Ray Schultz....WE'RE WAITING, C'MON DOWN WE SAID!!!

UNRAVELING...

 

It has been a year since Ray Schultz left APD and went to work for Taser International.  None of us knew this until KRQE happened upon Ray in February 2014 and asked him what he has been doing during his retirement. Ray announced to the world that he has been working for Taser, days after retiring from APD and weeks after he helped Taser (he used the word "greased") obtain the largest contract for body cameras in Taser history, $1,950,000 of Albuquerque tax dollars.

 

Because of KRQE's work, he local media also began investigating the Schultz / Taser connection, and by doing such a good job that the Albuquerque City Council could not ignore the questions of corruptions and kickbacks any longer.  Retired APD Sergeant wrote and filed complaints with the AG, the US Attorney's Office, and the State Auditor asking them to look into the matter. Then the city's Inspector General office entered into the fray. All three agencies have confirmed they are looking into the matter. The only two agencies not investigating are the Bernalillo County District Attorney (no surprise here) and the US Attorney for New Mexico (who isn't saying).

 

So what is the status of these investigations?  The Journal comes to us this morning (August 29 2014) with a report where the APD Fiscal Manager, Aubrey Thompson, defended the "sole source" contract for body cameras from Taser.  He denies that the Taser contract violated any city, state or federal regulations.  Thompson states:

 

"There was no comparable product on the market."

 

Really?  Let's help Aubrey out.  The Eye has posted three Department of Justice reports that list dozens of other companies who make body cameras and who provide cloud storage. (note regarding the Hawkes shooting, one of these reports documents a malfunction with Taser cameras where the body cable comes loose).  We also have posted a link to the Wall Street Journal where they have an article that says Taser has direct competition from Vieue LLC, a company that offers everything that Taser offers.  Interestingly this article says police departments should hold off on purchasing as prices are dropping and that most agencies will be able to cheaply set up and manage their own body camera system and storage.  Taser's Evidence. com cloud system is simply storage bought from Amazon.  How is that for Chain of Custody?  APD videos are handed over to a third party (that is not law enforcement, Taser), who then hands over video evidence to a 4th party, Amazon, to store (not law enforcement).  This would be the same as having Costco run the APD evidence room and then Costco contracts it out to Wal-Mart.  APD has lost complete control of lapel camera evidence.  We are waiting for the first defense attorney to ask that APD lapel footage be suppressed because Chain of Custody was not maintained by APD, but by third parties.  It's coming.

 

To add insult to injury, Berry / Perry announced last week that they are going to pay UNM $50,000 to study body camera issues.  What?  I thought Schultz and Audrey thoroughly vetted these cameras and the issues?  That is what they both said.  So what questions have not been answered?  Little things like it takes APD officers at least one hour of each shift to upload footage to third party Taser / Amazon cloud.  That is an hour we lose officers from answering 911 calls.  This is mismanagement of police manpower.  How about citizens privacy rights?  Can a citizen ask an officer not to record?  If they are on private property does the officer have to turn it off if asked?  How about privacy rights for officers?  Can anything uploaded to the Taser / Amazon cloud be released through a public records request?  How about that, you can see your family on the 6 pm news receiving a death notification or maybe that ex spouse who hates you will post APD lapel camera footage of you being interviewed for anything on YouTube.  How secure is the Taser / Amazon cloud?  Russians hack everything in the public sector, if the NSA can't keep their stuff secure why would we think Taser / Amazon can?  Reader, please take the time to post you own questions on this blog.  This will help Aubrey / Berry / Perry and we really want to help them.

 

http://www.abqjournal.com/452623/news/lapel-cam-policy-to-be-put-under-a-microscope.html

 

This is where the house of Taser cards falls apart.  How would Aubrey know anything about the competition, as APD Fiscal Manager, if he didn't allow other companies to present their products?  Why was the APD command staff so scared of the Taser competition that they would not allow any other company to present their product?  Why didn't BERRY / PERRY put a stop to this Taser lapel contract until these questions (that we are now paying $50,000 for) were answered?  What was the rush to get Taser the APD contract?  Is Tasergate in Albuquerque comparable to Redflex in Chicago?

 

There is only one word that answers this question, GREASED.

