Curious

The Journal is reporting today what we told you about last night - Officer Daniel Guzman is gone. According to the Journal, Chief Schultz "studied the case all last weekend," and decided to terminate the star of photographer Rick Foley's tape (ABQ Journal - Subscription).

What's curious to us is that Officer Levi Chavez who may have had a hand in his wife's death - you know a homicide - is still on the force. Actually he's being paid by the force not to come to work. Most of us call that vacation.

The allegations against Chavez don't just include well... murder - they include financial difficulties and insurance fraud. At the time of his wife's untimely demise, Chavez was a probationary officer which means he can be terminated for just about anything. We've said it before, but wouldn't the circumstance of Tera Chavez' death qualify as a reason to send Chavez packing?

It seems that the Chief's idea of punishment is inversely proportional to the seriousness of the offense. Stupidly (and wrongly) rough up a local news photographer and you're history. If you're implicated in your wife's murder - you're on vacation.

Guzman Gone

It appears that Officer Daniel Guzman has been terminated. We spotted a comment earlier today and had our Eyes verify that Officer Guzman had been let go.

If you'll remember, Guzman created a flap when he starred in a short feature by KOB-TV photographer Rick Foley. Officer Guzman arrested the photographer when Foley failed to leave a crime scene. Of course Foley wasn't in the crime scene at the time. At the end of the day, APD took a black eye and all of the charges against the KOB photographer were dropped. (Read about it here.)

At the time the 5th Floor promised to retrain all of the officers on the force including Guzman. Yeah... that's what we thought too. Retraining the entire force to deal with the media more effectively and without handcuffs seems just a little ridiculous. It was also an empty promise designed simply to placate the media. But we digress...

Our Eyes tell us that Officer Guzman was terminated by the IRO on the grounds that he wasn't truthful. Apparently, the IRO insisted that Guzman be terminated despite being cleared by Internal Affairs. The Eyes have it that IA found that Guzman's belt tape supported his story but the IRO insisted on termination.

Our Eyes tell us that under the city ordinance, citizens have the ability to appeal the findings of the IRO, but officers do not. So at least for the time being, Guzman is gone. But don't count on this thing going away. It looks like the APOA is going to take the decision to court... stay tuned.

Dismissed

The Albuquerque Journal is reporting that the case against KOB TV photographer Rick Foley has been dismissed without prejudice (ABQ Journal - Subscription) [hat tip Eye reader]. Judge Benjamin Chavez apparently cited a lack of probable cause as the reason for the case dismissal.

As we've said before, this thing didn't have to go down this way and it was probably not the wisest of moves to arrest a news photographer toting a $50,000 camera recording pictures and sound all at broadcast quality without an absolutely air-tight case. That being said, any disciplinary action should be consistent with discipline received by other officers in similar situations. Punishment should not be meted out in a greater or lesser measure simply because the infraction was caught by a television news camera.

We can't think of a single reason that Officer Guzman should suddenly be placed on leave this past Saturday - even if Chief Schultz really received the IRO report on Friday as he claimed in today's Journal (Subscription). Was Officer Guzman threatened by a wild band of roving news photographers? Was Guzman threatening to arrest every photographer he came in contact with? We hardly think so - which makes his suspension look more like pandering.

(Sidebar)
We were taken to task by a reader who chided us for our original lack of clarity as to the status of Officer Guzman. We indicated that he had been "relieved of duty" which could have been taken to mean that he had been terminated. As far as we know, Officer Guzman is on some kind of leave - whether it's paid or unpaid is currently unclear.
(End Sidebar)

Relieving Guzman of duty smacks of punishment by media or at least because of unwanted media attention. In other words, Guzman seems to be becoming a scapegoat offered up on a silver platter to appease the media. Like it or not, Officer Guzman is entitled to administrative due process and legal due process. Further, the administrative process needs to be fair and consistent regardless of media attention.

Retraining

KOB TV reported Thursday (read it here) that all APD officers will be retrained following an incident between APD Officer Daniel Guzman and KOB Photographer Rick Foley (read our take here). We think it's kind of funny that APD feels the need to retrain the entire force when only a single officer was involved in the incident.

More importantly, we're wondering who's going to do the training. We'd humbly suggest that APD's highly paid spinmeister have nothing to do with any kind of media training after the most recent fiasco involving Sergeant Paul Heh.

If you'll remember, Sergeant Heh exercised his rights to speech and redress of grievance in front of the city council and was slapped with an Internal Affairs investigation on his way out of the building (read it here). The media fiasco that followed was a classic study in how not to handle the media and included a disastrous appearance by Walsh that bordered on the illiterate (read it here).

(Sidebar)
Our Eyes tell us that the fishing expedition involving Sergeant Heh is still underway. Apparently, the boys on the 5th Floor aren't going to let little things like not having any evidence, any proof, or a case keep them from pursuing their conveniently anonymous allegations against the sergeant. There's got to be some way to punish him or push him out and they're gonna find it even if they have to make it up.
(End Sidebar)

Look... Chief Schultz's move to "retrain" the entire force because of the precipitous actions of a single officer is the type of silly over-kill designed strictly for media consumption and yet another example of the 5th floor's willingness to throw officers under the bus. We're quite sure that most already know how to properly handle an encounter with the media in a similar situation. If not, the incident with KOB is self-explanatory - assume you're always on camera. In this day and age even when a news photographer isn't around you've got a good chance of making the evening news and every one of the other 50 or so daily local newscasts.