When Newspapers Fail

The Eye received the following as a guest posting in response to the Albuquerque Journal's unprecedented THREE story feature yesterday in support of the failed mayor of Albuquerque. We couldn't agree more with this writer:

In case there are any misunderstandings whether or not the Albuquerque journal (urinal)

editorial board, and those running that (for lack of a better description), perverse, yellow rag are

in cahoots with Mayor (for lack of another better word) Richard J. Berry, I am going to show that they are. We will show the disparity in reporting both sides of what is going on in Albuquerque, disregard for balance in reporting, intentional omissions of information, and facts that adversely affects their connections, and dealings with their close friends, aka Mayor Berry, in city government. I will outline the facts that show that a popular Albuquerque newspaper aligns itself time and time again with poor choices for political reasons, monetary reasons, vindictive reasons, and unethical reasons. Sometimes you are as good as thecompany you keep. Lets look at the Journal, and their company, those inside their company, and the ones who thought Albuquerque was a crowd when things started getting hot, and fled.

For the same reasons we do not like to give credence to perverts in the media, we will not post links to the Urinal articles, but we will reference their content, and illustrate how these articles manipulate public opinion for the benefit of Berry, by painting his critics as being disgruntled, or suffering from the effects of sour grapes, when they point out the undeniable facts of Berry's failure, while they praise Berry as he lies directly to your faces. Three articles were written on 1/17/16 about Mayor Berry, and the Albuquerque police department. One laid out a timeline, and the other two provided cover for the liar and accountability dodger, while painting him as the "better man" in a media perceived war over what he has done, and overseen being done to employees, and citizens during his malfeasant term in office. Make no mistake about it. The mayor and police chief have both stated publicly that Albuquerque is a mayor strong city. This means the mayor calls the shots, up until, of course, the time he needs to be distanced from the blunders, (Boyd shooting, Tasergate, Eden caught lying at personnel hearings, IPRA violation issues, APD manpower misrepresentations, FBI UCR crime stat manipulations, contract violations) then he sends in waves of information officers who bend information, and lie to the media and public. (Tanner Tixier: no such files exist, and Celina Espinosa when she said the elder gentleman can be seen reaching for something in a recent video where a K9 was released on him) Conveniently, Berry gets deniability through layers of cannon fodder between himself and the mistakes he has purveyed over until you, the public, get the truth, as in when back in March of 2014 during the Boyd protest down town, Eden attempted to make command decisions, and was told to sit down, and shut the F$&@ up by the mayor, and that the mayor was running things. The mayor knows of everything that has been done, and is complicit. The

difference is that YOU, the tax payer will fund the legion city attorneys to shield him from

accountability, and or pay to settle any case to keep him from exposure in any way. The Urinal

lauds this Mayor as "the better man" when he vetoed the DOJ resolution request to have the

DOJ enter the picture. Drug dealers on the corner would probably like to have the option to veto

police presence too. Lets not forget the e-mail sent out to supervisors, threatening employees not to talk to the DOJ by Gordon Eden.

The disgust meter goes up with the printing of article number two in our January 17th hat trick of

crap. This article discusses the rebuilding of the Albuquerque police department after former chief Raymond D. Schultz, Deputy Chief Paul Feist, Deputy then Chief Allen Banks, Deputy Chief Beth Paiz, former city attorney Kathryn Levy, resigned public safety director Darren White, CAO Robert Perry, and Mayor Berry destroyed the place by illegally breaching contracts, playing shell games with money, lying to the media, public and courts, bullied citizens employees and media executives, tampered with investigations, cases and witnesses, retaliated against citizens and employees, stole money earmarked as retention incentives to use as hush monies to keep the current command staff pacified, attacked families who were plaintiffs in wrongful death cases, ran smear campaigns against high value adversarial targets in the media in order to deflect attention away from themselves, politically preemptively, and maliciously attacked the District Attorney of Bernalillo county in order to take control of her office, and thwart prosecution of officers involved in the Boyd shooting, at a crucial time when they did not want the negative publicity while the DoJ was here. Lets not forget how they went after a popular district court judge, ruining his career, to deflect attention from their misconduct again, at a very key time in 2011, while Tasergate was developing on the drawing board, and the DoJ was looming. A fool could not see that these officials knew what they were doing, were actively conspiring to complete their initiative, and were doing anything they had to do in order to make sure they went undiscovered. The Albuquerque Urinal, and their perverted editorial board would have you believe Mayor Berry is absolutely clueless. We think not. I am sure no other officers

want to get shot by their Lieutenant, then get blamed by their command staff, and the city for getting shot. Maybe that has something to do with not wanting to work for APD?