 

How can Berry continue to say nothing inappropriate occurred with the Taser / Schultz contract and employment.  We haven't even brought up the dance party Taser put on for Schultz and APD pals.  Parties, jobs in retirement, what else did Taser give out to APD personnel to ensure they received the $1,950,000 Albuquerque camera contract?  Richard Berry continues to ignore, but maybe, just maybe those government officials who are supposed to be the "checks and balances" will do their jobs.  We are all waiting. 

 

The Eye has to wonder what Ray Schultz, Allen Banks, Kathy Levy and others had to say on their questionnaires.  We should find out very soon.  What about Godon Eden, what does he have to say about these investigations?  Does he now know who makes APD body cameras?  Oh and what about Redflex?  Are any of these agencies speaking to the Redflex whistleblower who told the Chicago US Attorney that paybacks went on in New Mexico?  Our Eyes are wide open waiting to see what happens next.

 

Here are some links to stories we've referred to in this article....

 

http://online.wsj.com/articles/what-happens-when-police-officers-wear-body-cameras-1408320244

http://www.abqjournal.com/453739/news/apd-defends-lapel-cameras-contract.html

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/8/ferguson-race-policesurveillancetechnology.html

 

 

Ray Schultz.....COME ON DOWN!!!!

"I work with departments to help them limit their liability exposure and limit the amount of internal investigations, law suits and payouts they have to give. I help them save time, money and their reputations by eliminating their frivolous complaints"  --Ray Schultz, Independent Taser Distributor

Well it seems like here in Albuquerque, we're not the land of manana, but the land of reverse.  About a year ago, APD's former and now disgraced chief Ray Schultz inked a deal with Taser International for almost $2 Million. After hooking Taser up with the biggest government contract in the company's history, he then did an early retirement and unlawfully left to work with the very vendor he "greased" the city's checkbook for.

Now we are told Berry and Perry are paying somebody $50,000 to come up with a policy as to what to do with these cameras that Schultz the Sheister sold to us. Of course, that amount of cash (about what it costs to pay a single officer in a year) pales in comparison to the costs in loss of productivity.

You see, our doing things at the speed of business duo running the city, Berry and Perry, have conceded that operating the Taser cameras and managing the data during their shift deprives officers of 15-20% of their time while on-duty. Let's do a little Eye-Math shall we?

An officer works an 8-hour shift at $26.44/hour...that's $211.52 per day, before taxes, for 480 minutes worked. But wait, we have the Taser excise tax, which eats (and we'll split the difference of 17.5%) 84 minutes of the day which is about 1.4 hours. So out of the money our taxes are paying the officers, $37.16 is being spent on a product thanks to RayRay. It may not sound like much but an overhead cost of 17.5% on labor sure should make the kids in the Republican Party lose their mind--after all they, and Berry, are the party of efficiency right?

Oh wait, isn't that what Schultz trying tell us with his sales pitch that Taser-cams save us time and money? Well folks, we don't have to be a UNM professor getting paid $50,000 to tell you we've been robbed. Funny, our Eyes are telling us Schultz has been laying low lately. There must be something coming soon regarding his little pyramid enterprise with Taser and violating laws coming out....


It comes to this folks: So first we're sold a bill of goods, now we have to figure out how to use them, and finally we'll have a policy that governs how they'll be used. Make perfect sense for a city that is the at the bottom of every list imaginable. But where's the outrage? Time to shake off the "it's not worth the effort" attitude and rise to the occasion. We all know "nature at play" is how thing work here, but nature also has a tipping point. Make some noise. And no TJ, we didn't mean that kind of noise.

UPDATE:  Here's a slide taken from Ray Schultz's Taser PowerPoint. Any takers???

 
 

Spining Spinners Spin

In recent days we've heard some bizarre things. While RJ Berry states the city coffers are full of money, it seems Gordon Eden didn't get the memo. He said at last week's council meeting that he didn't have enough in his budget for a much needed academy class to start in October. Just a few years ago, the goal for APD was to have 1,100 officers. Now we're lucky if we even have 900.

Can the mayor, police chief or city council point to a specific study for why APD is supposed to be staffed at 1,100 (that was the number the last 6 years) as compared to the 1,000 we are staffed for now? 

