The New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy in Santa Fe on June 14, 2023. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM)
The New Mexico Law Enforcement Certification Board will ask the state Department of Justice to weigh in on whether it can accept police misconduct complaints filed by citizens.
At the opening of the board’s regular meeting on Thursday morning, Vice Chair Cody Rogers Benavidez said it will formally request a legal opinion from the department.
The board’s decision follows a petition backed by state legislators and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico that asks the board to adopt new rules, including ones that will address the issue of citizen complaints.
With some limited exceptions, New Mexico state agencies must adopt rules, also known as regulations or standards, which are used to actually carry out laws passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor.
However, the Law Enforcement Certification Board has been operating under rules that predate its existence for nearly two years, and which don’t address whether the board can hear citizen complaints.
Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas (D-Albuquerque), who carried the 2023 legislation that created the board, also noted during the meeting his hope that the board “moves forward with rulemaking.” The law creating the board requires the board to adopt new rules.
Maestas also said during public comment that police officers and sheriff’s deputies are government employees and should be open to scrutiny like any other professionals licensed by the state government.
“Anybody can file a complaint with regards to that profession, and the board can treat it accordingly,” he said.
Rogers Benavidez said NMDOJ is also helping the board write the new rules.
“We’re going to move forward with rulemaking and hopefully have something ready to go relatively soon,” she said. “Rulemaking is happening, it is underway and we will have drafts and other things to look at in the near future. It’s a priority for us, it’s a priority for the community, it’s a priority for everybody. So that’s not lost on us.”
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What exactly those rules will say about police misconduct complaints also factors into the petition filed with the board.
“Until the LECB can operate as an independent body without conflict of interest, and until it clarifies its responsibility for all law enforcement licenses in New Mexico regardless of rank or agency, there will be no legitimate investigation or adjudication of law enforcement misconduct in New Mexico,” the petition states.
Rachel Feldman, chair of the Indivisible SOS Santa Fe’s Civil Rights & Law Enforcement Reform Committee, filed the petition on May 15, following her own misconduct complaint in January against Department of Public Safety Secretary Jason Bowie, which accused him of taking over the board’s staff and gaining access to their confidential files, making it impossible for them to impartially investigate police misconduct complaints.
Last February, Bowie — who has denied the allegations — told the board that accepting the complaint as an official police misconduct filing would “set a dangerous precedent,” and predicted legal challenges from police associations.
Christopher Williams, Portales Police Department chief and New Mexico Police Chiefs Association vice president, told the board that municipal police chiefs oppose allowing citizens to file misconduct complaints because they are already held accountable through other means.
“The accountability is there,” Williams said. “Our municipalities have put us in the positions to run the agencies, and if we’re not doing that, people can reflect that to our councils, commissions, mayor, city manager, whichever form of government we operate under, to take the necessary steps to hold us, as the agency heads, accountable.”
Other state lawmakers and organizations back the petition, however.
Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe) in a June 1 letter to the board argues that pressure on the board members to not fully act on civilian complaints undermines the law’s intent and public trust in institutions.
“Civilian oversight is not a threat to law enforcement — it is an essential element of a healthy democracy,” Romero wrote. “To suggest otherwise is to disregard the very principles of accountability and public service that our laws are meant to uphold.”
Romero had asked the board to put the petition on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting; however, it did not. Feldman said during public comment she received a letter at the end of the day on Wednesday indicating the board wouldn’t consider the petition.
ACLU-NM Executive Director Leon Howard also wrote a letter to the board on May 27 endorsing Feldman’s petition, in which he argued they should rigorously investigate allegations of misconduct, regardless of their source.
“Constraining members of the public from reporting alleged misconduct to the Board does not serve the public interest,” Howard wrote. “We urge the Board to adopt rules that allow for investigating and acting upon any report of alleged misconduct.”
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