Reading the aforementioned article, you can see Mayor Berry using the false reason, and excuse that employees retiring, and not returning is the reason for the high attrition. Employees retire to not work anymore. This is one reason why employees retire. We here at the Eye know for a fact that officers are retiring for other reasons. They are retiring, or RESIGNING, because the work atmosphere at the Albuquerque Police Department is atrocious, treacherous, and rife with retaliation, vindictive and criminal behavior, and childish attitudes, exhibited by high ranking police officials. The media knows this too, but they will not air it. They know that they will be thrown under the bus for mere workplace disagreements, or speaking out, just as former use of force instructor John Corvino was when he discovered that the department forged his name on a letter to the State Police Academy, and he spoke out about it. They are buying time to retire, and moving away. Berry wants to blame money, when he knows the reason is himself, the lunacy he enables, and the out of control, parasitic, lunatics running rampant on APD's 5th floor. No other reason. He also knows that he will not be held to task on his representation that money is the reason for declining APD manpower because he will be gone. Mayor Berry was the one who said Ray Schultz was the right man for the job, but he holds no responsibility for this mess because he is the "better man." I bet he is glad he said that. It is amusing how Berry

acknowledges the benign mistakes, like imposing college requirements on APD hires, but dodges reporters on the mistake of retaining Ray Schultz, and Kathryn Levy, who are now embroiled in Tasergate. As quick as the article praises Berry for being "the better man" and appearing to look past disagreements with critics within the police department, in the same breath, it shows how little he thinks of officers dedication, by blaming all of this on officer's greed. Berry's statements amount to pointing the finger at employee greed. That greed comes right back on him with what Schultz pulled, and the next article to be addressed. Berry says all of this because he knows that his term will be up before it is proven that money had nothing to do with any of this. Berry is only buying time, and making fools out of anyone stupid enough to fall for his lies. The manpower situation will not improve, because APD is notorious, and Berry owns that. Mike Gomez says “He’s like an ostrich in the sand. … He’s the master of deflection, that guy,” about Mayor Berry, and no truer words can be spoken. Misrepresentation, lying and claiming" being taken out of context" are Berry's greatest tools. It is amusing how Berry claims that Police reforms “did not start when the DOJ walked in the door." No they started when Berry heard they were about to kick down the door. Berry never wanted the light shined on Schultz's criminal enterprise, if not only just because it would sully his bid for the governor's office, and his actions proved it, starting when he vetoed city council's request. To top it all off, the comment of "The mayor “faced the investigation and the findings head-on, and has worked hard to pull together the funding and support to implement the improvements outlined in the consent decree,” "spewed by the CEO of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce Terry Cole, Takes the cake for propaganda of the year award. Is there anyone not willing to whore themselves out in order to benefit politically in some way around here? This mayor has dodged every single hard topic, hid during every crisis, and continues to lie to the public daily, when he does poke his head out to take responsibility for any positive publicity that comes along. After all, a true leader

takes credit for everyone else's work. The Psychopaths at the Albuquerque Urinal couldn't have

picked a better picture to portray the Mayor in this article. Place two U.S. Marshals on either side of him, and everyone he's turned his back on behind him, and there you have it. 