We don't think so but maybe they will surprise us and show they didn't pull this number out of thin air. Why hasn't Eden, Berry or the Council ordered a study and report on APD resources?  Where are the officers assigned?  Do we need 1,000 or with better management and  clear goal as to what APD's mission is will 900 be the number?  If you ask Eden, Berry and the Council do any of them have any idea what APD's mission is?  If so your loveable Eye hasn't heard it.

 

We are confident an outside study of where APD manpower is at will show many sitting behind desks doing jobs that civilians could do better and for less.  A study would clearly show a duplication of effort between APD and APS Police at the area schools.  This amounts to around 40 APD officers who are doing the job of APS Police.  This is a waste of taxpayer money.  Now we know people will scream that they want their children protected, but either put APD in charge of all APS Schools or put APS Police in charge, but having both agencies with officers in schools is a very poor use of APD resources.

 

So go ask Eden, Berry and the Council just what they want APD mission to be.  We bet you get a wide range of lengthy answers that just spin.  Here is what a police department should consider its most important function:

 

Response to citizens calls for assistance.  This is number one.  So what Berry, Eden and the Council should do is study APD resources, let APS Police handle their schools (or bring them under the APD banner like we did with open space).  A breakdown of APD sworn officers should look like this:

 

65 % Field Services responding to citizens calls for help.

 

30% Detectives doing follow up investigations

 

5% administrative (the command staff this includes Lt's) recruiting and training

 

But we don' know why we waste our time.  Albuquerque citizens don't care, they just move away and the folks in power just hire people to spin this debacle instead of fixing it. And pay them even more....

 

We do know this, the staffing of APD is hot issue. Within minutes of Eden stating there was no funding for the October academy class....PRESTO!!!!...in came the Berry Fairy with necessary funding for the class....

--Desert Hawk

Justice Chicago Style

JUSTICE SERVED: Chicago Style or Albuquerque Jerky?

http://www.justice.gov/usao/iln/pr/chicago/2014/pr0813_01.html

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-01-23/news/ct-redflex-red-light-bribery-20140123_1_redflex-holdings-ltd-company-policy-camera-company

This is the link to the US Attorney press release from Chicago regarding the federal indictment of the (now) Ex Redflex CEO and top level Chicago City employees.

Please read the entire release.  Here are some highlights:

Before Bills (city of Chicago employee)  retired, he allegedly made it known to Individual A and other Redflex employees that he wanted a job with Redflex. The indictment alleges that Redflex agents, including Individual A and O'Malley, paid for at least $20,000 worth of personal expenses for Bills, including hotels rooms, meals, golf games, and computers, with the approval of Finley and Individual B, and expensed these purchases through Redflex from 2003 through 2011.

Personal benefits directly and indirectly, including meals, hotel stays, rental cars, and golf outings.

Then the city awarded a new, non-competitive contract to Redflex to operate and maintain the previously installed camera systems:

"The alleged confluence of corrupt local officials and corrupt corporate officers demands a counterweight of local and federal agencies working to redeem the frayed confidence of the public," said Joseph Ferguson Inspector General for the City of Chicago. "The Office of Inspector General is therefore grateful for the continuing leadership, dedication and collaboration of our federal partners in this matter."

"When public officials peddle influence for profit, the consequences are severe, and when corporate executives enable that corruption, the same rule applies. We will attack alleged public corruption from every angle," said Zachary T. Fardon, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Will the New Mexico US Attorney do anything?  The whistleblower says bribes were paid to New Mexico jurisdictions!  The Illinois US Attorney found this credible, why not New Mexico?  There were only two jurisdictions, Albuquerque and Las Cruces (Rio Rancho started around 2012) that contracted with Redflex.  

Being that the retired Albuquerque police chief is under investigation by several agencies for his connection with Taser, you would think that the NM US Attorney would ask the Chicago US Attorney to interview their witnesses.  Reading the excerpts from the US Attorney's press release somethings sound very familiar, non compete bidding,benefiting through meals, hotels and parties, setting up future employment and we haven't even talked about "greasing".

Albuquerque citizens demand the "counterweight" of local and federal agencies to redeem the "frayed confidence" of the public.

