DISTRACTION TECHNIQUES; RESTART

Last Friday as much of the city waited for the verdict in the wrongful death trial of Ken Ellis III, RJ Berry and his cohorts, Perry, McCleskey and city attorney David Tourek moved Berry's re-election effort into full gear. You see, hours before the verdict which, on paper, awarded Mr. Ellis' son over $10,000,000 in damages (we say on paper because no sooner was the verdict read then Tourek and Perry moved to have the judgment set aside, a reversal of Judge Bacon's summary judgment ruling, and a new trial--all of which will delay justice due to the Ellis family) not so coincidentally APD's notorious chief announced his pending retirement. In the world of policing; this is referred to as a "distraction technique."

NOTE: Why was Schultz's Letter of Retirement dated March 13, 2013, but was not publicly announced till March 15, 2013? Why has Berry, Perry and Schultz refused to comment on it until Monday, March 18, 2013? This was all a distraction technique to shift the publics' attention away from the $10,000,000.00 verdict.

The premeditated announcement of Schultz's "retirement" dominated the newscasts. While the stations and paper covered the Ellis verdict, that story was overshadowed by Schultz's announcement. We heard about how long he's been chief. What's happened since he's been chief. What he's done since he's been chief all ad nauseum. But of course we didn't hear when the chief is retiring.

You see it's because he isn't. Or is not planning to. His letter is dated two days before it's release and it is sent not to Mayor Berry but to CAO Rob Perry. It also does not identify a date except that it may be after the election. But we all know what that means. IF Berry were to win re-election, we will no doubt hear about Schultz making the greatest personal sacrifice while stepping up to the call of duty and REMAINING as APD's chief of police.

The local paper saw fit to reflect on some cherry picked items noting the highlights and lowlights of Schultz's tenure in office. Let's flesh that out a bit shall we? In fact, let's just keep it to 2012...

•APOA survey identifies morale is at the worst it could be and that the mayor and chief have led the department to it's horrid state.

APOA president Sigala is arrested and booked and investigated for massive embezzlement and fraud yet the case mysteriously disappears while Schultz remains silent.

•Officer misconduct cases where Schultz was aware of the misconduct but failed to do anything prior to the news media breaking the story.

Chad Solis, Conner Rice, Ron Suran and the runaway taser and beating incidents.

Patrick Ficke; allegations of drunk driving in a police car and domestic abuse against a family member and other inappropriate behavior both on and off duty for over a year.

Several ranking members of APD whom were with Ficke drinking are now also under investigation.

Adam Casaus; allegations of speeding through a red light at 80+ MPH resulting in the death of a young lady and severely injuring her sister.

•IPRA violations and noncompliance resulting in ongoing lawsuits

•Lieutenant lawsuit by over four lieutenants who allege discrimination in the department promotional process

•Age discrimination lawsuit by dozens of APD officers after federal EEOC investigators found they had cause to sue.

•DCOP Banks lying under oath in sworn hearing.

•Violations of officer involved shooting SOPS (Peck, fleeing car, Parrish)

Releasing of evidence

 

Contaminating (spoilage of) evidence

Tainting witnesses

•Unlawful termination of employees and intimidation of employee favorable witnesses. All we need to say is John Doyle and Robert Woolever.

Unlawful use of public property

 

Friends of SWAT operating out of the Valley Area Command

Karen Salazar’s new private ARAPA organization operating out of the Main Police station

Personnel staffing Tiburon

TJ Wilham’s use of RTCC for private purposes

•Schultz seen socializing with disgraced nefarious PSD Darren White at MMA fights in ringside seats while technically the duty-chief and on call.

•Staffing problems

Limited recruits

Accelerated retirements

•Officer response times all time high

•High profile misconduct

Han (botched murder investigation) incident

Retired District Court Judge Murdoch

•SWAT losing federal certification

•Financial mismanagement

$160M for a department 15% smaller than it was 5 years ago

•Creation of a 4^th deputy chief position

•Nepotism

Police cadets related to sworn personnel who are not qualified to be hired because of fitness disqualifications or criminal issues.

•Termination of T. Zane Reeves who is recognized as one of the country's leading employment hearing officers

•National recognition of the worst kind in media stories across the country:

Police shootings

Mary Han’s crime scene intentional contamination and bias

•Promotion system built on cronyism

Christman, Rowe, Comacho

•Deputy Chief’s assigned to bureaus they have no experience

 

Banks as FSB DCOP

•West Mesa Murder investigation dropped
 

•Manipulation of UCR data (past and current)

•Leaderless leadership style—nobody is in command

City lawyer David Tourek never present

CAO Perry never aware

Mayor Berry never knowing

Chief Schultz not knowing

•Property crime is up

•Berry’s and Schultz’s Our city, Our property initiative is a total failure

•nITE detectives unit fiasco

 

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST: a full blown comprehensive federal investigation of APD by the US Department of Justice which now our Eyes tell us, includes a criminal investigation as well.

