What to do about this horrific
chaos has to be the primary focus of every citizen. Do we try and fire the
mayor thus causing and creating more problems to the chaos he has already
created? Do we try and push a completely useless City Council to do their jobs?
Do we take to the streets like a bunch of wild buffoons and commit civil
disobedience? Do we go out and buy a gun and start carrying it strapped to our
sides and take the law into our own hands? The frustration among the citizens
is horrendous.
Albuquerque is a magnet for every
criminal in the country because we have the worst run city and police
department in the USA. Proof, well, we don't have to look too far. Just last
week here in Albuquerque, an ex-national news anchor was forced at gun point
from a motel parking lot back to her room. In the end a gun battle ensued and her
husband was shot several times and the offender was killed. Oh, and the
offender; he wasn’t from Albuquerque he was just here visiting and abducting
women at gunpoint to rob them.
Every single day we all hear it;
there was a shooting in the NE Heights, one person dead. An accomplished high
school student killed in a drive-by. Body found under a slab in a field on the
Westside. The murders in Albuquerque are out of control due to an extremely
poor run city and a negligently run police department. We wonder if the FBI is
going to help out and find at least one of these murderers. We already know the
FBI has assisted APD on employment personnel matters.
Most recently in today’s
Albuquerque Journal (READ IT HERE) the featured story is APD’s response time to
911 calls. The story starts out by stating, “More violent crimes, More 911
Calls, Fewer cops.” The bottom line is; when a citizen calls for the police
because they have an EMERGENCY they will not see a cop for at least 10 minutes
and 43 seconds. A lot can happen in 11 minutes but why would Berry or Chief
Eden care? Eden is pulling down $158,000.00 a year to provide the citizens with
the worst possible service. Berry is sitting around daydreaming about being
Governor.
“I think the (police) chief has us on the
right track,” Mayor Richard Berry said in an interview. Mayor Berry in his
traditional incompetent manner is promoting further incompetence. APD
spokesperson Celina Espinoza stated in part concerning 2014 911 calls, “and
those cases require a lengthy police response.” Why would any call ‘require’ a lengthy
police response? It is an emergency call
for help; people need police assistance immediately. Incompetence invites and
encourages more of the same. City
Councilmen, Ken Sanchez, stated he is “very concerned.” And according the Union
vice president, “Nobody’s proud of it,” said Shaun Willoughby, the vice
president of the Albuquerque Police Officers Association. “In a Priority 1
call, 45 seconds is the difference between life and death.” But the story did
not say the Union was doing anything to help out either. There was nothing in
the story that stated Willoughby is standing by officers by putting on a
uniform and hitting the streets to assist on 911 emergency calls. All of this is cheap talk from a bunch of
cheap politicians.
Here is a statement concerning Gordon
Eden; “Police Chief Gordon Eden previously said he has shuffled officers’
assignments to get more police officers in the field. Earlier this year, he
reassigned police officers who were working in records and the crime lab back
to patrol.” Eden did not state he put an extra 20 officers on the streets; he
stated he shuffled the deck; which means nothing. But here once again, nowhere
did it state Chief Eden has been working graveyard shifts in an effort to
assist officers with 911 calls. No, Chief Eden has not handled one call for
service nor has he ever written a police report; those types of tasks are
beneath him. What a leader!
There is a fix for this and it
can be accomplished fairly quickly with great results. The problem still lies
with Berry and his refusal to admit Eden is the second biggest mistake he’s
made. The first biggest mistake was retaining what appears to be a very
corrupted former police Chief Ray Schultz. Eden must be fired immediately and a
person who knows how to run a police department with the right answers needs to
be appointed.
The story ends with this
statement; “Police response times were a point of debate in the 2013 mayoral
election. Berry’s opponent tried to show the city’s public safety was
threatened by slowing response times. That was when the data showed police
responded to Priority 1 calls in 10:11.”
In other words we were all warned by Paul Heh and Pete Dinelli before
everything went to hell.