And last, but not least is a gem in this trifecta of bull manure. It is written by the man of the hour himself, RJ Berry, and for the Urinal none the less. See if your opinion gets published in the Urinal. In this article is where the utter discredit will come for Mayor Berry. Berry made the fatal mistake of using one of the department's biggest failures in his hypocritical pining for his plan to try to have the Return to Work reinstated, in order to have rehires eligible to return to APD as officers again. Mayor Berry decided to use the now retired Lieutenant Les Brown as his poster boy for what as he says "By all accounts, APD Commander Les Brown is a good cop; so good in fact that he was just selected to be the Chief of Police in Wickenberg." The Eye would like to know by who's account? Who is the "all" here? Would it be Greg Brachle, who worked under Lieutenant Les Brown at APD SID? Would Brachle say such a thing after he emptied a magazine into a car containing two APD UC officers, striking both, and almost killing one, injuring him so bad that his life will never be the same. Would it be officer Jacob Grant, who was shot multiple times by Lieutenant Brachle? Would Jacob be saying this because Les was such a great cop, that he stood up for Detective Grant, instead of letting the city cover for Brachle? Les was such a great cop, because he was there for his officer? No. Because he wasn't. Les Brown was in charge of the biggest out of control portion of APD, SID; a unit rife with out of control individuals. One of these individuals was indicted for the shooting of homeless camper James Boyd. This same detective, Sandy was previously Giglioed in federal court. He was also the

detective involved in indicting judge Murdoch; a case we all know was tossed. This great cop stood by, and did nothing. What most do not know is that Les Brown was such a great cop that he was not promoted to commander, and had to sue for his rank. As a matter of fact, Les is such a stand up guy, that he entered a class action civil suit against the city, then caved in, and sold out a third party in the case when the city offered to promote him to make the lawsuit go away. Les looks out for number one. Seems he is a great guy too. Berry says Wickenberg, AZ is lucky to have Les, as would be any department in New Mexico, but this has been the trend of former high ranking members of APD when they retire, to move to another state because no department here will take them, unless you are former Commander Mike Grier who is one of the good guys, who is now the Chief of Rio Rancho PD, which, by the way, is right next to Albuquerque, and not having recruitment or crime issues. Lets look into this. You spend your whole life here, then retire with a hefty pension, and you have to leave the state to get another job. It seems like these "great prospects" are "running" instead of "leaving." They are going to places where nobody knows about them or APD. Schultz, Banks, Sailor, Archibeque, and the list goes on. There is nothing fortunate about allowing a cancer to spread. Nothing! The fortunate thing is that communities in this state know better than to hire one of these malfeasants. The current system is not driving these employees away. The fear of getting caught is. While Berry talks about the system forcing out experienced officers he just allowed one of the most

experienced officers, who was also a rehire, to be fired for doing his job, and running video on every contact, including oversight interviews, as he was ordered to do, just because former IRO Robin Hammer doesn't like him. Robin Hammer is friends with Robert Perry. Perry would like to see his friend Robin appointed to the Inspector General position. He would surely be able to call in owed favors then, and "soften" up a whole bunch of stuff for his buddies. 

There is one more thing the world needs to know about Berry's poster boy for great seeds of leadership being littered all over the Southwest. Jennifer Vega Brown was divorced coincidentally from Les Brown as Brown was going through a Bankruptcy, and just before getting her settlement for roughly $340,000 from a lawsuit she settled against BCSO, coincidentally protecting this money from any bankruptcy filings but they still live together. Berry is a liar. His return to work is just another pacifier to make the uneducated think he is doing something. When it fails, he will blame the next administration, like he blames the previous. I think at this point Berry's tenure with the city of Albuquerque can be summed up as burning down the barn while trying to close the doors, after the horses have long run out. He is a failure, and coward who only looks to blame everyone else, while dodging and delaying accountability, as he runs interference for the criminals who brought the city to the meltdown it is now in. Berry has operated alongside his minions, and underlings from a position of cover, while stacking the deck like nobody's business, yet they go silent, and hide as soon as they get called out. Maybe he can write an article here when one of his success stories lands a job as a chief in a city of the first class and he is taken seriously in Washington. 

And what do we say about kent walz, joe kirby, karen moses, don friedman, sharon hendrix, dan herrera, D'Val Westphal, and the rest of the yet to be named responsible parties over at the Urinal, that have been lying to the public for years? Use their rag for your chicken coops, and puppy or parrot cages. That is all it is good for. Because, when you have a bunch of immature brats in the positions these people occupy, the best thing to do is take their audience away when they insult your intelligence. Read the Albuquerque Free Press instead. 

Life is too short for sociopathic journalists, with personal agendas, who take out their frustrations on citizens and those that criticize them, and engage in retaliatory, vindictive reporting, while colluding with city government, and contributing to the decay of ethical and honorable values in society.