Demand Results from Bernalillo County District Attorney Torrez! #AlbuquerqueScary

The City of Albuquerque has become an unsafe city to live in as of the last few years. The District Attorney received millions of taxpayer’s dollars to hire more attorneys to move cases along in his office. Major violent crimes in this city are due to drugs, gangs selling drugs, and domestic violence.

Yes, Domestic violence cases are left sitting on a table for months without any follow up. The legislature passed a law that would remove guns from someone accused of violence toward a household member yet if the cases are not followed up on then it is just another unenforced law on the books. The city police have expressed an unwillingness to enforce such laws.

Drug dealing on Central at night is out in the open right in front of The University of New Mexico yet the police are being paid overtime to police nice neighborhoods. The police are getting something called Chief’s Overtime where they are paid time and a half for working for private neighborhoods and corporations as private police. This during a time of too few police officers on our streets. People are dying daily on our streets and the police take hours to show up for crimes. Children are getting drug needles in their feet while playing sports in local neighborhood parks. The homeless are dropping hundreds of drug needles in those local parks while they camp out next to or in them. Yet cameras bought for the local city police force are sitting in your local Wal-Mart parking lots.  

Once a case does get to the District Attorney’s office deadlines on these cases are not meet within the court system. Evidences is not shared with the defendant’s attorney on time. Judges are being forced to release defendants back onto the street and families are asking where is the justice? The District Attorney is blaming judges and the court system. He takes no responsibility for his inaction or misconduct within his own office. The judges in this city must follow the laws, the state constitution, and case law and are not allowed by the system to rule on issues in the press that may or may not be backed up by evidences presented in court by a district attorney.   

Now the District Attorney has the Mayor blaming local judges for his inability to do his job correctly. So it is time for the public to demand accountability from not just the city police force but also the district attorney.

Bernalillo County District Attorney Torrez do your JOB!!!

Gun Violence-#Albuquerque Scary

Yesterday State Senator Jacob Candelaria, only days away from his wedding, had a gun pointed at him in a road rage incident on Academy. On May 6 City council candidate Zack Quintero had his home broken into. Zack lives in City Council district 2 not 6. On May 4 UNM Baseball player Jackson Weller was shot and killed in the Nob Hill area of the city. And in April Postal worker Jose Hernandez was shot and killed near 98^th Street and Tower Road. 

What do all of these incidents have in common? Well one thing they don’t have in common is the International District (AKA the War Zone). Gun violence is not just happening in the War Zone even though the War Zone has more than its fair share of shootings. The common problem in all of these incidents is the drug trade. Our city has a major problem with drugs. We know this because of the number of needles that are picked up off our city streets daily. 

We can blame a great deal of this problem on former Governor Martinez. She did great harm to our system of drug and mental health treatment in this city and state. We can blame our Mayor Tim Keller for putting all of our city funding into policing over the last year. He is now asking that 50% of the city budget go to policing. We will never have enough six figure salary police officers to stop the problems in the City of Albuquerque.

What should the city and state be doing to reduce the city’s problems with gun violence? Well the governor has helped by signing a law which will help with guns. But more money needs to go toward treatment programs. Gangs and drug dealer don’t defend territory where there are no customers. Another way to reduce the problem is to legalize pot. Pot can be used to help treat more serious drug problems. Drug addicted individuals will not go to doctors but they would buy and use legal pot. Decriminalizing it would help treat individuals with more serious drug addictions. Another thing that the state can do is fund the drug court in this city. DA Torrez could send drug cases to this court where offenders would be sent into treatment rather than to jail.

The mayor is right when he says there are no quick fixes to the city’s problem with gun violence. The problem is that his response to this problem has be wrong from the start. More police is not and has never been the answer to building a safer drug free community.     

Bernalillo County Water Authority-Weed Control?

The board of the Bernalillo County Water Authority has no room to talk about weed control within the City of Albuquerque. 

Mayor Tim Keller who sits on the board clearly does not understand the problem of weeds when the Water Authority will go years without cleaning up the weeds around the city wells. The city 311 and weed control has no control over these areas of the city.

I think this is a case of set an example before you preach to the residents of this city about weed control .

If this was a residential yard someone would be getting a fine for weeds that had overgrown the property. This is good because I contacted my city councilman Patrick Davis last fall and asked that he get the weeds cleaned up. But as you can see nothing has been done to their property since that date. It took weeks for them to get around to cleaning the property last year. I think they wish to wait years before cleaning it again.