 

After all of this in just one year, what else can one say but it is time to take out the trash and restore this department to the model police department it was. We hope the door does hit Schultz on his way out; oh wait, that whole thing about retiring was just a distraction technique unless Berry loses.

But if there was any doubt that our local paper is nothing short of a propaganda piece for the Berry administration, one only has to look at Sunday's editorial by Michael Coleman of the Journal's "Washington Bureau." In the editorial he describes as "explosive" and "serious" allegations in the Assistant AG Perez's Civil Rights Division that certain conservative DOJ lawyers have their feelings hurt. In a review of 10,000 documents and interviews with over 80 people, an inspector from the Inspector General's office found troubling evidence of "liberal bias" and employee intimidation (READ it  HERE).

We just want to make sure we understand the standards the Journal adheres to: If you are an assistant attorney general of the United States and some employees have their feelings hurt the paper will do a Sunday Edition with an editorial scrutinizing you. But if you are a "major city" police chief and you leave a trail of ruined lives, death, cover-ups, financial mismanagement, confirmed patterns of age and racial discrimination, perjury, lies, deception, omission, and acts of abuse of power the paper will refrain from any direct criticism or editorials condemning your activities.

Is this right?

APD Involved Fatality: Someone is Lying

"When we're trying to do our job to protect the public and something like this ends up occurring, it's very difficult," said Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department spokesperson Jessica Tyler. Tyler then added, "It wasn’t a pursuit, but I think he was trying to attempt to locate what had been reported. I don’t know if he saw a vehicle or if it had been reported that a possible drunken driver (was) in the area,"

Tyler's statements were made in response to questions regarding a fatal accident involving APD Sergeant Adam Casaus this past weekend. And as Tyler made these comments, she immediately put her department's thumb on the scale in trying to sway public opinion.

Much like APD's chief Ray Schultz does when revealing elements of any high profile investigation as he tries to sway public opinion in his favor, BCSO is playing by the rule book written by Schultz: Disclose things that remove culpability by the department and render blame on others.

We saw this earlier this week when the Albuquerque Journal's Jeff Procter asked Schultz about the APOA's survey indicating morale is low in the department. Schultz's response exposed his contempt at merely being asked the question shows how out of touch with reality he is. No, said Schultz, morale is fine. When asked why DOJ is here investigating APD, his initial reaction was "I don't know" which he quickly recovered and asserted blame on officers involved in shootings. Would a real leader attack an honest question? Even if the results of the survey are flawed, the mere fact that so many officers answered in the way they did is evidence that there is an issue. But since Mr. Schultz is so quick to attack others and their standing to criticize him, let's not forget Mr. Schultz only has a degree from a non-accredited undergraduate program. So, using Schultz's own standard, it's unlikely he would understand basic survey mechanics or basic statistical analysis. Please Mr. Schultz, explain to us what flaws there were in the survey? Please tell us your assessment of the standard deviation of the means... Let us look at the mechanics you used to self report a score of 96%.

Whatever happened this past weekend which resulted in the collision, for an investigation to be truly objective, those representing law enforcement agencies need to keep their mouths shut in answering questions about the investigation. Adding speculation into the situation further discredits agencies already mired in scandal. And Tyler's agency of BCSO is not without it's criticisms.

The public's general attitude of local law enforcement has been challenged lately. The leaders of our local departments have failed us and have lost that trust as they continually try to cook the books with their "everything is fine" propaganda. Given the event involving another APD sergeant as well, we find it highly disturbing that under any other circumstances the SWAT team would've been called out to apprehend an armed felon but it wasn't. But the sergeant had time to get his financial affairs in order, surrender, get booked, get arraigned, and bond out before the end of the day.

These events tell us that once again the books are being cooked by the people in charge of keeping things honest and once again the citizens will be left with holding the bill.  Mayoral Candidate Paul told one of our Eyes, "if the City [officer] screw up, they need to be truthful and admit it and cut their losses."  What a profound thought...

One last thought for the day; has Chief Schultz been told to pack his bag?  What about his baggage...More on this to come, keep checking back with the Eye for the "piecing truth."