liability threatening him, Mr. White then abandons it again in favor of a position given to him by the new mayor of Albuquerque: RJ Berry. While Mr. White oversees APD, and oversteps his authority at the scene of his wife’s accident and again at the suspicious death scene of prominent lawyer Mary Han, Mr. White stirs up so much controversy that once again he abandons Mayor Berry.

Now Mr. White is the General Manager of Expo New Mexico's Racino. In the midst of an unfolding pay to play scandal that rivals the allegations against Governor Richardson, Mr. White is front and center of one of the State’s largest expenditures of public funds. Given that Mr. White's only gambling management experience is dropping a quarter in a slot machine and handling (or mis-handling) of the public's money, given that Mr. White's only construction management experience is putting a new roll of toilet tissue on the dispenser and the deconstruction of public safety agencies, we at the Eye have to ask; "Really???"

Today is Friday, July 20th,2012…anybody want to bet Mr. White will NOT be in the same position this time next year?????

Where's "Two-Face" Schultz?

It’s become all too obvious that when there are controversies challenging APD policies and directives initiated by Chief Schultz, he’s seldom to be found to address those issues as, well, chief. In recent days, stories and allegations have surfaced regarding possible overpayment of retention bonuses to senior officers (our Eyes tell us that it is all but impossible to find any officers who has more than 19 years of experience within APD as so many are retiring as soon as possible). Our Eyes tell us these amounts are in excess of $500,000. Did Schultz receive this bonus? Where’s Schultz? Then there was a recent SWAT call-out where upon its initiation there was an officer involved shooting. This primary detail was omitted in APD’s press releases concerning the incident. Where’s Schultz? In the aftermath of the virtual destruction of the house SWAT softened and made entry on, APD and the City through its Criminal Nuisance Abatement Unit employed pressure upon the elderly owners to repair the house or face fines and penalties. Where’s Schultz? Over a year ago, there was the “Bringing Albuquerque Home” campaign to spend sparse public funds to survey and assist Albuquerque’s sizable homeless population to find residency. Now, APD promotes the arrest of homeless throughout the San Mateo and Downtown corridors. When asked about the sudden reversal in policy…again, Where’s Schultz?

However, we do notice when it comes time to lay blame on others or to boost himself, Chief Schultz cannot get in front of the cameras fast enough. In just a few weeks, one of Chief Schultz most public and controversial incidents will conclude. This case is the labor hearing involving former officer John Doyle. If you recall, Mr. Doyle was terminated by Chief Schultz (no DCOP Banks, it’s not the city of Albuquerque who terminated him) after a seemingly endless, and multiple, internal investigation stemming from Mr. Doyle and Mr. Woolever’s arrest of wanted violent fleeing felon, Nicholas Blume.

Initially, Chief Schultz said the force used by Mr. Doyle and Mr. Woolever was “of great concern.” Despite the fact that a chain of command of some of his most experienced officers had confirmed Mr. Doyle’s use of force as necessary, that it was consistent with training provided by APD’s police academy and it’s SOPs. While disturbing to the casual, and uninformed observer (and apparently the editors at the Albuquerque Journal), instead of backing his officers in their arrest of an armed, violent, resisting, and wanted felon, Chief Schultz “…immediately ordered a criminal investigation.” In the hours following Mr. Doyle’s final meeting with the chief, Chief Schultz grandstanded his termination of two officers who had apprehended one of APD’s most sought felons with minimal harm and under more dangerous circumstances where other officers have shot suspects. But knowing this, Chief Schultz oddly asserted it wasn’t what the officers did that led to their termination, it was what they didn’t do: search the subject. “The last thing they should do is turn their backs on the suspect,” Chief Schultz boasted to the Jeff Proctor of the Journal. We wonder if Chief Schultz watched the same video as everybody else? Prior to Mr. Woolever even getting his handcuffs out and on Blume, Doyle immediately stops his use of force. This cessation of force shows Mr. Doyle was in complete control and had a focused effort to do one thing: Assist Mr. Woolever in getting Blume in custody. Mr. Woolever then bolts from Blume and bends over in distress. At this point Mr. Doyle goes to check on his partner who appears winded from the experience of fighting with Blume. Mr. Doyle continues to check on his partner and then pats him on the back which somehow gets grotesquely twisted and promoted as a “belly-bump.” Mr. Doyle then goes back to Blume.

Chief Schultz apparently forgot there is one occasion when you leave a suspect, and that is to render aid. In other words, that is to provide back up to your partner or a citizen in distress instead of remaining focused on a suspect. But the irony of all of this is that it was Mr. Doyle who obtained the video from the hotel’s surveillance system. It was Mr. Doyle who agreed to waive his constitutional rights in order to be transparent during the criminal investigation. Incidentally, it wasn’t APD’s Violent Crimes Unit that did the investigation, it was Sgt. Ryan Buckner from APD’s Intelligence Unit who had promoted the apprehension and violent nature of Blume in the first place.

However, as much as Chief Schultz wants to omit and forget things that reveal his role and his awareness of this and all of the other controversial events facing APD, one cannot dispute this fact. Chief Schultz knew about how badly Sgt. Buckner wanted to catch Blume, he knew Blume’s history, and in fact he congratulated Mr. Doyle and Mr. Woolever’s efforts as the memo below reveals.

How does Chief Schultz transgress from telling the officers, "Great Work" to "You're Fired!" Is Shultz acting "two-faced" or is this a political act?

Mr. Doyle’s labor hearing commences August 1 at the city’s administration hearing office (the old SID building on Randolph SE). Any and all officers are encouraged to attend this public hearing in support of two officers who did the right thing when it needed to be done.

Happy 4th of July Albuquerque; 236 Years of Freedom

236 years ago today, the Declaration of Independence was signed.

We hope all realize the price of "freedom" is very high. We salute the men and women who have served and/or are currently serving in the armed forces.

Lives were lost and people were injuried in order for the U.S.A. to gain its freedom. For those who have made the ultimate sacrifice; we would like to thank them and for the families of the deceased, we thank you for your loved one's sacrifice and for defending our Country.

If you see one of the men and/or women who serve our community, this includes military, police, fire, rescue and medical personnel; tell them THANK YOU FOR THEIR SERVICE TO US AND OUR COMMUNITY!

May GOD bless the greatest Country known to all;

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!