{"id":49958,"date":"2020-12-10T12:35:58","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T19:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-mayor-objects-to-nixing-qualified-immunity-for-officers\/"},"modified":"2020-12-10T19:35:58","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T19:35:58","slug":"farmington-mayor-objects-to-nixing-qualified-immunity-for-officers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-mayor-objects-to-nixing-qualified-immunity-for-officers\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington mayor objects to nixing qualified immunity for officers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Farmington Police Department uses body cameras to better document incidents and to provide accountability when it comes to officer conduct.<\/span>Morgan Mitchell\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

FARMINGTON \u2013 The city of Farmington and the Farmington Police Department made a plea in November to the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission to not remove qualified immunity for law enforcement officers.<\/p>\n

The Civil Rights Commission is exploring legislation that would eliminate qualified immunity for law enforcement officers in the state.<\/p>\n

With qualified immunity, an officer cannot be held personally liable in a civil lawsuit as long as the officer didn\u2019t violate someone\u2019s constitutional rights. Without qualified immunity, officers could be held personally liable in civil lawsuits, and it would require officers and departments to have additional insurance, in effect negatively impacting the city\u2019s financial standing, said Nicole Brown, spokeswoman with the Farmington Police Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cEliminating qualified immunity, we believe, doesn\u2019t impact police culture at all,\u201d Brown said. \u201cAs stated, it will only increase cost and liability exposure to the city and department, and nothing changes for the officer personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a letter addressed to the Civil Rights Commission, Mayor Nate Duckett said the concepts put forward by the commission will \u201cnot further police reform or accountability.\u201d Rather, Duckett said, the concepts would increase costs to the department, and ultimately, the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can take money from other budgets to pay for potential litigation, including monies from the police department budget, but this would be at the expense of hiring, training and holding accountable our police officers,\u201d Duckett wrote in the Nov. 10 letter. \u201cWe believe that the keys to making effectual change that promotes better policing and minimizes police misconduct revolves around effectively adopting, implementing, training and coaching good police policies with consistent follow-up and coaching from a robust internal affairs division.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Duckett went on to say in his letter that the Farmington Police Department has been \u201cahead of the widely acceptable police practices and policies in use of force, protection of citizens\u2019 rights and accountability.\u201d He added the department had already been using body and dash cams for at least the last 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cActual changes to police culture will come from well-constructed policies, excellent training to those policies and holding officers accountable when they are violated,\u201d Brown said. \u201cPersonally affecting how officers work day-to-day will come from attending the best possible training and knowing that they\u2019ll be held responsible if they violate the agency\u2019s policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown added that two examples of the state of New Mexico \u201cfailing\u201d would be the lack of funding to the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy and the state\u2019s failure to provide oversight to decertify officers who have records reflecting misconduct.<\/p>\n

\"The
The docking station to charge body cameras and download data at the Farmington Police Department.<\/span>Morgan Mitchell\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said there are other ways to keep law enforcement officers accountable. First, he said, there should be a designated person to conduct internal affairs investigations and maintain transparency within the department and with the public. The second part would be to require a 40-hour training about how to conduct such investigations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Farmington Police Department rotates new sergeants through internal affairs, allowing them to conduct investigations, read other investigations and gain an appreciation about the importance of the process,\u201d Hebbe said.<\/p>\n

Another way to keep officers accountable would be to fix the system to decertify officers who have records of misconduct. According to Hebbe, as of Aug. 21, somewhere between 100 and 200 officer decertification requests have not yet been addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be looking at what types of misconduct are waiting on action, how many, the process and why the delays,\u201d Hebbe said. \u201cInstead of new laws with new requirements, how about we fix the system we have to ensure bad officers aren\u2019t allowed to be officers anymore?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hebbe said officers currently have the ability to sue in courts to win their jobs back, making it difficult for departments to enforce decertification for misconduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen departments are trying to hold officers accountable, it\u2019s frustrating to watch the people calling for reform make the process more difficult,\u201d Hebbe said. \u201cMandate the creation and training of internal affairs units, make the decertification process efficient and transparent, and give departments the tools to enforce accountability. This will advance New Mexico law enforcement more than any new bill being discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n

mmitchell@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Duckett Civil Rights Letter (PDF)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Civil Rights Commission requests keeping protection in place<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1175,799,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-civil-rights","tag-farmington","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49958"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}