The US Attorney for New Mexico must open an investigation into two items to restore Albuquerque citizens confidence in their police department and public officials:

1.  The city of Albuquerque contract with Redflex. Did Redflex bribe City of Albuquerque employees?  Were the yellow lights reduced on purpose to pump up violations and therefore Redflex revenue?  Was this another non compete bid?

2. The city of Albuquerque contract with Taser.   Did Ray Schultz "grease" the Taser contract in exchange for Taser providing him employment?  Did Taser bribe any city of Albuquerque official?  Is Taser equipment defective and / or malfunctioning (as KOB 4 reported)?  Was it illegal to make the Taser contract a non-compete bid?  Was Ray Schultz and other City of Albuquerque appearing on Taser's behalf while still city employees?  Did Taser provide lodging, parties, airfare, gifts etc to City of Albuquerque Police officers (KRQE reported that Taser did pay for a party and they had the proof from a Schultz email). We know of course that Schultz and at least city lawyer Kathy Levy were doing the jig in a San Diego nightclub rented out entirely by Taser.

The citizens have no faith in their local reviewers (Bernalillo county District Attorney, New Mexico Attorney General, Albuquerque Inspector General etc).  The Bernalillo County DA has refused to investigate anything.  The City of Albuquerque Inspector General has been investigating since May 1, 2014, but no one believes this will be a fair and impartial investigation as the Inspector General has never held anyone in the Berry Administration accountable.  The New Mexico AG couldn't even follow up on the Mary Han investigation.

The citizens have no faith in our local government.  Why should they?  They have proven themselves inept or in bed with the offenders.

The US Attorney of New Mexico is the counterweight, WHERE IS HE?  Albuquerque demands Chicago Style Justice!

Here is the contact information to the New Mexico office of the US Attorney:

District of New Mexico - Albuquerque Main Phone:
(505) 346-7274 

 District of New Mexico - Albuquerque Fax Number:
(505) 346-7296

District of New Mexico - Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 607
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102

elizabeth.martinez@usdoj.gov 

PS...We know the cretins running the Albuquerque Journal won't touch this story. Another glaring omission.....

Hiding Behind Walls....

We, we hate to do this to our beloved Ronald Reagan, but with all this talk about walls being put up, we found the enclosed picture of a human bikini whale too "much" to not talk about.

You see, while the "big" walls go up in the mayor's and city's council's office, out come the drones. And in this case it's those ever watching and "wide" spying eyes of none other than TJ. You can see his rather "bulbous" profile in the above picture. Isn't it interesting that while he, Berry, Eden, Sanchez and company hide behind walls, they deploy drones to watch the "expansive" citizenry? One of our Eyes told us some even more interesting information, it seems TJ is sighing a "huge" breath of relief, apparently nobody has figured out anything about that "lost" equipment TJ was stressing over earlier this summer.....

Your loveable Eye would like to call out Richard Berry, Ken Sanchez and Gordon Eden for building bunkers and walls that they hide behind from the public and their employees.

What message does it send to your employees and citizens when you build a fortress? Is this so you don't have to speak, or see the people you serve?  At APD this started when Ray Schultz became Chief of Police.  He immediately built a wall and a series of locked doors on 5th floor of the main police station, where his office is located.  Since APD was in existence police officers and the public could go into the police station and go see the chief with ease.  Not so once Ray Schultz took over.  Apparently the only people who could see Schultz with ease were Nate Korn and the folks from Taser. Or as our Eyes tell us, Schultz's favorite female employees like Karen Fisher or Karen Salzaer.  Everyone else, citizens and police officers, had to stand outside of locked doors and wait to be checked out and buzzed in.  This was the beginning of the "us versus them" mentality between the command staff at APD and their officers and citizens they serve.  And where they tried to stay hidden from the disinfecting light of public view.

It also began the corrupt practices behind closed, locked doors, between Schultz and companies that he was "greasing" city contracts for.  And Berry said nothing.

Flash forward to 2014 and Richard Berry's office.  It has never been easy to see Richard Berry in his office.  After the Boyd Shooting it was hard to even find Berry as his staff said he was in Brazil for eight days on a city taxpayer funded trip.  We found out later that the city taxpayer lost money on this trip because Berry never went.  His staff lied, Berry was out camping, but when asked by the media he said it was off limits.  How can that be off limits?

Now Ken Sanchez and the scared City Council have done the same.  Building barriers to keep the public at bay.  Is this a democracy?  It seems those in power fear those who they represent.

After the peaceful protest earlier this summer, where Berry's CAO and resident bully, Rob Perry mocked and taunted the protestors, Berry has taken a page from the "Us versus Them" playbook of Ray Schultz.  Our Eyes tell us that Berry's office is now a secure fortress.  The mayor's office now has several locked doors that you have to be buzzed through, walls, uniformed guards and undercover officers, all there to make sure no pesky members of the public get in to see the mayor.  It seems citizens holding a peaceful protest, holding Berry's inactions as mayor accountable, have thrown Berry into a paranoid fear of his own citizens.  We have seen this before in history, when public servants fear the very people they are supposed to serve, when those citizens begin asking questions and holding the public servant accountable for bad actions and decisions.

So the Eye, along with the citizens of Albuquerque shout with one voice to Gordon Eden and Richard Berry, "TEAR DOWN THOSE WALLS!"

The Killers Get Away

This has been quite a week for tragedy and drama in the Duke City.

It began with a federal judge apparently putting forward an opinion as if it were written by the city of Albuquerque when it comes to police misconduct. In 22 pages, Judge Garza dismissed six claims against the city stemming from APD's "misconduct" at the suspicious death scene of Mary Han. You're loveable Eye is no legal scholar but given the issues raised in the case, it seems this opinion just opened the door wider to questions rather than putting concerns to bed. The judge basically seems to have said, "Yeah the city is right. Dismissed".  But doesn't that just beg to ask why? Did a killer just get away with murder?

Then we had another shooting involving multiple women. And of course because of Berry/Perry's mismanagement of APD there were few cops on duty to respond so of course the killer got away.


Things here in Albuquerque are starting to line up between those that do no wrong and those that get hammered for doing nothing. And it's time we play a little catch up and start identifying those persons who seem to be the protected class in a city that is at the bottom of the recent 200 economic list, and a state that is at the bottom of every list.....

Goodbye Albuquerque, Land of Violence; Hello Days of Wrath

In case our fellow readers missed this weekend's New York Times Magazine article on our beloved little gem of a city, we thought we'd republish it here. And we thought we'd tip our hand a little bit and say, we had our "eyes" full of it before it was published.  It seems the author was a frequent reader of your loveable Eye. But alas, here it is by former UNM faculty member Justin St. Germain:

TWO weeks ago, in a vacant lot on the west side of Albuquerque, a few teenagers beat two homeless men to death. I read about the attack in a hotel room in Nebraska, en route to a new job, hours after leaving New Mexico for good. I wish I could say the news surprised me. But after three years of living in Albuquerque, I’d gotten used to hearing stories about arbitrary violence, especially against the homeless.

I had a hard time describing Albuquerque to outsiders, who usually knew it only from the TV show “Breaking Bad.” I tried comparing it to Tucson, a city of similar size and climate where I’d previously lived, but that didn’t convey how Albuquerque felt. Other times I’d compare it to the Mission District of San Francisco, with its large homeless population. But neither of those cities prepared me for Albuquerque, the sense of threat, the air as thick with tension as it often was with dust.

The rate of violent crime in Albuquerque is nearly double the national average. The homelessness rate, though harder to quantify, is similarly high. In San Francisco, I was used to homeless people sleeping in every storefront, but they were largely ignored, or, at worst, taunted. In Albuquerque, it was different. The homeless and mentally ill were victimized to a striking degree, even by the very people responsible for protecting them: the police.

In March, Albuquerque Police Department officers shot and killed a homeless man named James Boyd. The shooting wasn’t unusual. Albuquerque police are notorious for using excessive force. They’ve killed 27 people since 2010, and their rate of deadly shootings is eight times that of their counterparts in New York City. The Department of Justice recently released the findings of an investigation that revealed a pattern of civil rights violations, unjustified use of force and lack of accountability. Many of the victims had histories of homelessness and mental illness. The only difference with Mr. Boyd’s death was that the shooting was caught on video by cameras mounted on the officers’ helmets.

The videos, which are widely available on the Internet, show Mr. Boyd saying he’s afraid the officers are going to shoot him. As he picks up his bags, they shoot stun grenades and sic police dogs on him. He draws knives, presumably to defend himself from the dogs, and turns away as if to flee. Then the officers open fire with assault rifles.

Defenders of the Albuquerque Police Department pointed out Mr. Boyd’s history of mental illness and noted that early in the encounter he had threatened to kill the officers. (“I’m almost going to kill you right now,” he said. “Don’t give me another directive. Don’t attempt to give me, the Department of Defense, another directive.”) But it’s hard to watch the video and see anything but sanctioned murder.

A few weeks later, an officer with a history of being accused of using excessive force shot and killed 19-year-old Mary Hawkes, claiming she had pointed a gun at him. His lapel camera yielded no video; after analyzing the device, the manufacturer said it had either malfunctioned or been shut off. She later tested positive for methamphetamine. Less than two weeks after that, officers shot and killed a military veteran with a history of mental health issues and a gun who had barricaded himself in his home. The department later released only a brief segment of video.

Protests erupted in response to the killings, including one I watched from my front porch that shut down Central Avenue for hours, spilled onto Interstate 25 and ended in the early morning, when police shot tear gas into the streets of downtown. Protesters later disrupted a City Council meeting.

At first it seemed as if the rest of the country didn’t much care that a metro area of nearly a million people had become a powder keg. But in the two weeks since the brutal beating by the teenagers, people have started paying attention. They are asking how something that terrible could happen, what kind of place breeds violence like that. The teenagers reportedly confessed to randomly beating dozens of other homeless people in the last year. A police department spokesman, Simon Drobik, has been quoted expressing his horror and lamenting the fact that the police received no reports of the other attacks.

Coming from this department — which has shown how little value it sets on the life of Albuquerque’s most vulnerable citizens — that seems hypocritical. No wonder homeless victims aren’t coming forward, when 

they know what kind of treatment they might receive.

Before seeing the Boyd video, I had frequently called the police because of situations involving the homeless: for the woman I found lying unresponsive in my front yard, the ranting man trespassing on my neighbor’s porch who refused to leave, the drunk who climbed the fence into my back yard at 3 in the morning, lit all the burners on my propane grill, and fell asleep next to it. After the video, I stopped calling. I was afraid they’d show up shooting, and I didn’t want blood on my hands.

If the police officers themselves set an example of violence against the homeless, they shouldn’t be surprised if others follow it.

One Christmas Day, I came home to find my street cordoned off, news vans parked by the abandoned taqueria. A shivering reporter told me that a homeless man had been found dead in the Dumpster, and that it might have been a homicide. I never heard the results of the investigation, if there were results, if there was an investigation.

This June, a truck swerved onto the sidewalk near a homeless shelter and ran over four people sleeping there, killing one and injuring the others. Surveillance footage suggested it was intentional.

Why wouldn’t the people who committed these crimes believe they could kill and get away with it, when the cops keep doing exactly that? (The original story can be read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/opinion/sunday/goodbye-albuquerque-land-of-violence.html?_r=0)

While the nation gasps in what to think of our little gem of a city, we at the Eye are left wondering what if all the other little nasties that our fair city holds were to really brought before the city. You remember those Mr. Berry, Mr. Perry, Ms. Martinez right? You know, things like:

APD's ex-chief's special gig with Taser?

CABQ's CAO's little jaunt's to shooting scenes?

CABQ's Mayor's little gig's with ladies who leave thongs at his office?

CABQ's little lawsuits against its own labor unions?

The murder coverup of prominent civil rights lawyer and foe of APD, Mary Han/

CABQ's scapegoating of its own officers including John Doyle and Robert Woolever?

APD's fabrications and distortion of crime statistics to falsify crime trends for political gain?

APD's in-house walking political operative TJ Wilham (and endless eating el gordo grande)?

APD's coverup of the West Mesa Murders until even Ray Schultz couldn't hid it?

Ray Schultz's continued manipulation of current chief Gordon Eden (watch what your family says Gordo, we got ears everywhere...)